One of my favorite television shows is/was The West Wing, created by Aaron Sorkin (who also wrote A Few Good Men, Charlie Wilson’s War and is now writing a screenplay about Facebook).   It was a very smart show…criticized at times for being too “high brow”.

That always made me snicker (and cringe)…calling a serious television drama about the inner-workings of the  White House too “high-brow” is funny (and sad) to me.   Of course, during the time of the “Bushies”, when “too high-brow” merely meant pronouncing the word nuclear correctly, The West Wing did surprisingly well and stayed on the air for 156 episodes.

It’s been conjectured (by others than myself) that Sorkin’s Deputy Chief of Staff character, Josh Lyman, is based (at least in-part) on the very real Obama Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel.

In the opening scenes of one West Wing episode that aired in 1991  (The Leadership Breakfast), Josh Lyman and Sam Seaborn  attempt to light a fire in one of the fireplaces in the White House.    As they comically discuss the finer points of how to properly light a fire (“kerosene”) and the quality of the wood (“spruce is a dry wood”),  the soon realize that fireplace’s flue’s been welded shut since 1896.  Antics ensue.

Flash forward 9 years to a young Obama Cabinet member, Peter Orszag.   This guy’s a 41-year-old Marathon-running, Princeton-taught, Marshall Scholar PHD who heads up the Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (how’s that for high brow?).   So Dr. Peter Smartypants recently moves into his office and notices some logs neatly stacked in a fireplace.    It being a brisk January morning, he decided to light a fire.  The only problem: The Secret Service had capped the building’s chimneys.  Antics ensue.

So you tell me…is this life imitating art, or is the Obama camp literally sending a smoke signal ‘hat tip’ to Aaron Sorkin?   I suppose the former, seeing as it would be taking a mere ‘hat tip’ a bit far –even by Ivy League prank standards– to get the Washington DC fire department involved.