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The West Wing holiday show opens with senior staff to the President viewing holiday decorations in a room the show refers to as the "Mural Room." (There is no room known as the "Mural Room" in either the West Wing or the White House, although there is a room in the White House -- the "Diplomatic Reception Room," or "Dip Room" -- which looks remarkably similar to the fictional "Mural Room.") While viewing the decorations, the senior staff discuss such things as where the President will stand during a holiday program, and whether or not the costumes worn by the performers in various up-coming holiday programs will clash with the decorations. This is the first of several inaccuracies the show makes involving prestige, power and real estate.

In real life, the holiday decorations and the rooms where holiday programs take place are located in the White House, not the West Wing. While there may be a Christmas tree in the Oval Office, the West Wing generally is not decorated for the holidays. Also, while the President's senior staff may be involved to some extent in White House holiday planning, such as scheduling the President's time, or providing input on who should attend certain holiday events, the senior staff would generally not be involved in decorating the White House, or in the details of the President's participation in the White House holiday programs. Decorating the White House is handled by the United States Park Service. Holiday programs, the invitation list, and the coordination of the President's participation in holiday programs are handled by the Social Secretary to the President. The Social Secretary is a senior staff person, but that staff position is not portrayed in the show. Moreover, the Social Secretary's office is located in the East Wing. (The East Wing also happens to be the location of the office where that famous intern in the Clinton Administration worked.)

Many of the senior staffers depicted in the television show are political staff, and in reality, most of them would have offices in the West Wing. However, the majority of the real President's staff is located in the Old Executive Office Building, or the "OEOB," as it is known and as the show correctly refers to it. (The OEOB is the large French Empire style building located next door to the West Wing.) Only the President and his most senior advisors, the "Assistants to the President," and their secretaries -- or staff assistants, as they prefer to be called -- are housed in the West Wing. The offices of the more "junior" senior staff, such as the Deputy Communications Director played by Rob Lowe, would more likely be in the OEOB. Although the offices in the OEOB are HUGE, elegant rooms, any staffer would happily give up the space and beauty of an OEOB office for a closet in the West Wing.

The holiday episode of The West Wing accurately portrays the fact that some staffers fail to fully appreciate that they, unlike the President, are not elected officials, but inaccurately suggests that they can carry out their delusions of grandeur capriciously and with impunity. For example, there is a senior staff character arranging for an honor guard funeral of a dead homeless man, and another proclaiming that he "controls" the IRS. While these actions may be representative of the "power trip" (no "Tripp" pun intended) that any White House staffer may experience, it is highly unlikely that any staff member would actually get away with them. The last senior staffer to the President to publicly display such "power trips" was John Sununu, Chief of Staff to President Bush, who was forced to resign for unauthorized use of government planes.

In addition to unrealistic power, the show also confers an unrealistic level of prestige on the senior staff. One example is the depiction of the relationship between senior staff and the Secret Service. When the Press Secretary orders the Secret Service agent standing post in the West Wing to inform somebody that she is going to see the President, the agent announces into his hand microphone that "Flamingo" is on her way to the Oval Office. This exchange is completely inaccurate. For one thing, the Secret Service does not have code names for senior staff. For another, the Secret Service has absolutely nothing to do with the President's staff and the President's staff has absolutely no control over the Secret Service agents. Senior staffers may like to believe that they are protected by the Secret Service, but when bullets start flying, it becomes clear who is protected and who is not. During the Bush Administration, the Secret Service removed the President from an event in Panama after gun shots were fired during nearby demonstrations. As the President and Mrs. Bush were whisked away by agents, the staff was left to fend for itself.

Another example of how the show confers too much prestige on staffers is the scene in which the President is meeting with children when his aide, Charlie, interrupts him with an important message. While it is typical for the President's aide to interrupt the President to keep the him on schedule or to inform him that someone is waiting to deliver a message, it is not likely that the aide would actually deliver any news, especially important news, to the President directly. The principle job of the President's aide is to keep the President on schedule. A scene in which Charlie and the president's secretary are sitting outside the Oval Office gossiping is more accurate: both of their jobs, while glamorous on the exterior, are totally administrative in nature.

Perhaps the unrealistic portrayal of the staff's power and prestige stems from the show's near-royal portrayal of the President. Although the founders of this country's government intended the President to eschew the trappings of royalty common to the monarchs of Europe, there are many majestic mistakes in The West Wing. One of the most jarring is the President's constant use of "my" in reference to the White House. In this episode, we hear the President jokingly ask a group of school children, "who is tracking up `my' floor?" It is highly unlikely that any real President would make the mistake of saying "my" in reference to the White House. The White House is the People's house, and nobody knows that better than any democratically-elected President.

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