Dial File — Steve Bornfeld: Left wing, right wing, ‘West Wing’

Friday, Sept. 17, 1999 | 10:12 a.m.

Steve Bornfeld is the Sun features editor. His television column appears Fridays. Reach him at 259-4081 or steveb@vegas.com

"You know when that shark bites; with his teeth, babe; scarlet billows start to spread."

-- "Mack the Knife"

There's gonna be blood in the water.

And it'll be flowing "West."

As per the pop culture compass, NBC is about to set sail aboard "The West Wing." And west, as we recall from geography class, is left (if you're facing north). And left, as we recall from the 11 o'clock news, is Martin Sheen (if you're facing reality).

Coincidence? Perhaps. Perhaps not.

But it does nominate "The West Wing" -- debuting Wednesday on NBC and starring liberally-minded activist/actor Sheen as liberally-motivated U.S. President Josiah Barlet -- as the likely candidate for TV donnybrook du jour as the churning political season crashes into the new TV season.

Yes, we're well aware of the Big Three Network Vices this season: too coarse, too Caucasian and too concerned with viewers who have barely stopped teething (soon networks will court the embryo demo and Nielsen will count them with sonograms.)

But it's time for the media waters to take on that rosy pink glow as only those ideological Great Whites named Limbaugh, Liddy, Buchanan, Will and Robertson can color them by sinking their serrated teeth into this potentially persuasive political series -- just as America wonders whether an Al Gore in the hand is worth two in the George W. Bush.

To paraphrase Richard Dreyfuss in "Jaws": "Oh, boys? I think they're back for their noon feeding."

Don't think Sheen boasts the anti-conservative credentials to cross the right wing with "The West Wing"? Crunch the number: 59 arrests at protests for the 59-year-old Sheen, the latest one last month at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico on the 54th anniversary of the Nagasaki bombing. The Associated Press reports that before inking his "West Wing" contract, Sheen insisted on time off on Nov. 21 (just in time for sweeps!) to join a demonstration in Fort Benning, Ga., where the School of the Americas trains Latin American soldiers.

Still think Sheen's left-wing activism won't cast a liberal sheen on "The West Wing"? Maybe you think Mack the Knife was a cutlery salesman.

One critic already labeled the series pilot "unnecessarily left-leaning" (the Christian Coalition is bashed) and series creator Aaron Sorkin ("Sports Night") is the man who also painted Michael Douglas as the pitch-perfect Democrat demigod of "The American President." But whereas a movie is a hit-and-run, a weekly series -- especially one with a perceivable political agenda paralleling the season of presidential politics -- is a lengthy drive into the American psyche.

Sheen's artistic integrity is un-questioned: He is one of our finest actors -- period. And he told the AP that his presidential character, while liberal on domestic policy, is "very conservative" on economics and the military. Plus, Sorkin and co-producer John Wells insist that the president is actually a supporting player in an ensemble series that "isn't about political views or issues" but "about people who work in the White House."

For a Democratic president played by a liberal Hollywood activist.

"Oh the shark, babe; has such teeth, dear; and he shows them, pearly white. ..."