 When the pedantic erudite Democrat Josiah "Jed" Bartlet is elected US president, he installs his administration, including a number of people in the White House, mainly confidants in his electoral campaigns, whose role in the Washington power game -including the chief of staff and his deputy, spokeswoman, speech-writer and lower secretaries- and what passes for personal lives -also involving other regular characters such as the presidents wife and personal servant- make this series, which supposedly follows the political events -often paraphrasing historical reality- almost day by day, more then a political soap as the demands of office on each of them in terms of personal sacrifice and compromising on ideals and principles for tactical necessity allow some insights in many aspects of US society and international politics.