I'm not sure about Commander In Chief, it seems to have the bad elements of the West Wing but with less of the good stuff.

Much is too well done for me to put a finger on, but for example West Wing was edutainment¹ - in the good interesting fun sense! Sometimes they teach something useful about politics, such as an episode surrounding a filibuster, sometimes they try to expand how you think, like the Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality, other times they just pack it with useless but interesting trivia such as the changing emblem in the carpet of the oval office, or why pennies work in toll booths in Illinois. And they do it with humour.

I've only seen 3 episodes of Commander In Chief, but so far it has none of that, Well... we've learned a little more about the role cast for the first lady, but not much else :)

What it does have in spades is being able to invent the outcome of your political policies. Now I don't mind this to a small extent because their policies are normally on my wavelength and it all ends happily, but I know that when you do this it becomes impossible for the other side² to stomach - both sides got debated, one with mere lip service before the other side got its way, and what do you know, the liberals turned out to be right. Which kind of turns the whole thing into an exercise of liberal back-slapping.

I don't know whose back the Commander In Chief will be slapping, but I've seen US Presidents call for people to rise up and overthrow their evil dictator while America unilaterally bombs them, and the real world hasn't yet had the decency to act as though it were a show scripted by American writers.

There are other aspects that niggle, but if I list too many you might get the impression I hate the show, I did like how they got a woman into the position of President.

Also, Commander In Chief has yet to give me some dysfunctional appreciation of motorcades, or make me want to buy a new suit.


¹I apoligise for the use of that word.
²Running with the dichotomy the US has fallen into.