Walking And Talking And Yelling At Clouds: We Killed Yamamoto

Original airdate: May 15, 2002

Written by: Aaron Sorkin (64)

Directed by: Thomas Schlamme (11)

Synopsis

As the evidence mounts connecting a Qumari government official to a terrorist group, the President and his advisers confront a shrinking list of options to respond. CJ and her Secret Service agent continue to draw closer. Opinions clash over the news that Governor Ritchie also plans to attend the upcoming charity fundraiser in New York. Amy throws a wrench into the administration's deal to pass a welfare reform bill. Sam tries to get off the mat after his screwup with the opposition ad.

"There are moral absolutes."

Are there instances so dire, so imminently dangerous, so important to a nation that the ends justify even the most reprehensible of means? Just how far can a President be willing to go when the nation's citizens are at risk? Under severe enough circumstances, can even a deeply religious leader be convinced to break the limits of decency and humanity?

Can government-sanctioned murder ever be justified?

Are there moral absolutes?

This is the kind of discussion I truly appreciate on The West Wing. Aaron Sorkin isn't afraid to go after some big themes, some really interesting and thorny topics - sure, there's plenty of criticism about how well he might handle the debate or how tidily he can tie up loose ends or how easily he might be pleasing the audience, but he's willing to go there, to engage the viewers and make them think a little. Are there lines you can't cross, even when there's a threat to your citizens? What are those lines, and what exactly are the parameters that could make you cross them? What can make you change your mind?

In the previous episode President Bartlet was told there was evidence Abdul Shareef, the defense minister of a friendly Middle Eastern nation, might be behind a planned terrorist attack to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge. As this episode begins, his military advisers in the Situation Room lay out a convincing case, tying bank accounts and monetary outlays from Shareef to not only the Golden Gate plot, but at least two other terrorist attacks against United States embassies and military installations. Bartlet isn't convinced - he wants a rock-solid criminal case against Shareef, something airtight that is certain to get him convicted and locked up:

President: "We want to ask the Justice Department to indict the Qumari Minister of Defense. We're saying he's a terror kingpin. We're saying he's killed I don't know how many civilians and how many of Tommy's Marines. We're saying he's compromised I don't know how many agents throughout the world and we're saying he's done it in the clothing of an ally. This isn't a cave dweller. This is Capone. You haven't got it."

As information continues to come in, the link between Shareef and the Ba'hi terrorists becomes undeniable. A government official from Qumar, the brother of the sultan, from a country ostensibly an ally of the US, is actively funding and directing deadly attacks against Americans overseas, and has tried to strike inside our borders. President Bartlet continues to drive home the legal case - he wants to use the law, the levers of the legal system that are the bedrock of right and wrong in the American ideal, to defend the country and bring Shareef to justice.

But there's a problem. Even once the advisers figure a way around Shareef's diplomatic immunity, all the evidence connecting him to the terrorist attacks is based on information from a Russian prisoner, a Chechnyan whose information came after being tortured. No judge is going to allow that evidence at trial. A disheartened Bartlet tries to think his way through, but ...

President: "We'll come up with a less aggressive way of ... we'll cancel his trip here, obviously, but we'll come up with something that ...

(defeated)"That's the ball game."

In a nice little bit of humanizing the President, we see him turn his frustration and powerlessness about this situation against Josh. He angrily confronts Josh about the plan to get him out of the Catholic charity event on Broadway, then bites his head off over trouble with the welfare reform bill:

President (angrily): "True or false, Josh - my life would be better right now if you and your girlfriend switched jobs. Why is it for every good thing you do around here, we've got to endure three screwups?"

Josh: "Well, I'm sorry about the -"

President: "Sorry doesn't get me 218*. It doesn't get me back the ad that slipped through your office any more than it gets back tobacco, which you gave away for lunch money. And why the hell don't you know what Ritchie's commitments are before you get anywhere near my schedule? I've got the presidential box at a cattle call. Win the damn vote."

(*218 is the number of votes needed for a majority in the House of Representatives, which has 435 members.)

He may be upset with Josh, but he's been upset before. Right here he's furious at the events spinning out of his control, trapped in a hopeless position where he knows Shareef is planning to kill Americans and he can't do a damn thing about it. It's not surprising Jed's frustration at his powerlessness causes him to lash out at the first sign of difficulty somewhere - which just happens to be Josh.

But as the President confronts the hopeless reality of his situation, there's something turning in Admiral Fitzwallis' mind. We can see it behind his stoic face as the legal and diplomatic options to bring Shareef to justice fall apart.

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a lifelong soldier. His training and his experience in confronting military threats is to eliminate them, by whatever means he has available. And Shareef is scheduled to visit the United States in just a few days, putting him tantalizingly in reach of Fitz' military.

Fitzwallace: "We measure the success of a mission by two things - was it successful and how few civilians did we hurt. They measure success by how many. Pregnant women are delivering bombs. You're talking to me about international laws? The laws of nature don't even apply here. I've been a soldier for 38 years. And I've found an enemy I can kill. He can't cancel Shareef's trip, Leo. You've got to tell him he can't cancel it."

It's up to Leo to talk to the President. They dance around saying the actual words - "Shareef must die" - that can't be brought up out loud, but it's obvious. Jed doesn't want to embrace the possibility. It's justice he wants, justice through the established legal system, but as the chances of that crumble, Leo is left to argue Fitz' point of the other "means" available, the means justified by the ends of stopping Shareef's attacks on Americans.

Leo: "What are the alternatives? Are we going to attack Qumar?"

President: "Maybe."

Leo: "Now? We can kill all the armed teenagers we want, we still won't have Shareef. Let's get some more intelligence, let's get some more counsel."

President: "More counsel is going to help me violate international law."

Bartlet knows what Leo is proposing. He doesn't want to consider it, he can't consider it - his goal has always been to use the law and the system of justice to get Shareef - but now Leo and Fitz are arguing not only can he not use the law, but he has to violate the law in the service of "justice."

Leo: "This is justified. This is required."

President: "Says who?"

Leo: "Says me, Mr. President. You want to go ask some more people, they'll say so, too."

President: "Well, a mob mentality is just --"

And then the big one, the huge responsibility that weighs on every President, the responsibility for making those final decisions - just you and you alone:

Leo: "Not a mob. Just you. Right now. This decision. Which, by the way, is one of self-defense. Let Shareef come here and we have options. Cancel the trip and we have none. That's all we're talking about right now."

President: "There are moral absolutes."

Leo's face drops. That's it. There will be no consequences for Shareef's attacks on Americans. There's nothing left to do. And then Jed speaks again.

"Make the call."

Let's be clear, though. While Bartlet fights Leo on the "moral absolutes" of going outside the law (and the unspoken result, assassinating a foreign official), there's an earlier quote of his that shows he's already willing to justify some extra-legal action to get Shareef:

President: "Fellas, this guy is going to stand trial in a US court and if we have to stick heroin on his plane to get him there, that's what we're going to do."

So it's already a matter of degree and not absolute morality. Bartlet is willing to stretch the limits of the law, but actual assassination is a bridge he has to be convinced to cross.

Let's move on to Josh and Amy. We learned in Dead Irish Writers that they were a couple, and now we find out Josh is spending a lot of time at Amy's place. Things seem to be going great - Amy sings and dances around her apartment to Van Morrison tunes, they have plans to spend a Sunday at a foreign film festival, Amy makes stew - but as usual, the grimy nature of politics at work intrudes.

Josh is forced to accept a deal from Congress on a welfare reauthorization bill - it'll pass out of committee with even more funding than the administration expected, but in return the bill will include more money for programs incentivizing marriage. It's a conservative strategy to reduce the number of families with single mothers, but Amy sees a different side to the deal.

Amy: "Kids are better off if they're raised by parents who love them. Your solution is loveless."

Josh: "It's not my solution."

Amy: "Does my government really believe that the law can create a family? Do these old fat-ass men really believe that if they just pay people to act like Leave It To Beaver everything'll be fine? Did you really think the person in my job is going to sit --? This is about collecting votes from white men."

And Amy is on the phone, rousting her troops and firing up opposition to the bill. As Josh reaches for his phone to try to counter her moves, Amy tosses it into the stew:

And when he turns to her land-line phone (it's 2002, remember), she brings out the scissors:

We've seen these two on opposite sides of issues before, but not since they've become a couple. And this particular issue at this particular time seems, well, critical to their relationship. As Amy says to Josh as he walks away, "We ought to be able to talk about this."

Since we're on the romantic front, sorta, things are also brewing between CJ and her Secret Service agent. CJ had to accept protection after getting a death threat in Enemies Foreign And Domestic, and she really didn't want it and didn't like it. Her attitude towards her agents was resentful and brusque - but come on, it's Mark Harmon. She can't keep that up ... and she doesn't. We saw a little softening in her attitude in The Black Vera Wang when she found out Simon was at the Rosslyn shooting.

She starts out irritated again, when Simon tells her that her stalker had been there in Barneys watching her and her niece shopping. When CJ says she can't work out at her gym because it's flooded, Simon offers the Secret Service gym:

CJ: "Is it a good gym?"

Simon: "Yes, it's a ... we run alongside moving cars."

CJ's workout apparently puts her into a much better mood, because when she sees a shooting range there, she excitedly asks for the chance to try it out.

CJ: "Tough talk. I like that. Give me your gun."

Simon: "Let me get you a .25 caliber."

CJ: "What's wrong with yours?"

Simon: "It's a .357 magnum."

CJ: "I've heard of that. That's a good brand."

Which leads to comedy:

This gets CJ feeling a bit frisky, as she challenges Simon: If he can put three shots in the bullseye, she'll stop giving him a hard time. Simon adds something to the bet - if he does it, she'll also have to say something nice about him. Of course, he puts all five of his shots almost dead center (two of them through the holes left by previous shots), and CJ has to pay up.

CJ: "I like that you're tall."

Simon: "You do?"

CJ: "It makes me feel more feminine."

Oooh, sparks are flying! It's a stereotype, I know, the female starting to fall for the rugged handsome guy who's protecting her (and who actually fired shots to protect her and her friends at Rosslyn and also smoothly proved he was an expert shot right in front of her), but I'm not sure we should expect much more from Sorkin. It's not just CJ, though ... look at Simon's slight smile as she heads off to change:

And CJ's lingering gaze back at him:

As they're walking on the street to her apartment later, after Simon once again tells her about taking out one of the Rosslyn shooters, they nearly kiss:

Simon pulls away. Of course they can't! They can't do this, not in a bodyguard-subject situation - this is not a Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston movie! But they really do dig each other. Is it weird, though, that CJ's interest in Simon always seems to be sparked by his tales of being at Rosslyn, where he killed a guy? Will it work out for these two crazy kids in the end?

Believe it or not, there's still more stuffed into this episode. Sam is still gun-shy after being punked by the Ritchie campaign over the opposition ad videotape in The Black Vera Wang. When an idea is brought up to him to use a plan to protect the Everglades as a tool to attack Ritchie, he dismisses it outright without even considering bringing it to Bruno and the campaign staff. Leo and Toby (and even a DNC member at an event in North Dakota) are concerned that Sam may have lost his edge ... but of course it just takes him a couple of days to get his mojo back, as he writes up a memo on the Everglades plan and is prepared to take the battle right to the Republicans.

Donna gets sent to North Dakota as a representative of the White House, as the DNC is holding a platform hearing where the idea of removing "North" from the state's name is being considered. Not much to that, except poking fun at North Dakota and how to get to Bismarck, although we do get the aforementioned DNC official telling Donna to pass on his encouragement to Sam.

And then we finally have the idea of a replacement for Mrs. Landingham. We have a nice scene set at Arlington National Cemetery, as the President and Charlie pay their respects at her grave. It has been almost exactly a year since 18th And Potomac, when that tragic car accident took her life, and Jed is finally ready to think about hiring a new executive secretary. He gives Charlie the job of finding candidates:

President: "So, it's been a year. Why don't you organize the search, you know, for a new executive secretary."

Charlie: "Yes, sir. Absolutely."

President: "I may not like the first couple of candidates. It may take a while."

Charlie: "No, I don't imagine you're going to hire somebody, sir, but this is a step in the right direction."

Charlie takes the task seriously, talking over options with Sam and Josh, and we get this well-framed shot of Mrs. Landingham's still-empty desk:

By the end of the episode we know Charlie has the perfect candidate, but we're going to have to wait to find out who that is. Trust me - it's a doozy.

There's a lot of ends-justifying-the-means bubbling through this episode: What kind of political sacrifices are you willing to make to get a piece of legislation through that will help tens of thousands of citizens? Can a program designed to save a part of the environment also be turned into a campaign weapon? If you really, really like your Secret Service agent, is it okay to kiss him?

None of which is intended to make light of the huge sword of Damocles hanging over President Bartlet here. Should a President make the ultimate decision to take a single person's life in retaliation for terrorist plans? Is self-defense of your citizens a valid moral reason to violate international law and assassinate one government official?

It's no mistake that the last sound we hear in this episode is the ticking of the clock.

Tales Of Interest!

- I've mentioned how Aaron Sorkin's near total involvement in practically every episode would prove unsustainable, for him as well as for the network schedule. As the course of each season wore on, the pace of production would bring Sorkin's final drafts of screenplays nearer and nearer to each episode's actual air date. That happens here in Season 3: The scene of CJ and Simon walking along the street to her home was filmed just three days before the episode was broadcast. (That scene was shot in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, standing in for Washington DC, at the same time as other New York-set scenes being filmed for Posse Comitatus - which also means scenes for that episode were being filmed only about a week before they were broadcast.)

- The President's military advisers talk about previous terrorist attacks at the embassy in Tunisia and the Marine barracks in Port Al-Alzoud (apparently a fictional location). Again, while 9/11 did not occur in this universe, the United States in The West Wing is nonetheless dealing with high-stakes tensions concerning the Arab world (note President Bartlet's comparison of Shareef to a "cave dweller," or Toby shouting "They'll like us when we win!" in Night Five).

- We see a new angle of the Situation Room, showing us a window into an adjoining room with aides and communication equipment.

- There's definitely a running theme of baseball references throughout: We see a baseball game on the TV in the background in Josh's office,

Josh talks about the Mets playing on national television the next day, and Donna makes a comparison between herself and the starting second baseman for the Yankees. (In case you're wondering, Alfonso Soriano played 155 games at second base for the New York Yankees in 2002.)

Also, President Bartlet says, "That's the ball game" when he finds out there's no way to get Shareef on charges, and Toby tells Sam "It's no time for the starters to be on the bench."

- Neat West Wing-style camera touches are here - the way the camera moves about the room from face to face as Bartlet consults with his advisers, and I really think this shot of Leo and Fitz in the Situation Room is incredible:

- It's 2002 technology, remember ... here's Charlie using some kind of Personal Digital Assistant (remember PDAs?). I can't suss out exactly what it is, but he's using a stylus, so it could be a Palm Pilot or a Compaq brand of PDA.

- Let's face it, there's some pretty lax adherence to safety procedures at the Secret Service gun range. While CJ puts on her eye and ear protection before she fires the gun, Simon isn't wearing any - and CJ takes hers off before Simon rips off his five shots into the bullseye. I did think it was funny when Simon, acting cool after impressing CJ with his shooting skills, spun the revolver on his finger -and then flinched in pain when he stuck the still-hot barrel of the gun into his belt.

- John Spencer received the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in Drama Series, with this episode and Bartlet For America being submitted. Mark Harmon was also nominated for the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series Emmy for his four-episode run (the Emmy went to Charles S. Dutton for his appearances in The Practice).

Quotes

Leo: "The Qumari defense minister gets to own a bank?"

Chysler: "Leo, I think you're going to find that in a number of ways the Minister of Defense is simply Mr. Shareef's day job."

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Donna: "You want to show North Dakota you care and so you're sending me?"

Josh: "It's really the very most we're willing to do."

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Simon: "Are you going to your gym tonight?"

CJ: "What?"

Simon: "Are you working out?"

CJ: "I thought you said you wanted to have gin tonight."

Simon: "No."

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Woman: "We enjoy roughly the same climate as South Dakota. We took in $73.7 million in tourism revenue last year. They took in $1.2 billion. They have the word 'south.'"

Donna: "Also, Mount Rushmore."

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Leo: "Josh, is there nothing you can do to tame that woman?"

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

The Situation Room adviser Mike Chysler (Glenn Morshower) returns. He was last seen in Manchester Part II.

Speaking of Situation Room advisers, the recognizable Kurt Fuller appears in two meetings with the President. He's been all over TV shows and movies, including Ghostbusters II, Wayne's World, Psych, The Good Wife, and many more.

Amy Gardner is back! We haven't seen her since Dead Irish Writers, when she and Josh just officially became a thing. Now he's sleeping over at her place.

The Wars of the Roses Catholic Charities event comes up again, first mentioned in The Black Vera Wang and an important part of the upcoming Posse Comitatus.

President Bartlet pays a visit to the grave of Mrs. Landingham at Arlington National Cemetery, and recalls that's it been a year since her death (18th And Potomac). He also mentions "seeing a shrink" and that he's been having trouble sleeping (Night Five).

There's a quick shot of CJ's laptop opened to her email account, which is a callback to the emails from her stalker in Enemies Foreign And Domestic and The Black Vera Wang.

We remember Josh as a Mets fan from The Stackhouse Filibuster. Here he tells Amy he plans to watch a Mets game on TV.

Allison Janney loves the physical comedy - her pratfall from the pistol recoil at the shooting range recalls her falling off the treadmill (also in front of a cute guy) in Pilot.

When Leo and Josh cook up the excuse of a vote on the welfare bill as a reason to keep the President from going to the Wars of the Roses show, it's compared to the idea of using a similar excuse to avoid the Helsinki summit with Chigorin that was contemplated in Enemies Foreign And Domestic.

We learned in In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen Part I that Toby had run multiple campaigns prior to Bartlet's (specifically a city council election, two congressional runs, a Senate campaign, a gubernatorial race and one other national election), but had never won. Here he tells Sam the first campaign he ran was one for Bronx borough president, where he turned off the air conditioning during a press conference and his candidate fainted. "I don't think I even ended up voting for him," he says. Does that count as the city council run, or no?

President Bartlet's excoriates Josh over the "ad" (the opposition attack ad seen in The Black Vera Wang) and his botching of the tobacco lawsuit (the arc we saw from The Fall's Gonna Kill You through Manchester Part II). As an aside, why does Jed blame Josh's "office" for the ad thing? That was Sam, from the Communications Office, not Josh from the Chief of Staff's office.

Simon's role as a Secret Service agent at the Rosslyn shooting from What Kind Of Day Has It Been comes up again. He says he's certain he took out one of the two shooters we saw.

Leo mentions President Bartlet's status as a Nobel Laureate (first mentioned in "Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc").

DC location shots

There's a nice scene filmed at Arlington National Cemetery, as the President and Charlie pay their respects to Mrs. Landingham.

The scene with Josh meeting Amy at her office building may have been shot in Washington, I'm not certain. It was established in The Women Of Qumar that Amy's office is on Pennsylvania Avenue next to the US Navy Memorial Plaza, but I can't tell if this scene was filmed there or not. Personally, I think the odds of flying Mary-Louise Parker to Washington for one scene are pretty slim - I guess we'll see if she has any DC-set scenes in the next episode.

The scene with CJ and Simon walking along the street (supposedly in Georgetown? or wherever it is CJ lives) was actually shot in Greenwich Village, New York City.

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

The title of this episode gets to the heart of its theme: Is a nation justified in targeting a specific person during wartime? As Fitz says to Leo, "And the international laws you're talking about, this is where a lot of them were written. At a time in a place where a person could tell between peacetime and wartime. The idea of targeting one person was ridiculous. It wouldn't have occurred to the French to try to kill William Pitt. That all changed after Pearl Harbor."

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that drew the United States into World War II was directed by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. Later in the war, American intelligence was able to determine Yamamoto would be on a specific military flight, and where that flight would be - which led to a plan code-named Operation Vengeance, specifically targeting the admiral and killing him by shooting down his plane.

Other historical events and figures brought up in the conversation between Fitz and Leo include the battle of Agincourt, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Bonhoeffer's involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

The President compares Shareef to Capone, meaning Al Capone. It's an interesting note to realize Capone was finally convicted not on charges of his gangland activities or murders, but merely for tax evasion. Is Jed suggesting his advisers find another way to get Shareef, knowing charges of terrorism are going to be hard to prove? He does suggest planting drugs on his airplane ...

Josh and Amy have quite a few pop culture references - there's two Van Morrison songs playing in Amy's apartment (Caravan and Moondance), Josh compares Amy's dancing to the movie Flashdance, Amy mentions a Werner Fassbinder festival they were planning to attend, Amy sarcastically refers to Leave It To Beaver while criticizing the marriage incentives in the welfare bill, and Josh says Amy has access to Sherry Lansing's platinum card.

In Donna's North Dakota plotline we have references to the Iditarod sled race and Mount Rushmore.

The Wars of the Roses compilation of Shakespeare's Henry plays is based on a real production.

The President says Shareef is coming to the US in his Learjet.

CJ calls Simon "Agent 99," which is a reference to the TV show Get Smart.

While the President and Leo are debating moral absolutes, Jed mentions Il Principe, or The Prince by Machiavelli. The basic premise of the book is that for politicians, the ends (power and survival) justify even the most immoral of means.