Exactly two weeks after terrorists ambushed New York and Washington, killed more than 5,000 of us and changed everything, and nothing, Aaron Sorkin, creator of ''The West Wing,'' leans anxiously against a long table filled with actors and production assistants. This is the high-tech briefing area where the show's main character, President Josiah Bartlet, huddles with the military brass when make-believe blips on the radar grow alarming. In the conspicuously insider patois of the show, the space is called ''the Sit Room,'' and this is roughly the Situation: for the last two years, ''West Wing'' has become one of the most popular shows in America because, among other things, Sorkin has been able to give his kinder, gentler, nobler White House enough verisimilitude to seem tantalizingly possible. ''The only reason it's not 'Touched by an Angel,''' Sorkin says, ''is that it imitates just enough the sounds and appearance of reality. And the way I do it is by saying words you don't normally hear on television shows, like 'Democrat' and 'Republican,' and having the place look real and the hardware look real and abbreviations be right. If I can do just enough of that, then hopefully we're on board.''

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