The president’s lengthy and completely non-newsworthy opening remarks during his 100-day press conference sounded familiar, as if we’ve heard this from a president before.

Not a real president, but the fake one who graced our television screens for seven seasons on “The West Wing.”

Which makes me wonder whether Obama is getting speech advice from Hollywood screenwriters or whether his own speechwriters are so lacking in their own creativity that they have to lift lines from a TV show.

During his opening Wednesday night, the president said:

I’m proud of what we’ve achieved, but I’m not content. I’m pleased with our progress, but I’m not satisfied.

For “West Wing” junkies, this sounds an awful like the speech President Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen) gave announcing his re-election during the third episode of season three, which originally aired on Oct. 17, 2001.

The episode, titled “Manchester Part II,” starts with Bartlet practicing the speech with his staff in a barn. The episode opens with Bartlet saying:

We are more than a set of borders. We are bounded by the reach of human freedom. We have mastered every moment. We have vanquished every foe. We are strong. We are prosperous. We are at peace with the world. We are, as we have ever been, the envy of every civilization. We are, as we have ever been, the hope of all mankind. But I am not satisfied. Indeed, I am restless.

While Aaron Sorkin’s version is more poetic, Obama’s opening sure sounds a lot like Bartlet’s. Does the president fancy himself as the idealistic TV version of what a president should be? Or is this just another example of how Obama’s rhetoric is empty?

At least when Ronald Reagan lifted quotes from TV and movie scripts, it was from parts he himself played.