Aaron Sorkin on The American President and The West Wing

Aaron Sorkin set me up for a lifetime of heartbreak. As a kid, I was ensorcelled by The American President, Sorkin’s 1995 film, the dress rehearsal for The West Wing four years later, and the beginning of his lifelong flirtation with civic virtue — and, inadvertently, my profession studying presidents. Andrew Shepherd, the widowed Commander-in-Chief,...