Original airdate: April 21, 2004
Written by: Eli Attie (11)
Directed by: Richard Schiff (1)
Synopsis
- Josh is conflicted after a trade deal he brokered ends up with American jobs moving overseas. CJ tries to get the press corps to report on a media consolidation story. And we meet a new NSC deputy who speaks frankly to the President.
File this one under the series' post-Aaron-Sorkin attempts at explaining a big complicated issue by talking it to death. Globalization and free trade and job migration and the loss of union jobs (even technical jobs!) is the subject here, with wonky details from both the liberal and conservative sides being thrown at the viewer in an attempt to not offend anybody from either side, but finally just boring everyone out of their wits. Plus it makes us wonder why people like Josh are presented as so brilliant and conniving and yet can't see the inevitable consequences of some of the policies they help put into place.
Josh: "No one is more concerned about the dislocation than me, so if you've got some issues, we should --"
Haffley: "Let's get right to my issues."
Josh: "Sure."
Haffley: "I have no issues."
Josh: "Meaning?"
Haffley: "Meaning you're home, Josh."
Not only do the Republicans not need any extra convincing to support the deal, they're thrilled. The provisions on free trade are a boon to the corporations that are the traditional Republican constituents, while the side agreements the White House put in to protect the unions and the working class are "not even enforceable," according to Haffley. Josh worked hard to put together an agreement on behalf of the White House that turns out to be everything the Republicans could ever want, and the Speaker twists the knife a little on his way out of the meeting:
Haffley: "India can have our programming jobs. We'll give them up like we gave up horses and buggies. They can't take away what's great about the American spirit."
Josh: "That's ... that's it?"
Haffley: "Unless I can interest you in running for Congress as a Republican."
Then Ryan piles on to add insult to injury. It's finally his last day as Josh's intern - a celebratory day for Josh, it would appear - but, surprise! Ryan resurfaces as legislative director for a congressman. That means he'll continue to be a pain in Josh's neck (just for other reasons), but after he makes it clear what he learned working for Josh, Josh has to reconsider what the day and the trade deal has brought him.
Ryan: "If you taught me anything, it's that my view doesn't matter anyway. You take your bosses' position - lock, stock, and sound bite - and you get what you came for. Am I right?"
Josh is devastated that he can't do anything to help out the programmers represented by the two union members sitting in his office. And he's devastated by the fact he and the campaign promised they would protect them, but then basically gave their jobs away for the "greater good." He does come clean with that, telling the workers that while he can't keep that promise, he can try his best to do whatever he can to help them get through the disruption.
CJ, meanwhile, is baffled by an FCC decision on the allowable percentage of media stations any one corporation can own in a media market. When Will lays out the details, the numbers don't make sense to her:
CJ: "So, what's the compromise?"
Will: "Instead of letting one company own stations reaching 45% of all the viewers, the FCC's agreed they can only reach 39.37%."
CJ: "39.37%?"
Will: "These things can be very scientific."
CJ: "I'm going to need a slide rule during my briefing. 39.37%?"
After a bit of research, CJ discovers that percentage wasn't reached randomly - it happens to be the concentration of ownership in a media market that one big corporation holds already, so this "compromise" by the FCC merely locks in place the stations Mertmedia already owns. This seems like a big deal to CJ - diversity of thought and ownership in news media ought to be important - but she can't get the White House press corps to give it any attention.
After Leo tells her the administration isn't going to press the issue either, but she can use her briefing room to talk about it if she wants, CJ decides she'll use the briefing room in another way. She brings in a remodeling team to yank out most of the seats for the reporters - instead of each media outlet getting a chair, she's consolidating the seats so that there's just a chair for each corporate owner, which takes the room down to about seven seats. Of course the reporters throw a fit, and of course CJ immediately retracts her statement and puts the chairs back, but her point is made.
Apparently this stunt impresses Leo so much he offers to pay for the carpentry work. This doesn't seem at all like something Leo would do ... he knows the reality of corporate media, he knows CJ's gambit wouldn't have any impact on anything at all, in fact he'd probably be a little upset at her angering the press corps for no real reason ... but okay, there it is anyway.
Speaking of CJ, Ben is still a thing, and she's still trying to show everyone that she doesn't need the attention of a man to make her a complete person, although ...
CJ: "I'm sorry, I can't do this right now."
Ben: "Do what?"
CJ: "This leaving-on-a-jet-plane-can't-bear-to-be-without-you-for-36-hours bit."
Ben: "Okay."
CJ: "I've got labor leaders frothing at the mouth making unverified claims, a media conspiracy run amok, I can't need to see you every 37 seconds to achieve completion as a human being."
Ben: "Fine."
CJ: "Are we clear on this?"
Ben: "Sure."
CJ: "Good."
Ben: "Can I say something?"
CJ: "Go right ahead."
Ben (handing CJ some items): "You left your passport at my house. You left your wallet at my house. You left your driver's license and all your credit cards at my house. Have a safe flight."
This makes CJ feel terrible, so she convinces Ben to stay for an apologetic late lunch in her office. As I've said before, I can't see what the point is of this entire Ranger Ben/CJ storyline, except that John Wells is bringing in more personal-relationship soap-opera-y types of storylines to the show. I don't know if I can see a future in it the way things are going ... I mean, CJ pretty much blew Ben off (even after deciding to pledge to try to make a go of it with him) because of the requirements and pace of her job in Eppur si Muove, and here she's doing the same thing ("I'm so busy and important as a self-sufficient independent woman, don't you dare try to think your attachment to me makes a difference in my own life") ... why would Ben put up with this? I guess CJ's assertion from Galileo that she's "great in bed" must be true, huh?
We meet a new character: Kate Harper, Nancy McNally's deputy on the National Security Council. Kate will be with us throughout the rest of the run of the series, and we get a taste of her, well, tactless situational approach, maybe is the way to put it? First she chastises Debbie for having the Secret Service locator device screen visible to Oval Office visitors; then when President Bartlet asks for her opinion on a situation with France holding prisoners they're refusing to extradite to the United States, she sort of takes the administration to task for stepping on the rights of the French government (although admittedly, she thinks she sees a danger in speaking frankly to the President).
Kate: "That's one way of looking at it, sir."
President: "You've got another way."
Kate: "That's not really my job, Mr. President."
President: "I'm asking you."
Kate: "There's a French side and an American side."
President: "I want your argument."
Kate: "Officially, I don't have an argument."
President: "Yet we're having one right now."
What Kate doesn't know, but what we the viewers have seen in past episodes, is that President Bartlet loves it when his advisers are frank and open in their discussions with him. Even though he seems brusque and irritated by an opposing viewpoint, he actually values those who feel comfortable with bringing them up in the Oval Office (Will's failure to stand up for himself with the fake problem planted in the speech in Holy Night serves as a perfect example of the opposite). We the viewers are observant enough and smart enough to know the President really digs a contrary point of view like the one Kate gives him, even if she doesn't know it.
Finally, Donna continues to stand up for herself and demand that Josh give her more responsibility and more growth in her career, rather than just filing and typing and getting charts for him. She's been indispensable to Josh from the beginning, and we've seen her do plenty of great, valuable things to support him (trying to track down Senator Hardin in Guns Not Butter, had a save of the Social Security payment issue in Shutdown, did key work on the pardons in The Benign Prerogative, was the rock of support by his side with the "what a shame" folder when he got benched by Leo in Disaster Relief) and has been Josh's conscience in a lot of ways (her setting Josh and Toby straight in 20 Hours In America Part 2 played a key part in inspiring the college-loan-deduction plank of the campaign). We also know how important they are to each other, even though Josh has some pretty poor ways of showing it [Donna's devotion to him was best expressed in 17 People, when Josh said (about her ex-boyfriend), "I'm just saying, if you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for a beer" and Donna replied, "If you were in an accident, I wouldn't stop for red lights"].
In Angel Maintenance, it was perhaps the first time we saw Donna specifically asking Josh for more responsibility. In that episode he gave her the job of looking up the background of maintenance on Air Force One. She's still looking for more, to not just be Josh's assistant but to grow into a real career:
Donna: "I just want to grow in my job, do something meaningful, do more than earn a paycheck until I die."
Josh: "Why are you saying that?"
Donna: "I only have one career, and I want it to matter, or I might as well be a soda jerk."
In this specific case she wants to be included on the trip to Brussels for the trade mission meeting, but Josh had let that opportunity slip by. But he has been listening, and after she's been (rightfully) angry at him through the episode for his seeming disinterest in her professional growth, he offers her a diplomatic passport:
Not for Brussels, not for the trade meeting, but for the upcoming congressional delegation to the Middle East, the one Toby's ex-wife Congresswoman Wyatt is on, the one that's come up over the past couple of episodes as a trip that could cause troubles for the administration if these legislators decide to try to negotiate with Palestinians or Israeli settlers. Josh wants Donna to be his eyes and ears on this trip and report back to him and Toby. It's a pretty big deal for her ... and we will find out this trip will turn out to be meaningful on a lot of levels we can't even imagine right now.
The trip is also a big enough deal that President Bartlet asks Admiral Fitzwallis, the recently retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to tag along as the administration's representative. His inclusion on the trip is also going to reverberate down the road into Season 6.
So that turned out to be a long missive on this episode from me - which I guess is fitting, given the complicated wonkiness of the plot in the first place. It's only right I should get complicatedly wonky in my essay on it, right? Anyway, we're heading into the home stretch of the end-of-the-season wrapup and the somewhat tradition season-ending "cliffhanger" of sorts ... but next, an odd little bottle episode off-ramp of a story that might leave us all scratching our heads.
Tales Of Interest!
- Toby directs a West Wing episode! Schiff's role here is the first time a cast member has dipped his or her toes into directing the show. We will get some more examples of cast members getting involved with behind-the-scenes production or writing as the years go on. Schiff will direct another episode in Season 7 as well as a 2009 episode of the HBO series In Treatment.
Josh asks the President if he's read the talking points, the sound-bite notes the administration wants to use to sell the media on the trade deal.
Quotes
Josh: "That's not the message."
Ed: "Protecting intellectual property through international copyright enforcement."
Josh: "Okay - I know what you're talking about, and I have no idea what you're talking about."
Larry: "Isn't that what we --"
Josh: "Free trade creates jobs. It creates better, higher paying jobs. We still have to pass this through Congress, let's not outsmart ourselves as if that were, you know, possible."
Josh: "Sir, have you read the talking points?"
President: "I'm an economist, some would say half-decent. I don't need a primer on this."
Charlie: "Due respect, sir, your answers on economic issues can be a bit --"
President: "Polysyllabic?"
CJ: "Academic."
Leo: "I was going to go with incomprehensible."
-----
CJ: "I can't become one of those women who wait by the phone, eyes a-fluttering."
Toby: "Eyes a-fluttering?"
CJ: "You know, parasol's a-twirling."
Josh: "Do you ever wonder if we forget the human face of free trade, the blood and muscle?"
Will: "You have to go with what grows the economy for everyone. There's blood and muscle in India, too."
-----
Leo: "We'll give them transition assistance."
Josh: "They call it burial insurance."
Leo: "Well, it's all burial insurance, isn't it?"
-----
Josh: "We can't save your jobs. We are going to create more in the long run, but we can't save your jobs. It's the short run we gotta figure out. The world's moving faster, we can't stop it. I wish we could. We are going to do more to prepare you. We have to."
Union member: "Is that a promise?"
Josh: "No, but we're gonna try."
Story threads, callbacks, and familiar faces (Hey, it's that guy!)
- It's our first meeting with Nancy McNally's new National Security Council deputy, Kate Harper (Mary McCormack, seen in Murder One, In Plain Sight, Private Parts, the late, lamented The Kids Are Alright. She's also part of the ER/West Wing pipeline). Kate will eventually become a series regular, and actually one of my favorite characters on the show.
- The lobbyist for JCN is played by Daniel Hugh Kelly (Ryan's Hope, Hardcastle and McCormick, I Married Dora, Star Trek: Insurrection).
- Speaker of the House Jeff Haffley is back, played by Steven Culp (Thirteen Days, JAG, Desperate Housewives). I don't believe we've seen the smug, self-assured Haffley since he got embarrassed by the White House in Shutdown.
- Admiral Fitzwallace (John Amos), the retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stops by as President Bartlet asks him to be part of the upcoming congressional delegation to the Middle East.
- Ben's relationship with CJ was first brought up in Constituency Of One, where we heard they had lived together for six months (this was later fleshed out as a thing that happened after they had graduated from Cal-Berkeley). Ben, a national park ranger in Alaska, was consistently calling CJ on the phone at that point. We learned later he had been married, but was now separated, and was taking a job in the Washington DC area and was just hoping to reconnect with his old flame. They've reconnected now, it seems (with CJ leaving her personal documents and things at Ben's house overnight).
- The continuing cast of reporters that are seen in this episode are Chris and Greg Brock.
DC location shots
- None.
They Do Exist! It's The Real Person, or Thing
- Here's some of the things that get referenced even before the opening credits roll:
- Josh's mention of a "giant sucking sound" of job losses reminds us of presidential candidate Ross Perot, who used the same phrase in his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement during the 1992 campaign.
- President Bartlet brings up Schumpeter's economic theory of "creative destruction," which indeed was a concept popularized by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter in his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
- Josh mentions the movie The Exorcist, and the folk singer Woody Guthrie; CJ uses the phrase "something's rotten in the state of Denmark" which comes from Shakespeare's play Hamlet. CJ also talks about decoder rings and a jar of Ovaltine, which could be a reference to the movie A Christmas Story.
- We see the book Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary From Colonial Times To The Present on CJ's desk.
- While the main subject of CJ's ire, MertMedia, was a fictional company created for this episode, other media conglomerates she names are very real: Viacom, News Corp, GE, Disney, Clear Channel, and the Tribune Company.
- We can see a sign for the Boston Globe in the press room.
- The MSNBC logo is shown prominently.
- Will brings up shopping at WalMart in his free trade discussion with Josh.
- CJ tells Leo, "This is the biggest media conspiracy since William Randolph Hearst was starting wars and crushing filmmakers." Hearst's newspapers were some of the key instigators in goading the United States into the Spanish-American War, and he famously retaliated against Orson Welles for the film Citizen Kane, regarded as a thinly-disguised portrait of Hearst's life.
- The President's story about King Canute holding back the tide is a story first recorded in the 12th century.
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