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Los Angeles, California – September, 2006 In a recent email exchange with a friend about the fine line between madness and genius, I punctuated my argument with "All of life is a battle between our demons and better angels." I can't take credit for the power the phrase possesses because I unapologetically swiped the sentiment from an exchange between Toby Ziegler and Josiah Bartlet of The West Wing. It's the episode in the first season that opens with the President and his staff playing pick-up basketball. Barlett goads Toby's to denounce him by introducing a ringer to the asphalt court. "This is a perfect metaphor. After you're gone, and the poets write The Legend of Josiah Bartlet, let them write you as a tragic figure, sir." Toby bellows. "Let the poets write that he had the tools of greatness, but the voices of his better angels were shouted down by his obsessive need to win." Later in the episode, Toby reinstates his belief in Bartlet, and in humanity, with: "In a battle between a president's demons and his better angels, for the first time in a long while, I think we might just have ourselves a fair fight." The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin knows better than most what it is like to be the battlefield on which your demons wage unholy war on your better angels. Less than two years after this episode appeared, Sorkin was arrested at the Burbank Airport after security found mushrooms, marijuana and crack cocaine in his carry-on bag. Though he had been in rehab six years earlier, this was not the first lapse.  Aaron Sorkin has a tough act to follow...Aaron Sorkin. In a New York Times Magazine article a few months after the arrest, Sorkin was quite candid about his repeated lapses. They occurred about every six weeks, mostly in Las Vegas. It would be easy to explain Sorkin's madness as an insatiable craving for drugs, but what truly eats away at him, making him endlessly nervous, are basic human needs: To be loved, to be accepted and to be admired. Demons that vex us all. In the same Times' article, he talks about his family – all lawyers – and how he always felt like "the dumbest person in the room." When he discovered writing, the playing field somehow became even. But the noble characters he creates don't serve as his better angels. The pure hope deep in Sorkin that allows him to create these characters are his better angels. With every movie or TV episode, Sorkin practices what William Faulkner said when accepting the 1950 Nobel Prized declared a writer's obligation. "I decline to accept the end of man. …I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. "The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice, which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail." This is the prophetic yowl of a man who before drinking himself to death was considered a ne'er-do-well for most of his life. Faulkner was not able to hold a job even with the help of his well-heeled family. He was socially stunted to the point of paralysis and was prone to make up stories in order to lift himself up above others. He pulled off one of his most elaborate charades shortly after World War I. He returned to Oxford with a limp, a cane, commendations and endless stories of his heroism – none earned and all a brash attempt to hide the inadequacy he felt. It wasn't until he sat in front of a typewriter and pecked out characters filled with hope and courage, much like Sorkin, that Faulkner found his footing. His first published book was Soldier's Pay, followed a few novels later by The Sound and The Fury, which came close to not being published because his editor felt Faulkner was trying to tell too many stories. With Sorkin's new show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip set to debut Monday, September 18, the swell of soothsaying rises with each day. Some have called it NBC's savior, while others say The West Wing's greatness will not be matched. While watching the pilot recently, it was easy to detect signature Sorkin stylings. Jordan McDeere, the network president played by Amanda Peet, is the new Bartlet. She is the person you wish you were or wish you knew because she is courage, strength and compassion. It is great television and a greater testament to the human spirit. Sorkin has described his life before 2001 as a very dark period. During that madness, he submerged his humanity in a pool of drugs, just as Faulkner did with alcohol. But his better angels persevered, allowing Sorkin to give us Bartlet 4America and unlimited hope. With Sorkin's dark period behind him, I am eager to see what his better angels find in the light. Martha E. Flores is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former editor for the Los Angeles Times Newspapers. She can be reached at
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