Today, Maureen Dowd decided not to bother writing her column. Instead, she turned over her crayon to Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin quickly decided that if Barack Obama couldn’t suffice as his candidate in a presidential debate, he’d call upon a fictional president, Jed Bartlet, for some advice. Thus, an asinine conversation between a TV president and … well … a TV president ensued.

And it channeled exactly what most liberals thought of Obama’s debate performance:

BARTLET Were you sleepy?

OBAMA Jed —

BARTLET Was that the problem? Had you just taken allergy medication? General anesthesia?

OBAMA I had an off night.

BARTLET What makes you say that? The fact that the Cheesecake Factory is preparing an ad campaign boasting that it served Romney his pre-debate meal? Law school graduates all over America are preparing to take the bar exam by going to the freakin’ Cheesecake Factory!

OBAMA (following Bartlet inside) I can understand why you’re upset, Jed.

BARTLET Did your staff let you know the debate was gonna be on television?

The left is incensed that Obama did so poorly, and so is Sorkin. Instead of comparing Obama’s debate performance to past performances off-teleprompter – a comparison which would show undeniably that Obama wasn’t “off his game,” he never had any game – Sorkin suggests medication. Which, of course, Sorkin knows a good deal about.

OBAMA (looking in the other room) Is that Jeff Daniels?

BARTLET That’s Will McAvoy, he just looks like Jeff Daniels.

OBAMA Why’s he got Jim Lehrer in a hammerlock?

BARTLET That’s called an Apache Persuasion Hold. McAvoy thinks it’s the responsibility of the moderator to expose — what are they called? — lies.

WILL (shouting) Did Obama remove the work requirement from Welfare-to-Work?!

LEHRER No!

WILL And you didn’t want to ask Romney about that because? It would’ve been impolite?!

The next liberal trope: it’s Lehrer’s fault. No, it wasn’t. Romney did just fine challenging Obama’s lies. Obama had a rough time challenging Romney’s truths. As for Obama gutting Welfare-to-Work … he did exactly that. But the column goes on in this idiotic fashion, suggesting that Romney lied about a non-existent $5 trillion tax cut (even Stephanie Cutter admitted that there was no such tax cut), that Romney lied about Obama raising taxes (even Joe Biden said he would), that Romney lied when he said that Obama cut $716 billion from Medicare (he did), doubled the deficit (he actually doubled the national debt, not the deficit), etc.

Liberals are still living in the past, hoping that Bill Clinton will somehow inhabit the body of Barack Obama. But now they’re also living in a fictional past, with a fictional president. Here’s the dirty little secret about Jed Bartlet: he never faced real opposition, or a real economy. All of it was scripted by Aaron Sorkin. If he’d been a real president, he’d look a lot like Obama. And he’d have been trounced, too.