L.Y.L.A.S.

Ladies, you love Aaron Sorkin. And he loves you too. He may be the unanimous King of the TV drama over the past 8 years, inheriting the throne from such heavy weights as Dick Wolfe, Steven Bochco and David Milch, but Aaron Sorkin, as sm-ugly as he probably is, knows how to do the ladies. Between Amanda Peet's current character on Studio 60, Mary Louise Parker's feisty feminist on The West Wing and Felicity Huffman's TV sexecutive on Sports Night*, the Sorking has figured out how to write the sweet, rose-smelling shit out of his female characters.

In an industry continually blamed for propagating images of sexy bitches clamoring for the man and neurotic, single 30-somethings stressing over spinsterhood, Sorkin's mature, smart and sassy treatment of the women who populate his pages has become an indelible mark of his work. From Demi Moore in A Few Good Men to Annette Benning in The American President. From Stockard Channing to Allison Janney. From Anne Deavere Smith to that blubbering bitch Sam Seaborne. The verdict is clear like a mistrial against Colonel Jessup. Ladies Love A.S., and deep down in places you don't like to talk about at parties, you do too.

Yes, he's a smug ass-hole whose pedanticism rides that fine iline between intelligent and arrogant. Yes, his characters place far too much emphasis on institutionalized education (Simon Stiles went to Yale Drama School!), standardized test scores (Josh Lyman got a 760 on his SAT verbal!) and bourgeois tradition (Leo drinks Scotch!). Yes, Matt Albee is probably named after that dude who wrote "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf." But when Aaron Sorkin does Aaron Sorkin right he's the man who writes Josiah Bartlett's speeches, Lt. Kaffee's cross examinations and, most recently, this past Monday's Holiday episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

I'll admit I criticized the first leg of his foray back into television. But can you blame me? Crazy Christians this. Jerry Falwell that. Matthew Albee as an avatar of me implies I not only got laid a lot but was probably high when I won my Emmies. That shit can get grating like Debra Messing doing arias.

But now everything seems to be falling into place. Monday night's episode saw deft story-telling married with that staple of Sorkin sensibilities - sincerity. We love you the most, Aaron, not when you're cynical characters lambaste the Christian right, but when you make us believe in the better side of hetero male partnerships, corporate responsibility, federal machinations and strong, independent women who still want to get down. I hate to say it, Aaron, but we Love You Like A Sis.

*TV on the INTERNETS couldn't think of a gratuitous pun to describe how awesome C.J. Craig as press secretary was but "sexretary" was briefly considered. Briefly.