Stories about kings, and all the kings' men, have been around for centuries. But when it comes to our king (the president), our palace (the White House) and our modern storytelling medium (television), the record has been mostly silent. Doctors, lawyers and police officers have always outnumbered and outlasted political leaders on TV. Then came "The West Wing."

The series that showcased Jed Bartlet's presidency ends Sunday after seven seasons and two dozen Emmys, a long reign for a show about politics.

So why did "The West Wing" succeed? For one thing, entertainment TV had been timid about the subject of politics for most of its history, fearful of offending audiences. When political settings were used for a TV series, the subject matter was softened, if not neutralized. Nearly all of the series about the White House, for example, have been comedies — including a 1992 series, "Capitol Critters," that featured talking mice — and most of the political dramas were only slight variations of the nonpartisan movie fantasy "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." These series were stripped of what could have made them most interesting: the processes of politics.

"The West Wing" took a different approach. While it certainly featured comic elements, its focus was politics, and it didn't shy away from assigning its characters to a specific political party.

"The West Wing" recognized that modern government is mostly about hot air. The essence of Washington is talk, and the essence of the series was its dialogue — conversation as a spectator sport.

This style of fictional TV politics was the vision of Aaron Sorkin. He created "The West Wing" and presided over the first four — and many say best — of its seven seasons. He also wrote or co-wrote all but three of the 88 episodes he produced. Besides winning a record-breaking nine Emmy Awards in its first year, "The West Wing" took the Emmy for best drama for all four years of Sorkin's tenure.

The weapons of choice most often on display in Sorkin's White House were rhetoric, oratory and a general running-off-at-the-mouth by people who obviously had done very well on the verbal portion of their SATs. The rapid fire of syllables proved more exciting than that of missiles. The show's words spoke louder than its actions and, though meticulously directed, this is one of the few dramatic programs on television that actually could have worked on radio.

As a writer, Sorkin is a man of many words: many, many words. "West Wing" screenplays ran up to 20 pages longer than other hour-long dramas on television.

"Growing up in my house," Sorkin said recently, "anybody who used one word when they could have used 10 just wasn't trying." His New York childhood included frequent trips to the theater: He saw plays by the likes of Edward Albee, Shakespeare and David Mamet before he hit his teens.

"I had no idea at all what was going on up there," he said, "but I loved the sound of the dialogue, and I wanted to write dialogue that sounded like what I'd heard."

Not since "Moonlighting," or until "Deadwood," had any new series paid such careful attention to language. Two books of selected scripts from the show have been published, a distinction earned so far by only a handful of TV series.

In the end, however, "The West Wing" was not very realistic. For that, we'd do better with HBO's short-lived "Tanner '88" or "K Street."

If only people on both sides of Washington's political divide acted with the soaring vision and spoke in the baroque linguistic fugues heard on "The West Wing." But that, alas, is as much a fantasy as the talking White House rodents on "Capitol Critters."

Robert J. Thompson is a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University.