H. CON-172 - TWW S3E11

Original airdate: January 9, 2002

Teleplay by: Aaron Sorkin (54)
Story by: Eli Attie (2)

Directed by: Vincent Misiano (1)

Synopsis

• Leo is incensed at Calley's offer to drop the investigation into the President's health coverup in exchange for a congressional censure, but the final decision may not be up to him. Josh wants to see Amy again, but is completely clueless about how to go about it. Sam goes on the warpath against a tell-all book from a former White House photographer, and the President gets pushback over a two-century old map of the Holy Land.

"When the fall is all that's left ..."
"... it matters a great deal."

And then ... it all just ends. The drama and the tension that built over the final episodes of Season 2, the angst over President Bartlet's secret multiple sclerosis, the developing street fight between the White House and congressional Republicans ... not to mention Donna's perjury over her diary, the financial strain of legal representation on staffers like Charlie, and - last but not least - the looming public revelation of Leo's alcohol-fueled relapse just before the 1998 election ... just, poof.

It only takes a congressional censure, along with a White House promise to welcome it and not arm-twist Democratic congresspeople to vote against it, and the whole thing disappears. Now, that's not entirely accurate, as some repercussions are going to continue to play out (as Leo tells Jed, Abbey isn't out of the woods with the AMA, and there still could be some friction during the upcoming campaign, and, of course, Jed still has MS). But once the President agrees to the censure resolution, House Republicans end their investigations and depositions and inquiries. That's it.

Leo isn't happy about the prospect of the President admitting he did anything wrong, as his response upon first hearing the offer late one night on Capitol Hill makes clear:

Leo: "Okay. Well ... I'll just call the President and suggest to him that he allow a huge bipartisan vote on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives calling him a liar, and that he welcome the result. Then, I'm gonna flap my wings and fly to Neverland."

Jordon: "Leo -"

Leo: "You think I am so desperate to save my ass, I'm gonna roll over on Jed Bartlet?"

Cliff: "I don't think it's a matter of -"

Leo: "I take a bullet for the President. He doesn't take one for me." 

His loyalty is impressive, and the later scene where Leo muses over the possibilities with that "Bartlet For America" napkin looming on his desk reminds us why he's so devoted to Jed Bartlet.

But come on, it's the obvious play. Take the censure, take the congressional slap on the wrist, and focus on the next 10 months of campaigning. Not only that, but the President knows he really doesn't have the moral high ground anyway:

Leo: "Doing this to save me the embarrassment I've got coming to me is about the dumbest reason I can think of -"

President: "There's another reason."

Leo: "What?"

President: "I was wrong. I was. I was just, I was wrong. Come on, you know that. Lots of times we don't know what right or wrong is but lots of times we do and, come on, this is one. I may not have had sinister intent at the outset but there were plenty of opportunities for me to make it right. No one in government takes responsibility for anything anymore. We foster, we obfuscate, we rationalize. 'Everybody does it.' That's what we say. So we come to occupy a moral safe house where everyone's to blame so no one's guilty. I'm to blame. I was wrong." 

What's Leo's stance really illustrates, though, is what I see as the overall theme of this episode. It's easy to lose focus when you're facing big problems, and sometimes instead of taking the necessary steps to deal with that, you turn to nagging, minor, niggling issues that don't matter much but you feel like you have some control over. Toby's mention of the struggling basketball player kind of sums it up:

Toby: "But let me ask you this. A guy shoots 1 for 23 from the field."

Sam: "McTeer?"

Toby: "Yeah. But he goes 8 for 8 from the foul line. My question is, why are you fouling this guy at all? I'd just get out of the way and point him at the basket."

Instead of acting like McTeer's opponents did, playing hard defense against him and fouling, why not look at the big picture. You want to win the game, so get out of the way of the minor things that aren't really going to impact that goal, like harrassing a player who can't find the basket on this particular night. Don't give guys free throws if they can't hurt you from the field.

Leo does just that by turning down the offer of censure. Sam does it with his war-room antics trying to counter a silly tell-all book. Josh does it by radically overthinking the ways he needs to engineer another meeting with Amy. The President does it with the map of the Holy Land. So much of the energy of this episode is used by people fighting skirmishes that don't really matter, when there's a solution to the war right in front of their faces.

Okay, so the censure thing is a big deal. Leo flat out rejects the proposal from Cliff Calley by walking directly into the camera

while Jordon asks for some time to try to change his mind. Her hanging out in Leo's office reading off the list of nonbinding congressional resolutions is pretty funny ("A resolution in support of Ohio's state motto. A resolution fostering friendship and cooperation with the people of Mongolia. A resolution recognizing the contributions of Bristol, Tennessee, to the development of country music.") ... but it's also very sweet, what she's doing. Remember, these two lonely people shared dinner on Christmas Eve after the dramatic events in front of the House committee meeting in Bartlet For America - and the gentle touch of Leo's shoulder Jordon gives him as she leaves is a reminder of the deeper compassion she feels for him.

Leo doesn't even want to give the President the option of thinking about it, but there's a couple of moments between President Bartlet and other staffers that show he's already been considering the idea. When Toby talks about the scene from The Lion In Winter, with Richard, Geoffrey, and John in the dungeon awaiting their execution:

Toby: "Richard tells his brothers not to cower but to take it like men. And Geoffrey says, 'You fool! As if it matters how a man falls down.' And Richard says -"

Toby and President (together): "'When the fall is all that's left ...'"

President: "'... it matters a great deal.'"

Toby: "It matters a great deal."

President: "Are you trying to tell me something?"

Toby: "No, Mr. President, of course not."

Bartlet takes that quote to heart, about the fall mattering. And later, when Sam stops by the Oval Office to try to verify a story from the tell-all book about the President first meeting the Joint Chiefs and using poll results to tell them off, this exchange:

President: "Why does it matter?

Sam: "Excuse me?"

President, "I said, why does it matter?"

Sam: "Well, cause I don't think it's such a good idea to be casual about the truth."

President: "Neither do I." 

There's a tiny moment of realization before "Neither do I" that I think is the point where the President decides he's going to take the censure deal. He was casual about the truth, he knows he was, and he says as much to Leo later.

Josh is just, well, clueless about things (if you recall, Amy figuratively hitting him over the head with questions about dating before almost literally hitting him over the head with a water balloon in The Women Of Qumar didn't even make his light bulb go on). He wants to see Amy again, romantically, but the only way he knows how to make that work is to come up with some fake policy-related reason to talk to her.

Toby: "Women are getting a decent break."

Josh: "Damn. Where the hell are the pro-lifers when you need 'em?"

Toby: "Sons of bitches, don't they know you're trying to get -"

Josh: "Hey! This is not that. She's got ... I really ...  I'm ... I'm bewitched. I'm ensorcelled."

 Amy's curious enough about his reaching out over a policy matter that she'll meet him after a date at the ballet, but she instantly sees through his facade and starts to get a little miffed when he insults her boyfriend.

But man, the look on her face after she calls him out for being "hit and run Josh" and he quite earnestly replies, "That's not true." A phone call about the censure issue cuts things short, but much like that tiny moment of realization President Bartlet had with Sam, I think Amy's reaction right here to Josh's unguarded, emphatic denial is when she decides she's going to track him down later:

Which she does, on the steps outside his apartment (that we saw in The Midterms, where he wore the giant pajamas CJ gave him as he recuperated from being shot), in the wee early hours of Tuesday morning. Josh opens up like he never has before, relating that his younger, formative years were spent studying hard and pursuing the political position he holds, but admitting he's never learned the intricacies of relationships. To which Amy responds by shutting him up with a big smack on the lips:

Another not-very-West-Wing moment, as romantic personal moments are shown to us very, very rarely (and if this isn't the very first romantic kiss to appear on the series, it's one of the first). Anyway, it leaves Josh bewitched. And ensorcelled.

Sam is hell-bent on ruining the reputation of a former White House photographer who has written a tell-all about what he saw in the administration - almost none of it true. Sam wants to be sure everybody knows the book is full of lies, so he sets up a war room and divides chapters up among staffers to verify or debunk stories being told about them ... but again, it's not really about the book, or protecting the image of the Bartlet administration. CJ gets it right:

CJ: "Let me tell you something I've learned in my years. There are victims of fires. There are victims of car accidents. This kind of thing, there are no victims ... just volunteers. Of course we'll get in the game. I'll talk to the editors of the major papers but we're not going to publicly refute every bogus charge. First of all, there are too many of them. Second of all, I'm not going to give this guy and his book the weight of the White House. As far as the press is concerned I've read the book because I had to. You have a vague recollection of the guy but he wasn't here long enough to make a lasting impression. Have you read the book? Of course not. You're too busy doing a job."

Sam: "While you're convincing the Post and the Times that it's ridiculous -"

CJ: "Sam! Once again, we don't know what's going on in the Oval Office. Obviously, there's a problem, when it's our turn to worry about it they won't be shy about telling us. Let's not fixate on the knuckleheaded stuff we think we can fix in the meantime. And it feels a lot like ... that's what you're doing."

Sam is worried about what might come out in the continuing congressional investigations, and he's particularly aware that there's something bad about Leo that might be exposed. But he can't do anything about that, so like the basketball team that vigorously defends a poor shooter and sends him to the foul line, he's going 110 percent on something counterproductive.

And then there's the map issue, a map of the Holy Land drawn in 1709 that Charlie finds for the President at a swap meet, or flea market, or something. It's sweet to see the President geek out over this old map, and proudly show it off to everyone who comes by the Oval Office - but when they each in turn point out that he can't put that map on display in the White House because it doesn't depict Israel, he's baffled:

Toby: "Cause some people are going to find it offensive."

President: "Why?"

Toby: "It doesn't recognize Israel."

President: "It was drawn in 1709."

Toby: "Yeah."

President: "There was no Israel."

Toby: "Right."

President: "Israel wouldn't happen for another 250 years."

Toby: "Yeah."

President: "So what's the problem with the map?"

Toby: "Some people are going to find it offensive."

President: "Why?"

Toby: "It doesn't recognize Israel."

Of course the President is right that a 1709 map would have no business depicting a country that wouldn't even exist until 1948; but the staff members are right that even broaching the topic of a Middle East without Israel is a controversy not worth having.

We reach the end of the road, with a President resigned to taking the congressional slap on the wrist because he knows he deserves it, smoking a rare cigarette, as he and Leo watch the snow fall. In the background we hear the text of the censure resolution being read on the House floor. It's a solid way to wrap up the episode - and it's jarring, in a way, to realize how sudden the end of (much of this) plot line happens, a plot line that generated some of the best television drama ever made in the run of shows that ended Season 2.

We move on, hopeful that the administration can stop fouling the guy who's shooting 1 for 23.


Tales Of Interest!

- The events of this episode stretch from late on a Sunday night (the Capitol meeting with Leo, Jordon, and Calley) into early Tuesday morning (we see the graphic "Tuesday 12:05 A.M." when Josh returns to the White House after meeting Amy at the Ritz-Carlton). In Bartlet For America Chairman Bruno said the Oversight and Government Reform committee would be in recess until "January 5th." January 5, 2002, was a Saturday, so that's probably not actually a day Congress would return from the holiday break. Anyway, there's a mention here that Leo is scheduled to appear and resume his testimony in front of the committee on the next Monday. If this episode occurs Sunday, January 6 through early Tuesday, January 8, Leo would be slated to appear before Congress on Monday, January 14 - nine days after the date Rep. Bruno called for the committee to reconvene.

- Jordon reads off a list of nonbinding resolutions passed by the 106th Congress. It's never specified whether she's referring to the current Congress (which at this point would be at the midpoint of its two-year session) or the previous one. In reality, the 106th Congress had been in session from January 1999 to January 2001, and the current congressional session (from January 2001 to January 2003) was the 107th.

- The staffers Larry and Ed are almost always seen together, working as a team. Here Aaron Sorkin pokes fun at the idea that viewers have trouble keeping them straight, as their assigned chapters of the tell-all book get mixed up and even CJ has to admit she doesn't know who is who:

Sam: "What we're doing is making note of anything big or small that's wrong. Anything I can use to attack credibility."

Ed: "Okay, well, right away I see one."

Sam: "What?"

Larry (swapping binders with Ed): "I'm Larry, he's Ed."

CJ: "I usually don't know that." 

- I've mentioned President Bartlet's glass collection on his desk several times, as it switches sides or even disappears depending on the directors' needs. I called them glass balls, and just now thought "globes" would be a better descriptive ... but I've been too thick-headed to realize they're paperweights, of course. Here he uses them for their intended purpose, to hold down the map he's showing off to Toby.

- It's difficult to make out exactly what's in Gail's fishbowl this time, but it looks a lot like an homage to the "Bartlet For America" napkin that the President gifted to Leo in the previous episode:

- The mention of Andrew Jackson as the only President previously censured by Congress is true. Just as Leo tells Josh, he was censured in 1834. President Bartlet's reference is off by a year, though, as the censure was expunged in early 1837, just before Jackson left office, and not 1836.

- Sharp-eared viewers probably caught the explanation of the title, late in the episode. When Leo is talking to the President about the weight of a congressional joint resolution, Jed corrects him, as a joint resolution must be signed by the President. Without that, it becomes a concurrent resolution - hence, House Concurrent Resolution 172, or H. Con-172 for short.

- Mary-Louise Parker was nominated for an Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmy for this episode, along with her work in The Women Of Qumar. That Emmy instead went to Stockard Channing.




Quotes    

Jordon: "If you're gonna put a deal on the table, I'd prefer there not be armed guards outside the door to intimidate him."

Leo: "I'm not that easily intimidated."

Jordon: "I am."

-----

Josh: "Are we taking this a little too seriously?"

Sam: "No."

Josh: "He was a White House photographer. He was fired. My recollection is that he was a buffoon."

Sam: "He was a buffoon, which has always stopped the American public - to say nothing of the press - from taking something seriously."

-----

Larry (reading from manuscript): "'Bartlet was playing a round of golf with Toby Ziegler, the prickly, mumbling Communications Director whose inner, bitter darkness spelled the breakup of the one marriage we know about.'"

(Pause. CJ leans to look at Toby around a desk lamp)

CJ: "It was miniature golf, wasn't it?" 

Toby (also leaning to see CJ around the lamp): "Yeah."

-----

Jordon: "You left without me."

Leo: "Well, if you're going to make a strong exit, you really can't wait for someone to get their purse together."

Jordon: "How long does it take to get a purse together?"

Leo: "A question I've been asking my entire adult life."

-----

Toby: "One for 23. That's exactly one better than my mother would have done. She's been dead 12 years."

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

• Our friends Jordon Kendall (Joanna Gleason) and Cliff Calley (Mark Feuerstein) are back, which is appropriate as continuations of both Leo's situation from Bartlet For America and the Congressional investigation/two-dates-with-Donna that Calley has been a part of since Ways And Means.

• The mention of Toby and the President playing golf is funny, and not just because in Five Votes Down we discovered President Bartlet doesn't golf, he plays chess. Miniature golf, though - that's a whole different situation.

• Cliff and Donna get another moment together - remember, they dated in Ways And Means, and then Donna got ticked off at him asking about her diary during her deposition in War Crimes.

• Look, it's Josh's stoop! It's the same stoop we saw the gang hanging out on in The Midterms as Josh was recuperating from being shot.

DC location shots    

• None (I'm almost positive Josh's stoop is a backlot set, and not actually in DC).

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

• When Toby starts talking about seeing President Bartlet's favorite movie the night before, he and Bartlet start quoting the 1968 film The Lion In Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. 

• Amy says she'll meet Josh at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, which is located not far northwest of the White House, between Washington Circle and DuPont Circle.

• Jordon brings up George Washington as one of the topics of recent nonbinding resolutions.

Jordon: "A resolution remembering the life of George Washington cause there was a chance we were going to forget who he was."

Leo: "Look -"

Jordon: "'What's that tall thing at the end of the Mall?' 'I don't know. A monument to somebody.' Where are we again?"

• Donna tells Cliff on the phone that she "can't go Deep Throating" in the middle of the night. This is somewhat striking in The West Wing universe, as it's a reference to the source Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein used to help expose the Watergate coverup in Richard Nixon's presidency. Nixon and Watergate are never mentioned in the series, with Lyndon Johnson being the most recent President ever referred to. The term "Deep Throat" itself, used as the source's pseudonym by Woodward and Bernstein, actually has its roots in the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat.

• While fact-checking Ron Burkhalt's expose, CJ asks the President if he used methods from the book How To Choose The Sex Of Your Baby by Dr. Landrum B. Shettles. That book actually exists.

• Josh's drink order at the Ritz-Carlton is for an Absolut martini, on the rocks, with two olives.

• Josh says The Nutcracker is the only ballet he's ever heard of, although he also knows enough to compare Amy's boyfriend to the famous early-20th-century dancer Nijinsky.

• And then Josh wraps up that insult with a timely pop-culture reference to late-night TV host Jay Leno.

• President Andrew Jackson and his experience of being censured by Congress (and then having it expunged) is discussed by Leo and Josh, and then Leo and the President.

• The musical West Side Story gets a reference, as CJ sings a snippet of  "Cool" (YouTube autoplay link) to Sam (while snapping her fingers like a real Jet).

• That old standby Keeper Springs water pops up again in the Roosevelt Room; Ed has a Dunkin Donuts cup in front of him (or is it Larry? No, that's Ed):

• Toby carries what's obviously a Starbucks cup around throughout much of the episode, but he does a dandy job of keeping the logo hidden. He's not as successful with the bottle of Samuel Adams beer he's drinking in CJ's office:

End credits freeze frame: The President and Leo watching the snow fall.

Bartlet For America - TWW S3E10

Original airdate: December 12, 2001

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (53)

Directed by: Thomas Schlamme (10)

Synopsis

• It's two days before Christmas, and Leo's called before the House committee investigating the coverup of President Bartlet's health issues. His testimony brings us flashbacks to some key events in the path of Jed Bartlet from Governor to President, which all build up to a personally embarrassing moment in Leo's past. The administration and the FBI work on tracking down a group setting fire to African-American churches in Tennessee.

"That was awfully nice of you."

It's John Spencer's turn - his turn to get a personal story for Leo, his turn to demonstrate some seriously great acting chops, and his turn to earn an Outstanding Supporting Actor Emmy award for a West Wing Christmas episode, just as Richard Schiff and Bradley Whitford had done before him. We see Leo from the heights to the depths, from the very beginning of the Bartlet campaign to his tragic alcohol-fueled relapse. And while Leo tells the story of these events, flashbacks and all, he just wants to have dinner with his pip of a lawyer.

That relapse is the secret at the heart of this episode. Leo, while outwardly in impish high spirits, makes it clear right from the start that he's holding something back from his attorney, Jordon Kendall (as well as from us, the audience):

Jordon: "Leo, is there something you haven't told me?"

Leo: "There's lots of things I haven't told you, Jordon."

Jordon: "About today."

Leo continues to be in a good mood before the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee, even though Congress' probe of the President's coverup of his health situation during the campaign could bring serious damage to the administration as well as himself. At a couple of points he pulls a neat little trick on a particularly impudent questioner, putting his hand over his microphone and leaning over to Jordon:

Leo: "Listen, I'm going to talk a little and you nod and talk a little bit back to me."

Jordan: "What are you doing?"

Leo: "That's good."

Jordan: "I'm really asking you."

Leo: "I think Rathburn's being a little snotty. I think he's going to have to wait and he's going to have to wait with the camera on me."

Jordon is not pleased with Leo's hijinks. She knows he's keeping something lurking underneath, something threatening and upsetting that she hasn't been let in on:

Jordon: "Listen to me. I don't like this. You pay me 650 dollars an hour. You tell me everything."

Leo: "Well, what do I have to pay to only tell you some things?"

Jordon: "I don't know. But you have to pay it to another lawyer."

Meanwhile there's rumblings back at the White House about Josh trying to pull strings, trying to get someone to make a call and get a certain Congressman out of the committee room before he can ask Leo about something. We can see it's something really, really serious at stake ... Josh doesn't even want to get the President involved by admitting he's up to anything, telling him, "I don't think you and I should discuss it, sir."

There's another plot in this episode, about church burnings in Tennessee and the President wanting the governor to call up the National Guard and FBI agent Mike Casper being nervous about talking to bigwigs like Leo and the President, but that plotline isn't really important. This one is about Leo. And what Leo says in front of this congressional committee.

What we get out of Leo's testimony about the early days of the campaign is flashbacks. Informative flashbacks, well-constructed flashbacks, flashbacks that build up to the big reveal we've been set up for right from the start. How did this all start, right from the beginning?

Leo drops by the Governor's office in New Hampshire in 1997 to visit his old friend. Leo (a former Secretary of Labor, remember, before going to rehab in 1993 for alcohol and drug abuse) tells Jed he's thinking about getting back into politics:

Bartlet: "I think that's great, man. I think it's about time. You probably mean the House, but I think you should consider the Senate seat in Illinois in two years. I can help raise money."

Leo: "No, I wasn't thinking about the Senate. I was thinking about the White House."

Jed, still thinking Leo is talking about himself, warns his friend about talk of his addictions coming back to harm him. But then Leo sets him straight with one of The West Wing's most iconic moments:

Leo: "Yeah. See, I wasn't thinking about me."

Jed: "Who?"

Leo: "I've been walking around in a kind of daze for two weeks and everywhere I go - planes, trains, restaurants, meetings - I find myself scribbling something down."

Leo then licks the back of the napkin he was writing on earlier and sticks it on an easel.

 "Bartlet For America"

As the questioning continues in the present and the congressmembers continue to focus on Bartlet's health and the decision to keep it secret, we get taken back to the Manchester campaign headquarters (the very same place we saw in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II). Here CJ makes a splash by throwing a basketball through the window:

The point of this flashback, though, is to show Bartlet and Abbey agreeing to release results of his physical, knowing they won't reveal his MS condition at that particular time since he's in remission. They know they won't have to admit anything to the public about his MS, but their thinking at that time is Jed isn't going to win anyway. Bartlet tells Abbey, "I'll make my speeches, we'll get whooped on Super Tuesday, and we'll all go home." This line of questioning is successful in getting Abbey, a medical doctor herself, deeply involved in the coverup.

Another topic of the committee is the selection of John Hoynes as Vice President. Hoynes had been the front-runner during the campaign, until Bartlet's candidacy and smart moves by his staff lifted him to the nomination instead. Hoynes, already a bit miffed by missing his chance, is stunned when Jed drops the bombshell of his health condition after asking him to join the ticket:

Hoynes: "Did you just tell me that you have MS?"

Bartlet: "Yeah."

Hoynes: "That you never mentioned during the campaign."

Bartlet: "I told you because it's something you're going to need to know. But also because I wanted to show that I trust you."

Hoynes: "Oh, you do?"

Bartlet: "Yeah."

Hoynes: "That's supposed to be me accepting the nomination Thursday night. But I suppose your trusting me is consolation prize enough." 

Now Hoynes is borderline furious: the nomination he always thought he deserved had been taken away, not on a level playing field, but only because his rival kept a serious degenerative health issue secret from the American public. The scene does a nice job of filling out the foundations for the tensions we've seen in the Bartlet-Hoynes relationship over the past three seasons.

But the big reveal is yet to come. The shadowy figure looming on the committee, Representative Gibson, is the one Josh was trying (and failing) to get out of the room. He knows something, something apparently only Leo, Josh, and the President know, and Leo is resigned to dealing with whatever Gibson is going to throw at him. The rest of the committee, though - not so much:

Gibson: "Is this [referring to the collapse we saw in January, 2000, in He Shall, From Time To Time ...] the only time since the President took the oath of office that he's collapsed?"

Leo: "So far as I know."

Gibson: "Is this the only time since the beginning of the campaign that he's collapsed?"

Leo (long pause): "No, it's not."

(the onlookers in the room react in surprise)

Gibson: "I'd like to take you back to 30 October in St. Louis, Missouri. Jed Bartlet is the Democratic nominee for President and is about to participate in the third and final debate -"

Now the rest of the committee reacts in shock and surprise, as Jordon asks for a break. The chairman, the majority counsel, the other congresspeople - they have no idea what Gibson is going after with the topic of October 30th, and they're all uneasy with this undisclosed change of subject.

Leo knows, and as he tells his story to Jordon about the events of that day we get a masterclass in performing and television storytelling. The quick synopsis is, Leo was working on a couple of big donors to make sure the Bartlet campaign would have the cash to make it to election day, just nine days after this debate. As a matter of course, the donors wanted to have a few drinks during the discussion. Leo, not willing to admit that he's a recovering alcoholic, tries to beg off, but the siren call of the scotch is so, so tempting ... look at Leo here, his gaze on the glass in the donor's hand:

He fights it as long as he can, but finally asks to share a drink:

"Ah, there it is," he exhales, and he's officially off the wagon. He can control himself around other people, but once the donors leave, he empties out the suite's mini bar. All this while, he should be at the debate site with the rest of the staff, getting ready for the night's events, but instead he collapses in his bed.

And this turns out to be important, because at the debate site Bartlet suffers some sort of attack.

Is this the MS, or is it - as the campaign told the press later - just an inner ear infection? We never know for certain, but we have to suspect this is the MS showing itself. Remember, nobody knows about it at this point but Jed and Abbey, other family members, and medical personnel - nobody on the campaign, not even Leo, is aware of his condition.

But Leo's not even there to support his friend and help his team. He's nearly passed out on his bed, and as Josh's frantic phone call rousts him, there's a banging on the door. It's Gibson, who was there in room, in the meeting with the donors. He forgot his briefcase and returned for it at the worst possible time. He surveys the results of Leo's binge:

And Leo, drunk, desperate to turn Gibson's attention away from what he sees, what he's done, croaks out that he has to get to the debate site because Governor Bartlet has collapsed.

That's the secret that Gibson, now elected as a Republican Congressman, knows. There was evidence that MS might have had an impact on the candidate before the election, yet Jed and Abbey continued to hide it from the voters. And he discovered that fact because Leo had a relapse and flat out admitted to Gibson that Bartlet had collapsed.

Here's where things take an interesting turn in the hands of Aaron Sorkin. This right here, this knowledge of Bartlet collapsing before the election and still keeping his condition a secret, that's exactly the kind of thing the committee is trying to uncover. Did Jed Bartlet and his wife perpetrate a fraud on the American people, in order to win the presidency? This collapse would be a valid piece of evidence for that argument. Now, how did Gibson discover this? From the unfiltered, unthinking words of a drunk Leo McGarry.

But instead Sorkin makes the issue about Leo. Gibson appears ready to "out" Leo about his alcoholism - something that's never really been a secret, but as far as everyone knows has been under control since the early 1990s. How Gibson thinks attacking Leo for having a one-time relapse would be helpful to the committee at all is simply not explored ... but both Chairman Bruno and Cliff Calley, majority counsel, have serious concerns about that course of action:

Calley: "Leo McGarry's sobriety isn't the subject of these hearings. These hearings are to investigate if any rules - ethical or otherwise - were broken by Jed Bartlet while he was running for President."

Gibson: "That's nice, but I live in the actual world where the object of these hearings is to win." 

Calley: "No ... it's not."

Gibson: "It's the object of the Majority."

Calley: "Not while I'm the Majority Counsel, it's not. This is bush league. This is why good people hate us. This right here, this thing. This isn't what these hearings are about."

All that Calley says is right, in a moral and ethical sense. Ruining Leo's reputation doesn't advance the goal of the hearings at all. BUT ... the information Leo gave to Gibson about Bartlet's collapse is entirely germane, and has nothing at all to do with the condition Leo was in at the time. From a legal and political standpoint, I think Sorkin veers off the tracks here. Gibson almost has it right, and could make a serious dent in the President's position about his health and his motivations pre-election, as well as advance the Republicans' point that the Bartlets engaged in fraud. But it's all dropped here, just so Gibson can shame Leo about getting drunk.

Anyway, Calley argues for a recess over the holidays, Chairman Bruno gavels the committee back into session ... and then immediately agrees to the recess. Gibson is left spluttering, Leo and Jordon are left dumbstruck, and the whole issue of Leo's public shaming gets avoided. Deus ex Sorkina, so to speak!

(We remember Calley, of course, as the House Ways and Means counsel who was set up with Donna by Ainsley in Ways And Means; after his move to the Oversight Committee, in charge of the House investigation, he was the lead in Donna's deposition, which led to revelation of her diary and Josh's negotiations over that in War Crimes. In the DVD commentary Sorkin and director Thomas Schlamme mention the script had a scene - never actually shot, as the episode was running long - with Calley and Donna having a discussion prior to Calley's scene calling out Gibson for ruining the reputation of the Republican party.)

Leo does get his dinner date with Jordon - on Christmas Eve, no less. You can tell both these lonely people will appreciate having company over the holiday. He heads back to his office to catch up on some work, and the President is there waiting for him. He has a gift for Leo:

That napkin from New Hampshire four years ago, saved and framed, a gift from a man who truly appreciated everything Leo did for him and could never repay those actions in full. "That was awfully nice of you," the President says as he leaves, and the episode ends with Leo dissolving into tears.

A final great acting moment of a great episode for a great actor. John Spencer was tremendous.

Tales Of Interest!

- Just like the character of Leo McGarry, John Spencer himself was a recovering alcoholic. He struggled with alcohol addiction since high school, finally putting himself into rehab in 1989 (just before hitting it big with roles in Presumed Innocent and L.A. Law). In the DVD commentary for this episode Spencer points out how it was dangerously easy to put himself back into that mindset to play the relapse scenes.

- It's clearly stated that the events of this day take place on December 23. The President reminds Leo on the phone that the next day is Christmas Eve, and after Jordon agrees to have dinner with Leo that night, he asks if it can be tomorrow instead - Christmas Eve. There's a couple of issues with that: in 2001, December 23 was a Sunday, and there would not have been a major House committee hearing held on a Sunday. Not only that, Congress typically adjourns for the holidays in early or mid December until after the New Year, so even if it weren't a Sunday, Congress would never have been in session on December 23.

- In the past several episodes, Abbey has been in a wheelchair. That was due to Stockard Channing actually injuring her ankle while hiking, and the show runners wrote that injury into the series. She's up and around now, which is lucky, since it wouldn't make sense for Abbey to be in a wheelchair in the campaign flashbacks. In the DVD commentary with Sorkin, Schlamme, and Spencer, we're told that Channing was actually still in quite some pain after having the cast removed, and they tried to shoot her scenes with a minimum of walking. She had quite a stroll with Jed in this New Hampshire scene, but in the hotel suite scene with Hoynes you'll notice she hardly moved around at all.

- We get not one but two Presidential jacket flips. As has been mentioned earlier, Martin Sheen's left shoulder was injured at birth, and since he can't raise that arm very high, he had to come up with his own technique to put on a suit jacket. He flips it over his head to get both arms into the sleeves:

- The pivotal day of Leo's relapse was October 30, 1998, the date of the third and final Presidential debate in St. Louis. Leo says it was nine days before the election. October 30 was a Friday in 1998, and the actual election day was November 3; nine days after October 30 would have been Sunday, November 8. For those who quibble that West Wing scripts don't actually use years, in order to keep some plausible deniability with reality, I remind you that the whole turn-of-the-millennium issue of January 1, 2000, was a topic in In Excelsis Deo, which aired in December 1999, and Toby outright refers to 2002 as the upcoming Presidential election in 17 People, so yeah ... the years are defined.

- West Wing directors like to use their on-screen monitor shots in interesting ways. Here's the President talking to Leo on his speaker phone, while in the background on C-SPAN we see Leo on the TV screen talking back to Jed on his cell. Of course, this also meant the House committee scenes had to be filmed before this scene was shot, in order to have Leo on the TV in the background.

- In a neat little character choice, we see Leo is still wearing his wedding band. Just as we've seen with Toby, who continues to wear his ring even after being divorced for quite some time, Leo still wears his ring even after he signed his divorce papers in The Portland Trip.

- The holiday episodes always have wonderful decorative lighting everywhere.

Also, note the strong color of the lighting as Leo returns to the White House after his testimony (that background blue color just gives a jolt right in the middle of the shot):

- And there's the traditional White House made of gingerbread. In Season 2 we saw a similar one being wheeled down the corridors in Noël.

- There's even a random guy wearing a Santa suit roaming around the West Wing:

- Much like Leo still wearing his wedding ring, director Schlamme gives us some insight into Sam with this shot of him leafing through his address book as he tries to help Josh come up with someone who can get Gibson out of the room. In the DVD commentary, Sorkin and Schlamme say Rob Lowe fought them over this, with Lowe's belief that the character of Sam would be much more "anal" and more neatly organized than this book shows. The showrunners' idea that a political operative like Sam would have a much used, written and rewritten address book carried the day, however.

- John Spencer received an Outstanding Supporting Actor Emmy for this episode (and also for his work in We Killed Yamamoto). This is the third straight Christmas episode of The West Wing that resulted in a Supporting Actor Emmy award (Richard Schiff earned one for In Excelsis Deo in Season 1, and Bradley Whitford was honored for Noël in Season 2).



Quotes    

Leo (as the press swarms around): "Did I win a Grammy for something?"

Jordan: "Were you nominated?"

Leo: "No."

Jordan: "That's ridiculous."

Leo: "Well, those things are so political." 

-----

Jed (on phone): "Listen, I don't care that much about your ass but if you need to perjure yourself to protect me you're going to damn well do it."

Leo: "Sir, this isn't a secure call, so I'm going to say to the 17 global intelligence agencies that are listening in that he was kidding just then." 

-----

Mrs. Landingham (enters Gov. Bartlet's office): "Yes, sir?"

Governor: "Speaking of crusty New England relics ..."

Mrs. Landingham: "Governor, does it frustrate you to constantly aim for humor and yet miss so dramatically?" 

-----

Josh: "Did you meet with Leo this morning?"

Casper: "Yeah. Listen, that was big for me. I don't brief the White House Chief of Staff."

Josh: "All right, well, let's listen in on this meeting for a minute."

Casper (realizing they're heading for the Oval Office): "Hang on. This wall is curved." 

-----

Casper: "Gilbert Murdoch, a 17-year-old high school dropout, was pulled over outside Chattanooga for a failing left brake light. When the officers approached his car he sped off and led them in high pursuit."

Josh: "Why?"

Casper: "'Cause he thought he was being pulled over for planning to make a Molotov cocktail."

Josh: "Why?"

Casper: "'Cause he was planning to make a Molotov cocktail."

Josh: "Did he name friends?"

Casper: "He was a tough nut to crack. Took almost 20 minutes."

-----

Leo: "The way a glass feels in your hand ... a good glass, thick, with a heavy base. I love the sound an ice cube makes when you drop it from just the right height. Too high and it'll chip when you drop it. Chip the ice and it'll melt too fast in the scotch.

[...]

Jordan: "You had a drink."

Leo: "I'm an alcoholic. I don't have one drink. I don't understand people who have one drink. I don't understand people who leave half a glass of wine on the table. I don't understand people who say they've had enough. How can you have enough of feeling like this? How can you not want to feel like this longer? My brain works differently."

-----

Leo: "I just came back to catch up on some work. See how badly you screwed up this church thing in Tennessee."

Jed: "I did the church thing in Tennessee okay. I did it without you."

Leo: "You mind if I make some calls? See if Tennessee's still one of the states and stuff?"

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

• It's good to see Clark Gregg again as FBI Special Agent Mike Casper (first seen in Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail)

• In another callback, he tells Josh "We don't take curtain calls" when Josh wants to bring him to the President to say they've made a arrest in the Tennessee church fires case. He told Sam the same thing in Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To Jail:

Casper: "So when we apprehend an enemy of the state, like, say a fugitive member of West Virginia White Pride, we don't take a curtain call on Sunday with Sam and Cokie."

• We've got callbacks to Josh's past - Leo mentions how he's a compulsive fixer because of his guilt about his loved ones dying (we first heard about Josh's survivor's guilt after his older sister's death in a house fire in The Crackpots And These Women) and Josh responds with a reference to the "guy falls in a hole" story that Leo tells Josh in Noël.

• The wonderful actress Joanna Gleason (The Wedding Planner, Mr. Holland's Opus, Into The Woods on Broadway) appears as Jordon Kendall (and yes, it appears the script actually spells the name "Jordon"). We do get to see Jordon again later on in the series.

• Cliff Calley returns, played by Mark Feuerstein. We first saw him as Donna's blind date in Ways And Means, where we learned he'd been "traded" from the House Ways and Means committee to the oversight committee handling the investigation of the President.

• Let's talk about the makeup of the House Reform and Government Oversight Committee. Rep. Peter Bruno (R-PA, played by James Handy) is seen as the chairman. We previously saw Bruno in Take Out The Trash Day, chewing out Josh and Sam for their handling of the investigation into drug use by White House staff. At that time, Bruno's position of power was as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee in charge of the White House budget. Meanwhile, not once but twice we've been told that Rep. Randall Thomas (R-MI) was the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, first in The Leadership Breakfast and again in Ways And Means, where he was announcing the House investigation into the President's health. Why is Bruno chairing the committee now instead of Thomas? You can't blame the midterm elections of 2000, because both of those episodes came after those elections.

• Furthermore, one congressman who was definitely a member of the House Oversight Committee in Season 1's The Short List was Rep. Peter Lillienfield, the guy who instigated the whole "one third of White House employees are drug users" investigation as a tangential gambit to out Leo as a past drug abuser (information leaked to Lillienfield by Karen Larson). With Leo on the hot seat in front of that committee in this episode, you'd think Lillenfield would be involved; admittedly, we don't see all the members of the committee, and Lillienfield may have lost his seat in the midterms, anyway.

• Leo tells the House committee he's known Jed Bartlet for about 32 years (so since approximately 1969) and that they've been friends for 11 years (or since about 1990). In Pilot Leo says he's known Jed for 40 years, which would have meant sometime in the early 1960s. He also tells the committee that Abbey has known Jed for longer than he has. Jed and Abbey met while Jed was in college at Notre Dame (where meeting her changed his mind about becoming a priest, a story told in The Portland Trip); Jed started college in 1961 or so (he said he started 38 years ago in The Short List).

• It's so nice to see dear departed Mrs. Landingham again, even if it is a flashback to her time as Governor Bartlet's personal secretary in 1997 New Hampshire.

• We are taken back to the Manchester campaign headquarters in one flashback (as seen in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II). It looks like they were able to use the same set (much emptier, though - this is apparently as they're packing up to skip New Hampshire and go to South Carolina):

Here's the set from In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II. That's definitely the same building:

• Seeing CJ with frizzy hair takes us back to the campaign days (as we first saw when Toby asked her to join the campaign in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II). I'm sure the makeup/hairdresser corps was happy that CJ only appears in the flashback segments of this episode, as far as hair continuity goes. Here she is in this episode's Manchester flashback:

And this is how she appeared in the original Manchester flashbacks in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part II:

• The scene with the Bartlets and Hoynes in the hotel suite during the 1998 Democratic convention echoes all the way back to Enemies when the President asks if Hoynes was the source who leaked word of their disagreement in the Cabinet meeting:

Hoynes: "What did I ever do to you? Where, in our past, what did I do to make you treat me this way?"

President: "John -"

Hoynes: "What did I ever do to you except deliver the South?"

President: "Really?"

Hoynes: "Yes."

President: "You shouldn't have made me beg, John. I was asking you to be Vice President."

Remember, that exchange was before the revelation of Bartlet's disease, which came four episodes later in He Shall, From Time To Time ...  In that pre-MS context, it made us believe Hoynes was trying to take advantage of the only leverage he had left before accepting a spot on the ticket, as sour grapes for losing the nomination. 

But now we see how the events transpired the night Jed actually asked Hoynes to be his VP. Of course Hoynes was a little disappointed, even irritated at losing the nomination to Bartlet - but then to be told that Jed was suffering from a disease that was being kept secret, a disease the existence of which might very well have swung the nomination to Hoynes ... well, now it makes sense that he's quite ticked off and would need some time to consider the offer:

Hoynes: "I'd like to think about it ... for a few ... "

Bartlet: "I'd like your answer now, John."

Hoynes: "You'll have it when I give it, Jed." (stalks out of the room)

It's a good callback scene to the Enemies line "You shouldn't have made me beg," but knowing what we know now as opposed to then the entire situation is colored differently. We can absolutely understand Hoynes' position in a completely different way than we did back then. 

• Before going after Leo directly, Rep. Gibson brings up the President's collapse in January 2000. We saw that happen in He Shall, From Time To Time ...

• In Take Out The Trash Day Leo tells Karen Larson he hadn't had a drink for 6 1/2 years, or since he got out of rehab in 1993. Now we discover he had quite a relapse (almost emptying out that hotel minibar) in October of 1998, or a little over a year before his talk with Larson.

• President Bartlet makes a direct reference to the assassination attempt from What Kind Of Day Has It Been/In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I when he compares Leo's "dodging a bullet" at the committee hearing to his own failure to do the same at Rosslyn.

• Do you recall my mentions of the University of Florida Gators coffee mug that kept showing up in oddly featured ways in the background of scenes in Season 2? IT'S BACK ...

• WHAT'S NEXT MOMENT - Governor Bartlet asks Mrs. Landingham "What's next?" after going over his schedule in his office in Manchester, just before Leo comes in.

DC location shots    

• Josh is seen in front of the Department of Justice building at the beginning of the episode. He's at the corner of 9th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue.

This location in Google Street View, looking south along 9th Street NW:

And the angle of this shot in Street View, looking southeast down Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol (remember, film camera lenses focal lengths can change the apparent distance of objects in the background):

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

• Leo's testimony before the House committee is being carried on C-SPAN. 

• Thomas Hilton (along with David Thomson and Edward Hilton) was indeed among the earliest settlers of what later became New Hampshire, starting their settlements as early as 1623.

• Governor Bartlet has a University of Notre Dame Alumni mug on his desk in Manchester.

• Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy are brought up by President Bartlet, specifically for their use of federal power in state's affairs (Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 to enforce school integration; Kennedy federalized the Mississippi National Guard in 1962 and the Alabama National Guard in 1963 for the same reason. Bartlet's reference to "Kennedy in 1961" is apparently incorrect).

• One of the House committee members references Edith Wilson, First Lady to President Woodrow Wilson, who (somewhat secretly) managed the affairs of the office for the rest of his term after the president suffered a stroke in 1919.

• There's an MSNBC logo sneaking in a flashback scene of the 1998 Democratic convention, as NBC continues to realize they have their own cable news network they could promote in this show.

• Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch gets mentioned prominently, and here's a shot of it being poured. One of the donors tells Leo bartenders are charging $30 a shot for this in 1998; looking at a couple of sources online today I see places are charging in the area of $37-45 for a shot of Johnnie Walker Blue these days. A bottle will likely set you back upwards of $175 or more.

End credits freeze frame: The President asking Josh what tricks he has up his sleeve to help Leo avoid trouble during his testimony.