TV Portrayal - President Josiah Bartlett

The second character whom I referred to in my first blog, has to be one of the best TV characters ever and  even though fictional has probably been the best US President ever and his name is Josiah 'Jed' Bartlett from the US TV show The West Wing.

President Bartlett suffered from relapsing remitting MS.

In the case of Casualty's Dr Richard McCaig we saw his MS from the start, we  saw him getting diagnosed and followed his process of dealing with diagnosis etc.

However, in the case of the Jed Bartlett, no one knew he had MS, well actually 10 people knew he had MS. - his wife, the Vice President and others but not his chief of staff, Leo McGarry, who was angry when he found out.

Jed was President of the United States but never disclosed his medical condition to the world - if this happened to Barack Obama or the next President, do you think they should disclose this information - the legislation says we are not obliged to tell our employers, but is this different if you are in power?

Why not disclose it and what happened when it finally got out and how did it get out?

In the episode 'He Shall from Time to Time" Jed was found unconscious in the oval office, and it emerges that he has the flu but that the flu has triggered an MS relapse.  This is the when Leo finds out about the presidents secret. As Season 1 progressed, Jed told his staff one by one and everyone reacted differently. It is interesting seeing how people react when you tell them you have MS.

Eventually the public found out about the President having MS and not disclosing this during the presidential race. There was a congressional investigation   - it was not the fact that the President had MS which was the problem, it was the fact he lied and covered up information  - if he covered this up, what else may be cover up in regards to running the country.

Why did the President not want to disclose the fact he had MS  - well because he thought that he would not be voted in as President if people knew - they might have thought he was not up to running the country with a chronic illness... but he was able to - this is the important thing - having MS does not stop people doing what they want, it may limit us from time to time but we need to be bigger than MS and keep doing life.

I am finding my way to doing this, only having been diagnosed seven months, I am still on the journey to acceptance.

This clip shows President Bartlett, in his bed after an MS attack, talking to his Chief of Staff Leo McGarry.