The West Wing Season 6
What a season! I loved everything that happened with CJ ("Liftoff" is my most-rewatched episode of the show to date), Josh seeking out a candidate he could believe in, and both Santos and Vinick. I couldn't get enough of the Santos campaign.
NSF Thurmont
Where is Nancy?? Surely she could get there from anywhere in the world by this point? I hope the actress was otherwise engaged and they didn't just decide to replace her with a younger blonde.
Colin, the photographer Donna met in Gaza: So you fly halfway around the world at a moment's notice to rush to a woman's bedside when the White House is facing off a biblical apocalypse?
Josh: We work together.
Colin: Past alliances gone bad or tragically unconsummated love kept at arm's length by puritanical American workplace ethics.
The President shuts Leo out of a discussion for perhaps the first time, and then leaves him at the White House when he goes to Camp David.
Bartlet to Leo: You don't believe in this, Leo, and they're not going to want to do it. I can't have them picking up any signals from you that we disagree.
General to Leo: If you don't mind my saying so, sir, I hope the President knows how lucky he is to have you.
The Birnam Wood
Bartlet: We can't keep having this argument.
Leo: No, sir, we can't. ... My counsel is no longer of use to you. Perhaps it's time...
Bartlet: So, if I disagree with your advice you have to threaten me.
Leo: This is your own League of Nations. And it'll ruin you like it ruined Wilson.
Bartlet: OK. I'll need your successor in place before you leave.
Leo: I'll get you some names.
Leo has a heart attack, alone in the woods at Camp David. (I'm not sure how realistic it is that nobody noticed he was missing - doesn't he have a Secret Service detail?)
Third Day Story
Journalist to CJ, about Leo: We're talking about the virtual co-President!
Abbey: You've got to keep him out of that job. He'll kill himself for you if you don't.
Bartlet, holding Leo's hand in his hospital room: You're not fired, Leo. You can delegate, work part-time, bring the morphine with you for all I care.
Leo: You remember what you told me when you offered me the job?
Bartlet: "I need you to jump off a cliff."
Leo: And I did. And I'd do it again, but you need a new Chief of Staff.
Bartlet: We came here to put the job first. Spend our time on something that would outlast us. I just thought we'd have a longer line of credit, is all. I'm going to need that list of names.
Leo: Only one name.
Liftoff
CJ's first day on the job as Chief of Staff. I love this episode: the security briefing and Secret Service detail at her apartment at 5:30am, her final words to the press in the briefing room, the surprise of the journalists at her promotion, her initial trouble with the CIA director and later success in bringing him into line, Toby and Josh pretending that they're resigning, Nancy's reappearance, Margaret shepherding her through the day.
To Margaret: You're an odd woman and I've never quite understood you, but you're extremely capable and you run this office like a Swiss watch, and you're tall which is reassuring. Leo may need you, and if he does that's OK, but if he's willing to part with you, I hope you'll stay.
Josh goes to see Santos to persuade him not to resign from Congress.
Santos: I hear CJ Cregg got Chief of Staff. That's got to be a blow. ... But you know what? You couldn't do the kind of politicking you do behind Leo McGarry's desk.
The Hubbert Peak
Josh looks at a Prius and then disastrously test-drives a huge SUV.
Josh: How was your weekend?
CJ: What weekend? Oh, you mean that two-day period where the giant mountain of briefing material invades your domicile instead of your office, finally and completely obliterating whatever desperate and pathetic distinction you've laboured mightily and yet foolishly to maintain?
CJ rejects an offer to make Leo's office look more feminine, perhaps along the lines of Dolly Madison's desk.
CJ: Dolley, with an "e", Madison was maybe 5' 3"?
Interior decorator: Yes.
CJ: [stands up]
Leo tells CJ she must make the President play chess, since it may show up any MS-related decline in his abilities.
The Dover Test
Leo gets dressed in a suit to go out and only makes it to the staircase.
CJ: I buried my own opinions out there every day. You got rattled and your ambivalence to our policy came out.
Toby: Are you questioning my loyalty?
CJ: I'm questioning your self-control. If you can't stick to our message, I don't care if that podium stands empty, I don't want you out there again.
Josh to Santos: You're too good at this. You can't just walk away.
A Change is Gonna Come
Toby to CJ: You have to get me out of there.
CJ: Can't do it. Talk to Josh.
Toby: I'm talking to you.
CJ: And I'm referring you to the man in charge of this little venture to the Orient, Joshua Lyman, perhaps you've met?
Toby: I don't report to Josh.
CJ: No, you report to me, and I, magnanimous leader that I am, shrewd executive and benevolent spreader of the wealth, I have chosen to delegate - and you should get used to that word - delegate the preparation and readiness of the China summit to Josh, so while technically you are correct with regard to the organisational chain of command insofar as this matter is concerned...
Toby: I can't believe you're making me go back in there!
CJ: Uh-uh-uh, not I. Josh. You see how beautifully this works?
CJ later takes Josh off the China summit in favour of herself. He outwardly takes it well and offers to prepare briefing material.
Leo drops in on the President in the Oval Office and they share a long hug.
The President confesses to Abbey that he didn't recognise the Taiwanese flag that caused a diplomatic incident because he can't see clearly out of one eye. (Leo thought he accepted it deliberately.)
Hoynes tries to woo Josh back.
Hoynes to Josh: You're never going to be Leo McGarry to Jed Bartlett. But you can be Leo to me.
In The Room
Toby and Josh are left open-mouthed by a magic trick at Zoey's birthday party.
Toby: Did they just burn an American flag in the White House??
Josh: We've got an election coming up and we're actually saying there's no Democrat who can represent us at the UN?
Leo: The President wants Arnold Vinick.
Josh: If he plays hard to get, I'm out of there. I'm not begging a Republican.
Vinick is shining his shoes when Josh goes to see him because his father told him never to trust a man who doesn't shine his own shoes. He turns down the UN appointment since he's going to run for President.
Leo: He'll sound smarter and more honest than any Republican they've ever seen, because he is.
Josh: He's not getting the nomination.
Leo: If he does, we've got no one who can beat him.
(I was glad to hear this, because after MASH I don't think I could bear to see Alan Alda in a role where he wasn't a good guy.)
Donna to Josh, after seeing Vinick on television saying there shouldn't be an investigation into the flag-burning: You have a year to talk me out of voting for him.
The President can't hold a pen in his office, can't move his hands on the plane to China, is temporarily paralysed, and finally addresses the press in a wheelchair.
Impact Winter
Annabeth: You don't have anything else for me?
Josh: Slow day.
CJ, on speakerphone from Air Force One: In about four minutes the wires are going to report that the President is in the midst of a pronounced multiple sclerosis episode and does not have the use of his legs.
Josh: Is he OK?
CJ: The President's condition in no way affects his ability to conduct...
Josh: We got it. This is me asking.
Leo to Margaret: They can't lie about the President's condition. That would be a crime, and one we've committed before to boot.
Leo to Josh, about Hoynes: But you've got to want to work for him and you've got to want him to win. You want that?
Josh: I want to get Jed Bartlet a third term. ... What happened to the good old days when a couple of hacks with cigars chose the nominee in a smoke-filled back room?
Leo: They didn't do so bad, did they. Roosevelt. Truman. Eisenhower. ... We're it. You and me. This is the back room.
Leo to Josh, later: You pick your dream candidate yet?
Josh: I don't know how all this works.
Leo: You pick the smartest, most capable, most honourable individual you can think of and you have a conversation. Ideally before the New Hampshire filing deadline.
Josh: I can't pick up and leave the White House and go run a campaign for some dark horse I pulled out of a cornfield.
Leo: I did.
Donna tells Josh she's quitting, and after he fobs her off with another promised lunch, is gone the next day.
Josh goes to see Santos at his home to suggest he run for President.
Faith Based Initiative
Josh to Leo, about leaving to work for Santos: Come with me. I think this guy may be the real deal.
Leo: I already found my guy.
Straight CJ refuses to confirm whether she's straight or gay after an internet slander campaign.
Opposition Research
Josh: Just tell them who you are, what you're doing.
Santos, to person at garbage dump: Morning! Hi, I'm Matt Santos. I'm running for President.
Josh [smile, approving nod]
That's about the only thing Santos does that Josh approves of in the episode. I can't believe they didn't discuss more (any?) issues before they decided to work together.
Santos: Come on! We're lucky if we have two months with this! I don't want to waste it shaking hands!
Josh: Two months? I gave up everything for this. You're not even in it to win?
Santos: Maybe we have a different definition of winning, Josh.
365 Days
Toby still hasn't forgiven Will at all.
Will to Toby, about the Vice-President: He's supportive. He'll continue to be.
Toby: If it's in his interest.
Will: Oh, I'm sorry, have the rules of politics been suspended?
Toby: The rules of politics should be suspended any chance we get! It's disloyalty!
Will: The Vice-President has been nothing but steadfast!
Toby: I wasn't talking about him.
At the end of a day during which no one has time to talk to him (and he is unfailingly gracious about it), Leo does what he does best: get Bartlet back on track. Then Bartlet summons everyone to a meeting at 10pm to hear Leo's message.
King Corn
The same day on the campaign trail for Russell, Santos and Vinick. Josh talks Santos out of telling the truth about ethanol. Vinick does tell the truth.
Josh and Donna are in rooms across the hallway at the same hotel. I'm extremely unimpressed with how Josh reacted to Donna's resignation.
The Wake Up Call
A good example of why I'm not overly fond of Abbey - she thows her weight around at the staff instead of addressing things directly with the President. CJ puts her back in her box.
Freedonia
Josh: We need a silver bullet...a TV ad that will vault us out of the second tier and turn this campaign on its head.
Santos: You want us to go deeper into debt?
Josh: No, but we can scrape together enough to buy one minute of prime time on WMUR. One minute that is so gutsy, so edgy, so different, that it will be replayed for free on every newscast in the country.
Santos: What's the ad?
Josh: Working on it.
Josh: I'm sick of Democrats eating their young.
Amy: Wash them down with a little Rocky Road, it's not so bad.
Josh to Santos: Here's what Amy won't tell you about the "presidential voice". You have to become President to use it.
CJ to Josh, about Donna: You don't engage a chicken. Didn't you teach that girl not to engage a chicken?
Santos rejects Josh's ad and instead records a brief speech unprepared. Amy tapes Josh to a chair.
Josh: I don't know if I've served you very well the past few days.
Santos: What are you talking about?
Josh: The truth is, I can't think of one thing I've done to make this your campaign and not some cookie-cutter, beltway hack-a-thon.
Santos: I can think of one. You put me in it.
Drought Conditions
Josh and Toby have a fight that turns physical. I was gaping at the screen by the end.
Josh: You could have fed me ideas, if you don't like the way I'm running this thing!
Toby: How?
Josh: How? Telephone!
Toby: You didn't ask me. Why the hell didn't you come to me before you picked Santos? You have any idea how strong a force we would have been had we taken on a candidate together?
Josh: I'm asking you now.
Toby: Yeah, well, no.
Josh: That's your answer? ... You are a selfish, petty, waste of the oxygen in the air that useful people could be using...
Toby: Get out!
Josh: You get out, you selfish son of a bitch! [throws things before they start grappling]
Beautiful scene between CJ and Toby afterwards in which he tells her that his brother committed suicide. He uses the same words to describe it that he used about Josh: "just dropped everything and walked away".
Toby [crying]
CJ: Do you want some water?
Toby: No.
CJ: Scotch?
Toby: [slight laugh] No.
CJ: Do you want me to go?
Toby: [crying more but looking straight at her] No.
Leo to Toby: You're no longer the guy who picks losing candidates and ushers them to their principled end. You're the guy who takes good men and makes them great.
A Good Day
A group of Democrats led by Santos spends the night in the White House to be secretly on hand when the Speaker calls a vote on stem cell research. (I love to watch people walking purposefully in groups!)
La Palabra
Santos signs mortgage documents over his house to fund his Texas campaign if necessary. Josh tries to talk him out of it.
Later:
Josh: I'll sell my own house if I have to.
Santos: You'd be going to federal prison.
Josh: Well, need to live someplace, won't I?
In God We Trust
Leo to Bartlet, watching television together as Vinick wins the Republican nomination: We got nobody who can beat him.
Bruno to Vinick: This campaign should be all about you, the reasons you should be President, and those reasons are exactly where 60% of the voters are. Pro-choice, anti-partial-birth, pro-death penalty, anti-tax, pro-environment AND pro-business, pro-balanced budget. ... You're in a unique position to run a completely positive campaign because most of the country agrees with you on most of the issues. ... [The Democrats] don't know it yet, but you are the best thing to ever happen to them. You're moving the Republicans away from the right wing. You're not saying Democrats are not patriotic, you're just saying that your approach is better than theirs. ... You do this right, you can do a lot more than win. You can stop using politics to divide this country. You can show us how much we agree, instead of how much we disagree. You can put this country back together.
Bartlet and Vinick go to the White House kitchen and eat ice cream directly out of the containers.
Vinick tells Bartlet that he stopped going to church when he read the Bible, and later makes it pretty clear to the press that he doesn't go. "And I want to warn everyone in the press, and all the voters out there: if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to." This would go a long way towards getting him my vote!
Things Fall Apart
Santos, after turning down Russell's offer to run as Vice-President: Mad at me?
Josh: No. Oddly.
Santos: Disappointed?
Josh: Proud, I think.
Vinick praises Bartlet in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention.
Watching TV together again:
Leo: Nice what he said about you.
Bartlet: Yeah. The bastard. He just picked up five million Democratic votes.
Toby to Annabeth: Arnold Vinick just positioned himself as Jed Bartlet's natural successor.
Bartlet to Leo: We start working to beat this guy right now.
Leo tells Josh he has to get Santos to accept Russell's offer. (I don't find it very convincing that Leo is so pro-Russell!)
Leo: You are going to do this for us, for the President, for your party.
Josh: I'm not, because I don't agree with it. I told him to say yes; I was wrong. He's twice the man Russell is on his best day, ten times, and Russell doesn't have that many best days.
2161 Votes
The Democratic Convention. After having been asked to stand down in favour of the other candidates by Leo, Santos gives a speech that paves the way for Leo to be his Vice-President: "We all live lives of imperfection."
NSF Thurmont
Where is Nancy?? Surely she could get there from anywhere in the world by this point? I hope the actress was otherwise engaged and they didn't just decide to replace her with a younger blonde.
Colin, the photographer Donna met in Gaza: So you fly halfway around the world at a moment's notice to rush to a woman's bedside when the White House is facing off a biblical apocalypse?
Josh: We work together.
Colin: Past alliances gone bad or tragically unconsummated love kept at arm's length by puritanical American workplace ethics.
The President shuts Leo out of a discussion for perhaps the first time, and then leaves him at the White House when he goes to Camp David.
Bartlet to Leo: You don't believe in this, Leo, and they're not going to want to do it. I can't have them picking up any signals from you that we disagree.
General to Leo: If you don't mind my saying so, sir, I hope the President knows how lucky he is to have you.
The Birnam Wood
Bartlet: We can't keep having this argument.
Leo: No, sir, we can't. ... My counsel is no longer of use to you. Perhaps it's time...
Bartlet: So, if I disagree with your advice you have to threaten me.
Leo: This is your own League of Nations. And it'll ruin you like it ruined Wilson.
Bartlet: OK. I'll need your successor in place before you leave.
Leo: I'll get you some names.
Leo has a heart attack, alone in the woods at Camp David. (I'm not sure how realistic it is that nobody noticed he was missing - doesn't he have a Secret Service detail?)
Third Day Story
Journalist to CJ, about Leo: We're talking about the virtual co-President!
Abbey: You've got to keep him out of that job. He'll kill himself for you if you don't.
Bartlet, holding Leo's hand in his hospital room: You're not fired, Leo. You can delegate, work part-time, bring the morphine with you for all I care.
Leo: You remember what you told me when you offered me the job?
Bartlet: "I need you to jump off a cliff."
Leo: And I did. And I'd do it again, but you need a new Chief of Staff.
Bartlet: We came here to put the job first. Spend our time on something that would outlast us. I just thought we'd have a longer line of credit, is all. I'm going to need that list of names.
Leo: Only one name.
Liftoff
CJ's first day on the job as Chief of Staff. I love this episode: the security briefing and Secret Service detail at her apartment at 5:30am, her final words to the press in the briefing room, the surprise of the journalists at her promotion, her initial trouble with the CIA director and later success in bringing him into line, Toby and Josh pretending that they're resigning, Nancy's reappearance, Margaret shepherding her through the day.
To Margaret: You're an odd woman and I've never quite understood you, but you're extremely capable and you run this office like a Swiss watch, and you're tall which is reassuring. Leo may need you, and if he does that's OK, but if he's willing to part with you, I hope you'll stay.
Josh goes to see Santos to persuade him not to resign from Congress.
Santos: I hear CJ Cregg got Chief of Staff. That's got to be a blow. ... But you know what? You couldn't do the kind of politicking you do behind Leo McGarry's desk.
The Hubbert Peak
Josh looks at a Prius and then disastrously test-drives a huge SUV.
Josh: How was your weekend?
CJ: What weekend? Oh, you mean that two-day period where the giant mountain of briefing material invades your domicile instead of your office, finally and completely obliterating whatever desperate and pathetic distinction you've laboured mightily and yet foolishly to maintain?
CJ rejects an offer to make Leo's office look more feminine, perhaps along the lines of Dolly Madison's desk.
CJ: Dolley, with an "e", Madison was maybe 5' 3"?
Interior decorator: Yes.
CJ: [stands up]
Leo tells CJ she must make the President play chess, since it may show up any MS-related decline in his abilities.
The Dover Test
Leo gets dressed in a suit to go out and only makes it to the staircase.
CJ: I buried my own opinions out there every day. You got rattled and your ambivalence to our policy came out.
Toby: Are you questioning my loyalty?
CJ: I'm questioning your self-control. If you can't stick to our message, I don't care if that podium stands empty, I don't want you out there again.
Josh to Santos: You're too good at this. You can't just walk away.
A Change is Gonna Come
Toby to CJ: You have to get me out of there.
CJ: Can't do it. Talk to Josh.
Toby: I'm talking to you.
CJ: And I'm referring you to the man in charge of this little venture to the Orient, Joshua Lyman, perhaps you've met?
Toby: I don't report to Josh.
CJ: No, you report to me, and I, magnanimous leader that I am, shrewd executive and benevolent spreader of the wealth, I have chosen to delegate - and you should get used to that word - delegate the preparation and readiness of the China summit to Josh, so while technically you are correct with regard to the organisational chain of command insofar as this matter is concerned...
Toby: I can't believe you're making me go back in there!
CJ: Uh-uh-uh, not I. Josh. You see how beautifully this works?
CJ later takes Josh off the China summit in favour of herself. He outwardly takes it well and offers to prepare briefing material.
Leo drops in on the President in the Oval Office and they share a long hug.
The President confesses to Abbey that he didn't recognise the Taiwanese flag that caused a diplomatic incident because he can't see clearly out of one eye. (Leo thought he accepted it deliberately.)
Hoynes tries to woo Josh back.
Hoynes to Josh: You're never going to be Leo McGarry to Jed Bartlett. But you can be Leo to me.
In The Room
Toby and Josh are left open-mouthed by a magic trick at Zoey's birthday party.
Toby: Did they just burn an American flag in the White House??
Josh: We've got an election coming up and we're actually saying there's no Democrat who can represent us at the UN?
Leo: The President wants Arnold Vinick.
Josh: If he plays hard to get, I'm out of there. I'm not begging a Republican.
Vinick is shining his shoes when Josh goes to see him because his father told him never to trust a man who doesn't shine his own shoes. He turns down the UN appointment since he's going to run for President.
Leo: He'll sound smarter and more honest than any Republican they've ever seen, because he is.
Josh: He's not getting the nomination.
Leo: If he does, we've got no one who can beat him.
(I was glad to hear this, because after MASH I don't think I could bear to see Alan Alda in a role where he wasn't a good guy.)
Donna to Josh, after seeing Vinick on television saying there shouldn't be an investigation into the flag-burning: You have a year to talk me out of voting for him.
The President can't hold a pen in his office, can't move his hands on the plane to China, is temporarily paralysed, and finally addresses the press in a wheelchair.
Impact Winter
Annabeth: You don't have anything else for me?
Josh: Slow day.
CJ, on speakerphone from Air Force One: In about four minutes the wires are going to report that the President is in the midst of a pronounced multiple sclerosis episode and does not have the use of his legs.
Josh: Is he OK?
CJ: The President's condition in no way affects his ability to conduct...
Josh: We got it. This is me asking.
Leo to Margaret: They can't lie about the President's condition. That would be a crime, and one we've committed before to boot.
Leo to Josh, about Hoynes: But you've got to want to work for him and you've got to want him to win. You want that?
Josh: I want to get Jed Bartlet a third term. ... What happened to the good old days when a couple of hacks with cigars chose the nominee in a smoke-filled back room?
Leo: They didn't do so bad, did they. Roosevelt. Truman. Eisenhower. ... We're it. You and me. This is the back room.
Leo to Josh, later: You pick your dream candidate yet?
Josh: I don't know how all this works.
Leo: You pick the smartest, most capable, most honourable individual you can think of and you have a conversation. Ideally before the New Hampshire filing deadline.
Josh: I can't pick up and leave the White House and go run a campaign for some dark horse I pulled out of a cornfield.
Leo: I did.
Donna tells Josh she's quitting, and after he fobs her off with another promised lunch, is gone the next day.
Josh goes to see Santos at his home to suggest he run for President.
Faith Based Initiative
Josh to Leo, about leaving to work for Santos: Come with me. I think this guy may be the real deal.
Leo: I already found my guy.
Straight CJ refuses to confirm whether she's straight or gay after an internet slander campaign.
Opposition Research
Josh: Just tell them who you are, what you're doing.
Santos, to person at garbage dump: Morning! Hi, I'm Matt Santos. I'm running for President.
Josh [smile, approving nod]
That's about the only thing Santos does that Josh approves of in the episode. I can't believe they didn't discuss more (any?) issues before they decided to work together.
Santos: Come on! We're lucky if we have two months with this! I don't want to waste it shaking hands!
Josh: Two months? I gave up everything for this. You're not even in it to win?
Santos: Maybe we have a different definition of winning, Josh.
365 Days
Toby still hasn't forgiven Will at all.
Will to Toby, about the Vice-President: He's supportive. He'll continue to be.
Toby: If it's in his interest.
Will: Oh, I'm sorry, have the rules of politics been suspended?
Toby: The rules of politics should be suspended any chance we get! It's disloyalty!
Will: The Vice-President has been nothing but steadfast!
Toby: I wasn't talking about him.
At the end of a day during which no one has time to talk to him (and he is unfailingly gracious about it), Leo does what he does best: get Bartlet back on track. Then Bartlet summons everyone to a meeting at 10pm to hear Leo's message.
King Corn
The same day on the campaign trail for Russell, Santos and Vinick. Josh talks Santos out of telling the truth about ethanol. Vinick does tell the truth.
Josh and Donna are in rooms across the hallway at the same hotel. I'm extremely unimpressed with how Josh reacted to Donna's resignation.
The Wake Up Call
A good example of why I'm not overly fond of Abbey - she thows her weight around at the staff instead of addressing things directly with the President. CJ puts her back in her box.
Freedonia
Josh: We need a silver bullet...a TV ad that will vault us out of the second tier and turn this campaign on its head.
Santos: You want us to go deeper into debt?
Josh: No, but we can scrape together enough to buy one minute of prime time on WMUR. One minute that is so gutsy, so edgy, so different, that it will be replayed for free on every newscast in the country.
Santos: What's the ad?
Josh: Working on it.
Josh: I'm sick of Democrats eating their young.
Amy: Wash them down with a little Rocky Road, it's not so bad.
Josh to Santos: Here's what Amy won't tell you about the "presidential voice". You have to become President to use it.
CJ to Josh, about Donna: You don't engage a chicken. Didn't you teach that girl not to engage a chicken?
Santos rejects Josh's ad and instead records a brief speech unprepared. Amy tapes Josh to a chair.
Josh: I don't know if I've served you very well the past few days.
Santos: What are you talking about?
Josh: The truth is, I can't think of one thing I've done to make this your campaign and not some cookie-cutter, beltway hack-a-thon.
Santos: I can think of one. You put me in it.
Drought Conditions
Josh and Toby have a fight that turns physical. I was gaping at the screen by the end.
Josh: You could have fed me ideas, if you don't like the way I'm running this thing!
Toby: How?
Josh: How? Telephone!
Toby: You didn't ask me. Why the hell didn't you come to me before you picked Santos? You have any idea how strong a force we would have been had we taken on a candidate together?
Josh: I'm asking you now.
Toby: Yeah, well, no.
Josh: That's your answer? ... You are a selfish, petty, waste of the oxygen in the air that useful people could be using...
Toby: Get out!
Josh: You get out, you selfish son of a bitch! [throws things before they start grappling]
Beautiful scene between CJ and Toby afterwards in which he tells her that his brother committed suicide. He uses the same words to describe it that he used about Josh: "just dropped everything and walked away".
Toby [crying]
CJ: Do you want some water?
Toby: No.
CJ: Scotch?
Toby: [slight laugh] No.
CJ: Do you want me to go?
Toby: [crying more but looking straight at her] No.
Leo to Toby: You're no longer the guy who picks losing candidates and ushers them to their principled end. You're the guy who takes good men and makes them great.
A Good Day
A group of Democrats led by Santos spends the night in the White House to be secretly on hand when the Speaker calls a vote on stem cell research. (I love to watch people walking purposefully in groups!)
La Palabra
Santos signs mortgage documents over his house to fund his Texas campaign if necessary. Josh tries to talk him out of it.
Later:
Josh: I'll sell my own house if I have to.
Santos: You'd be going to federal prison.
Josh: Well, need to live someplace, won't I?
In God We Trust
Leo to Bartlet, watching television together as Vinick wins the Republican nomination: We got nobody who can beat him.
Bruno to Vinick: This campaign should be all about you, the reasons you should be President, and those reasons are exactly where 60% of the voters are. Pro-choice, anti-partial-birth, pro-death penalty, anti-tax, pro-environment AND pro-business, pro-balanced budget. ... You're in a unique position to run a completely positive campaign because most of the country agrees with you on most of the issues. ... [The Democrats] don't know it yet, but you are the best thing to ever happen to them. You're moving the Republicans away from the right wing. You're not saying Democrats are not patriotic, you're just saying that your approach is better than theirs. ... You do this right, you can do a lot more than win. You can stop using politics to divide this country. You can show us how much we agree, instead of how much we disagree. You can put this country back together.
Bartlet and Vinick go to the White House kitchen and eat ice cream directly out of the containers.
Vinick tells Bartlet that he stopped going to church when he read the Bible, and later makes it pretty clear to the press that he doesn't go. "And I want to warn everyone in the press, and all the voters out there: if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to." This would go a long way towards getting him my vote!
Things Fall Apart
Santos, after turning down Russell's offer to run as Vice-President: Mad at me?
Josh: No. Oddly.
Santos: Disappointed?
Josh: Proud, I think.
Vinick praises Bartlet in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention.
Watching TV together again:
Leo: Nice what he said about you.
Bartlet: Yeah. The bastard. He just picked up five million Democratic votes.
Toby to Annabeth: Arnold Vinick just positioned himself as Jed Bartlet's natural successor.
Bartlet to Leo: We start working to beat this guy right now.
Leo tells Josh he has to get Santos to accept Russell's offer. (I don't find it very convincing that Leo is so pro-Russell!)
Leo: You are going to do this for us, for the President, for your party.
Josh: I'm not, because I don't agree with it. I told him to say yes; I was wrong. He's twice the man Russell is on his best day, ten times, and Russell doesn't have that many best days.
2161 Votes
The Democratic Convention. After having been asked to stand down in favour of the other candidates by Leo, Santos gives a speech that paves the way for Leo to be his Vice-President: "We all live lives of imperfection."