Hall Of Faces

Politics has never been perfect, politicians even less so. But for seven long years, NBC's seminal political drama The West Wing gave TV watchers an idealized version of the White House, an administration that trudged through the murky waters of political compromise with admirable conviction and the fast-talking wit that could only come from the pen of Aaron Sorkin. The West Wing was revolutionary in a number of ways, from presenting feature-quality production values and performances on network TV in the '90s to inspiring a generation of young people to get into politics. (And the show's patented walk-and-talks forever changed the visual vocabulary of TV dialogue.)   Amid all of The West Wing's flaws -- Sorkin's recurring limitations/pet concerns as a screenwriter, the unevenness of the John Wells years -- the show remains firmly ensconced in the public consciousness. Sure, some of that is a lingering desire to return to the kind of principled, service-centric political leadership we imagine we once had but n