In Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men, a juror bred to Eastern elitist views about moral complexity argues with men of more stubbornly black-and-white mentalities for their vote. This is perhaps the only week in the life of a work that began as an attention-grabbing 1954 jury-room teleplay that it will strike observers as a metaphor for the Kerry-Bush election -- and the outcome of the play holds out more hope for the Kerry camp, which looks to be grasping at whatever promising signs it can.

Of course, subtly championing a 2004 presidential candidate was not Rose's intention when he wrote the piece for CBS's Studio One. A man whose career included developing the award-winning series The Def[...]