Contrasting strong women and multiculturalism with portrayals of a heroic white male leading the nation into battle, <i>The Prime-Time Presidency</i> explores the NBC drama <i>The West Wing,</i> paying particular attention to its role in promoting cultural meaning about the presidency and U.S. nationalism. Based in a careful, detailed analysis of the "first term" of <i>The West Wing</i>'s President Josiah Bartlet, this criticism highlights the ways the text negotiates powerful tensions and complex ambiguities at the base of U.S. national identity--particularly the role of gender, race, and militarism in the construction of U.S. nationalism. Unlike scattered and disparate collections of essays, Trevor Parry-Giles and Shawn J. Parry-Giles offer a sustained, ideologically driven criticism of <i>The West Wing</i>. <i>The Prime-time Presidency</i> presents a detailed critique of the program rooted in presidential history, an appreciation of television's power as a source of political meaning, and television's contribution to the articulation of U.S. national identity.<br>