Aaron Sorkin

Imagine being able to walk into the voting booth Tuesday and cast your presidential ballot for a man who is brilliant, charming, funny, compassionate, principled, exceedingly well-read and morally upright. Well, you can't. But, you can watch him on television Wednesday night. Every Wednesday night. His name is Josiah Bartlet, Jed for short. He's a Democrat, a former governor of New Hampshire and a Nobel laureate. Maybe you've seen his name on bumper stickers this fall. He already has more than 16 million followers.

LOS ANGELES - The Aaron Sorkin Public Apology Tour made two stops over the weekend at the Television Critics Summer Press Tour. With a publicist at his side, Sorkin was trying to do damage control - just like the Washington politicians he so skillfully depicts each week on NBC's The West Wing. His first stop was Friday night at the NBC "All-Star Party" for new fall shows held in the swank Horseshoe Gardens of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pasadena where he was mobbed by reporters. For those who haven't followed this year's most widely reported TV-Celebrity-Who-Got-in-Drug-Trouble-on-Hiatus story, Sorkin was arrested April 15 at the Burbank Airport for having cocaine, marijuana and hallucinogenic mushrooms in a carry-on bag. He's now in a court-ordered, 20-week counseling program that if completed will wipe the conviction off his record.

Last fall, FX's "American Horror Story" burst onto the scene as one of television's best drama miniseries and was nominated for 17 Emmy Awards . This season, co-creators Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk flipped the script by changing characters, plotlines and the show's setting from the “Murder House” to the dank and chilling Briarcliff Manor mental asylum. Over the next few weeks b will post Q&As with cast members of "American Horror Story. " So far, we've talked with Chloe Sevigny and Evan Peters . This time we caught up with Sarah Paulson.

HBO Monday announced that it is picking up Aaron Sorkin's"The Newsroom" for a second season, along with "True Blood" for a sixth. I love the way "The Newsroom"  calls out the press for losing its sense of purpose. Some members of the press didn't like being called out that way. (See my other blog posts about "The Newsroom" to the left of this post.) A couple of pieces of very good news from HBO.  

As I have said earlier, I believe the pilot for Aaron Sorkin's "The Newsroom"  is one of the decade's best productions. I love this series for the way it calls out the press for having lost its sense of purpose. But the press doesn't like be called out that way, and you can see that in some of the reviews attacking Sunday's pilot for being sanctimonious and self-righteous. I love the righteousness of this series -- self or not. Here's video from CNN's  "Reliable Sources" Sunday of a discussion I had with some of my colleagues who don't like "The Newsroom" very much at all. I respect their views.

UPDATE: I am going to be on CNN's "Reliable Sources" at 11 a.m. (ET) Sunday discussing "The Newsroom" with Maureen Ryan, from the Huffington Post, and Adam Buckman, of Xfinity TV. The Aaron Sorkin series premieres Sunday night at 10 on HBO. This is one of the 20 best pilots of the last 20 years. Don't miss it. I have been thinking about the pilot for Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama, "The Newsroom," for more than a week now. I screened it last week for a radio piece on WYPR-FM (88.1)

LOS ANGELES -- Aaron Sorkin is sitting in a dark bungalow office on the back lot of Warner Bros. studios on a brilliant, white-hot, late-summer afternoon, smoking Merit cigarettes and worrying. He's worrying about how Rob Lowe should play a scene for the much-anticipated White House drama debuting next month on NBC, "The West Wing." He's worrying about some of the harsher things he said about ABC president Jamie Tarses last year when his groundbreaking sitcom "Sports Night" was struggling to find an audience.

LOS ANGELES -- Aaron Sorkin has a new pitch for all those viewers who did not fall in love last fall with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, his behind-the scenes look at a late-night comedy show. Try it as a romantic comedy. STUDIO 60 ON THE SUNSET STRIP returns tomorrow at 10 p.m. on NBC.

A photo accompanying an article in Sunday's Sun about th murder of an ex-Marine whose experiences were the basis for the movie "A Few Good Men" misidentified the man's attorney. )) His name is Don Marcari.The Sun regrets the errors.NEEDHAM, Mass. -- They are apparently unrelated flashes of violence, framing the final eight years of David Cox's life, from the front lines of the Cold War in Cuba to a muddy river bank in suburban Boston.The most traumatic incident of his military tour in Cuba would inspire a movie that left him indignant, his and his comrades' service careers altered to quench Hollywood's desire for drama.

Mount Hebron High School is presenting the Aaron Sorkin play A Few Good Men at 7 p.m. Wednesday, through Saturday. The play will be performed in the round, with the audience seated on the stage surrounding the actors. momsclubofec_south@yahoo.com. Get happy : Ellicott City Senior Center, 9401 Frederick Road, is offering "Get Happy Hour" programs for those ages 50 and older who are interested in exercise classes but are working during the day. Carla Buehler, 410-313-1415 * A Low-Impact Cardio Combo will teach basic cardio combinations in an easy format at 5:30 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays.