Well, I must tell you I write the scripts very close to the bone. So I'm writing episode seven now and couldn't tell you what happens in episode eight.

I think that if I couldn't write, I would be unemployable.

I like workplace shows and White House was a very glamorous workplace to set a show in; it appealed to a sense of romanticism and idealism that I have.

The hardest thing for me is getting started. If I'm writing a script, really 90 per cent of it would be just walking around, climbing the walls, just trying to put the idea together. Then the final 10 per cent would be writing it.

The Monica Lewinsky scandal was happening at the very time I was writing the West Wing pilot and it was hard, at least for Americans, to look at the White House and think of anything but a punch line. Plus a show about politics, a show that took place in Washington, had just never worked before in American television. So the show was delayed for a year.

The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one - America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.

Tell me what you think and then tell me what the really smart person in the room who disagrees with you thinks.