Walking And Talking And Yelling At Clouds: The Drop In

Original airdate: January 24, 2001

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (33)
Story by: Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr. (8)

Directed by: Lou Antonio (1)

Synopsis

Tempers flare in the Communications office when Toby adds a passage to Sam's speech that has the President scolding environmental groups. Leo tries to convince the President to continue funding a space-based missile defense system. CJ is sent on a mission to stop potential controversy involving a stand-up comedian. And Lord John Marbury returns, this time as Great Britain's ambassador to the United States.

"We can't govern if we don't win."

The "cynicism of attacking your friends for political protection" (in Sam's words) takes center stage in this episode. Toby and Leo continue their work as the self-anointed Committee to Re-elect the President by using a speech to an environmental group as an excuse to rebuke friends on the left, as a substitute for going full-out after their adversaries on the right. Meanwhile, CJ is dispatched on a mission to prevent a comedian's appearance at a charity event from re-igniting controversy over a joke told during the campaign two years ago. In both cases, the administration is scolding its friends in hopes to gain some political cover, which is indeed, as Sam sadly puts it, cynical.

The speech issue nearly tears Sam and Toby apart. Sam is proudly working on what he thinks will be a masterpiece of a speech, a call to arms about protecting the environment and the earth we live on. Toby, who wasn't involved in the decision to have the President speak before the Global Defense Council, realizes a public commitment to left-leaning environmental causes isn't going to help Bartlet's re-election prospects all that much - these groups are going to vote for him anyway, he reasons, but what might be seen as big concessions to the left will just harden opposition on the right and strengthen the cause of a Republican challenger.

Building on we saw in the previous episode, Toby and Leo are starting to develop a re-election strategy pretty much on their own. Together they agree that Bartlet can't be seen beholden to environmental groups, so they come up with adding (or "dropping in") a section to the speech that calls these groups out for not being loud enough in condemning violent extremists. Toby has a cause ready made - radical environmentalists who burned a Colorado ski resort that was encroaching on the habitat of an endangered lynx.

What makes this even more cynical and divisive, of course, is Toby's insistence to keep the drop-in a secret from Sam. Toby doesn't want to deal with Sam's arguments on the subject as he's crafting what he looks upon as one of his crowning speech achievements; also, Toby might be harboring some anger at Sam, perhaps blaming him a little for the humiliation Toby suffered in The Leadership Breakfast (although, what did Sam have to do with that? Nothing!).

(The discussion of the drop-in between Leo and the President gives us a couple of great lines. First, by the President:

"And we can't take it for granted that everyone pretty much fundamentally opposes arson?"

Followed by Leo's scientifically inaccurate statement:

Leo: "We'll get you some information on the lynx, which is a kind of opossum, I think."

President: "Okay, well, it's not a kind of opossum, so why don't you get me that information.")

The President agrees (after Leo reminds him they did something very similar with a Christian group back in Pilot), the speech is delivered, and Sam is crestfallen. He had exhorted his staff to come up with something stirring and inspiring:

"The difference between a good speech and a great speech is the energy with which the audience comes to their feet at the end. Is it polite? Is it a chore? Are they standing up because their boss is standing up? No, we want it to come from their socks."

And instead the audience, after being chastised, applauds politely from their seats:

"They're not standing."

Sam, still in the dark about who was behind the drop in, puts two and two together when both Toby and CJ use the same phrase in addressing the response ("Friends are honest with each other."). And Sam goes off, shoving past Toby and storming to the Oval Office (where he's prevented from seeing the President) before heading off to drown his sorrows. Once Toby tracks him down, Sam really lets him have it:

"You and the President may think they deserved it, but this cynicism of attacking your friends for political protection offends them and it offends me. It offends you, and there's really nothing I can do to make you feel better about that."

Toby's response is that re-election polling numbers are scary at the moment, and he felt the best thing to do - for political purposes - was to use a slapdown of a friendly group as a method to put some space between the administration and the left, perhaps gaining some votes from right of center. Leaving Sam out of the discussion, though, with Toby and Leo essentially running the re-election strategy on their own, turned out to be an unnecessary and hurtful part of the plan.

CJ has a similar situation with Cornelius Sykes, a popular comedian who helped campaign for Bartlet's election in 1998. He's about to be asked to host a charity event the President will attend, but Josh and CJ have concerns Sykes' appearance will stir up press interest in an incident from the campaign. Sykes had made a joke about New York City police shooting a black man, and candidate Bartlet had faced intense pressure to disavow Sykes' comment, which he did not do. Instead the party line given by the campaign was that Jed didn't laugh at the joke. We discover, as CJ and Sykes spar over club sodas, Jed did laugh at the joke, because it was a good joke in context, and the campaign was simply trying to gain political cover - just as the administration was doing now with the speech to the Global Defense Council. Sykes agrees not to take the charity gig, but we are left with the sense that the grimier side of politics is starting to take hold among these staffers, people that we've previously seen upholding some pretty strong moral positions even in the face of doing the easier, more popular thing. Elections have a lot of tactical moves, and they're not all completely on the angels' side of things - and some relationships may end up not being strong enough to withstand the aftereffects.

Something else this episode has? A lot of schadenfreude, or taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. Leo is desperate to show the President that an experimental missile defense system will work and be worth the cost, but when a test goes awry and the target is missed by 137 miles, Jed has a wry look of self-satisfaction at the expense of his old friend:

And when Donna brings Josh the news that Lord John Marbury has been named Britain's new ambassador to the United States and will now take up residence right here in Washington, she can't help herself with her look of glee at Josh's discomfort either:

Marbury's arrival and the missile shield come together at the close of the episode, when Marbury (instead of trying to talk the President into supporting the shield, as Leo wanted) asserts the defense program is an expensive boondoggle that will never work; and even if it did, adversaries would eventually come up with other methods to get around it. The discussion leads President Bartlet to hope that strong wills and strong minds might work together for the betterment of humanity:

"They say a statesman is a politician who's been dead for fifteen years. I'd like us to be statesmen while we're still alive."

As we saw with Leo and Toby's handshake at the end of The Leadership Breakfast, the Bartlet re-election campaign has been set in motion. The conflict over the speech between Toby and Sam is a direct outcome of that motion, and we're going to see more and more of that storyline develop, with more and more of the characters becoming involved. It's a real slow-burn part of Season 2, but it's a good one.

Tales Of Interest!

- The producers continue to show off their newly built West Wing set for Season 2. Here we see Leo and Jed make their way down several flights of stairs to the Situation Room, located straight down a couple of flights from the mess. They enter the (wide open) Sit Room through an outer office. This entry to the room will change as the series goes on:

- Sam's speech to Ginger, Bonnie, and the rest of the writing crew in the Roosevelt Room is a reminder of a much different time and a much different direction in American government. It's sad to see this scene from almost 20 years ago and realize not only how little has changed, but how much the current administration is actively working against the goals Sam outlines here:

Sam: "As of today, it shall be the unequivocal position of the United States government that global warming constitutes a clear and present danger to the health and future well-being of this planet and all its inhabitants."

- You may remember in my Noël recap I pointed out how the glass globes and the lamp on President Bartlet's desk had switched sides. Here they are back to the positions we saw prior to Noël, with the lamp on his right and the globes on his left:

- Gail's fish bowl features a missile stuck nose-down in the rocks, an illustration of the failure of the missile defense system.

Quotes

Mrs. Landingham: "In our day, we knew how to take care of ourselves."

Leo: "Well, in your day, you could pretty much turn back the Indians with a Daniel Boone musket, couldn't you?"

Mrs. Landingham: "Ah, sarcasm. The grumpy man's wit."

-----

President: "Peanuts. Charlie Brown."

Leo: "I've heard of them. I'm just not conversant in them."

President: "Why?"

Leo: "I've never read the comics."

President: "Leo, were you born at the age of 55?"

Leo: "I know there's a dog."

-----

Colonel: "Mr. President, approximately three minutes ago a missile was launched with a simulated nuclear warhead from the Kwajalein atoll in the South Pacific."

President: "And it's going to hit my garage in New Hampshire exactly when?"

-----

Sam: "Clean Air Rehabilitation Effort."

CJ: "Yeah."

Sam: "You don't know what it is."

CJ: "It's an effort by which we clean the air and rehabilitate it."

Sam: "Okay, how could you -"

CJ: "I'm not involved in the nuances of environmental policy."

Sam: "Which will come as a relief to environmentalists."

-----

Josh: "Leo McGarry has nothing but respect and affection for John Marbury."

Donna: "That's what I said."

Josh: "Good, because Leo thinks he's a lunatic."

...

Donna: "You seem threatened by his brilliance."

Josh: "How do you know he's brilliant?"

Donna: "I saw his picture."

-----

Toby: "Here's what I think ..."

Leo: "Screw the environmental lobby?"

Toby: "Did I say that? Did I say, 'screw the environmental lobby'?"

Leo: "You didn't say anything."

Toby: "That's right, and before I even open my mouth, you decide I'm going to say, 'screw the environmental lobby'!"

Leo: "I apologize."

(pause)

Toby: "There's an extent to which we've got to screw the environmental lobby."

-----

President: "Sweden has a 100 percent literacy rate, Leo, a hundred percent. How do they do that?"

Leo: "Well, maybe they don't and they also can't count."

-----

Leo: "Sir, I really think you should know -"

President: "Yes?"

Leo: "- that nine out of the ten criteria that the DOD lays down for success in these tests were met."

President: "The tenth being?"

Leo: "We missed the target."

President: "Damn!"

Leo: "Sir -"

President: "So close!"

Leo: "Mr. President -"

President: "It's that tenth one. See, if there were just nine criteria ..."

-----

President: "It would be hypocrisy not to hold our friends to the same standard."

Leo: "Yes."

President: "Yet it seems strange to score political points by doing the right thing."

Leo: "Yeah."

President: "I'm victim to my own purity of character."

Leo: "Whatever."

-----

Sam: "Final draft?"

Ginger: "Well, it's the 12th draft. Whether or not it's the final draft is up to you."

Sam: "Is that sass?"

(beat)

Ginger: "Yeah."

-----

President: "Bryce Davis said if I keep this up, he's going to encourage Seth Gillette in a third-party bid."

Leo: "What'd you say?"

President: "I said for fifty bucks and a ride to the airport, Gillette could have the job right now."

Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)

Air Force Colonel Chase is back in the Situation Room, played by David Graf (the Police Academy movies). We saw him previously in The Portland Trip.

Cornelius Sykes is played by Rocky Carroll (Roc, Chicago Hope, NCIS).

Roger Rees returns as Lord John Marbury, previously seen in Lord John Marbury and He Shall, From Time To Time ...

As Leo is convincing the President to go along with a mild rebuke of environmentalists, he reminds Jed that they did a similar thing with Rev. Al Caldwell when his Christian group refused to condemn religious extremism a year and a half ago (seen in Pilot).

Sam brings up Toby's embarrassment at the hands of Republicans in the previous episode (The Leadership Breakfast), asking if Toby blames him for the debacle.

President Bartlet mentions Seth Gillette as a possible third-party challenger. We'll actually see Gillette in an upcoming episode.

The Martin Sheen jacket flip, his unique way of putting on a jacket due to an arm injury he suffered at birth.

Nancy returns! Played by Renee Estevez, Martin Sheen's daughter, she appeared several times in Season 1 but this is her first sighting in Season 2.

DC location shots

I do not believe there are any Washington DC locations appearing in this episode.

They Do Exist! It's The Real Person, or Thing

The Oriental Hotel in Bangkok is indeed a historic location. While I haven't found evidence that the author James Michener's typewriter is on display there, the hotel does have a suite named after him.

With the receiving of several ambassadors in the episode, some real-life heads of state are mentioned (King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, King Carl Gustaf of Sweden, and Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain); also Prince Bandar bin Sultan was indeed Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States at the time.

Leo prods Mrs. Landingham with a reference to Daniel Boone.

We get a whole thing between Jed and Leo about Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the Peanuts comic strip ("I believe the word you're looking for is, 'good grief.'").

In Season 1 there was a human-figure shooting range target on the wall of Josh's office. In Season 2, after he was shot, that disappeared - and now we see it (or one like it) in the Communications Office bullpen:

The comedian Joey Bishop is mentioned, as well as early-20th-century entertainer and humorist Will Rogers.

CJ expresses her adoration for former Monkee and TV star Davy Jones; she also mentions journalists Cokie Roberts, Diane Sawyer, and Lesley Stahl as previous recipients of the Matrix award from New York Women in Communication.

Apollo 11 and astronaut Neil Armstrong are used by Leo in defense of the missile shield.

Lord John refers to Josh being shot at Rosslyn and his recovery when he tells him, "The prayers of millions were answered."

CJ and Cornelius Sykes bring up the comedy club chain Catch a Rising Star.

We see CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour on TV in Leo's office.

Lord John's lineage includes British royalty Queen Victoria, King George III, King George I, King Charles I, King James I, and Mary, Queen of Scots.

Product placement: Bonnie appears to be using an HP laptop (and I believe there's a Gateway in the Roosevelt Room as well; I still can't figure out the logo on CJ's laptop, though - is that Gateway?):