Perich’s analysis and review of The West Wing Season 2 continues with Episodes 3 through 5: “The Midterms,” “In This White House” and “And It’s Surely to Their Credit.”
THE MIDTERMS
While Josh recovers from surgery, the staff launches support for midterm Congressional races. Charlie gets distant with Zoey, Toby obsesses over the extremists responsible for the attack, Bartlet obsesses over a former rival, and Sam urges a friend to run for office.
From the standpoint of craft, I admire the use of the midterm races as a narrative device to speed up time and get Josh back on his feet. It’s eminently plausible that the White House would spend twelve weeks in crisis mode, defending incumbents and boosting challengers. This keeps the audience from having to jump back and forth between Josh’s bedside and the Oval Office, which is fortunate.
I also admire how Sorkin tells the story of Charlie shying away from Zoey almost entirely off-camera. When I saw how that arc began, I grew dangerously bored. There are few tropes more rusted than a hero choosing to keep his love at bay because of (bitter sigh) his enemies. Thankfully, not only is it resolved within an episode, it’s resolved almost entirely off-camera! Zoey passes through rooms, looking for Charlie but not finding him, and at one point even addresses a question to Leo, off-screen, while another scene is starting. We forget all about it until the happy ending, where they make out on the White House porch.
(Since these are the first episodes of The West Wing I’ve seen, I never realized how much of a coup it was when Matthew Weiner landed Elizabeth Moss for Mad Men. She’s a gem of an actor)
Speaking of anticipating my objections, the plotline with Sam recruiting his college buddy to run for office is a refreshing change from last week’s idealism. Sam brings Tom and his wife Sarah to the White House, pitching them on a golden opportunity: the chance to run for Congress with the President’s endorsement. Given Bartlet’s record approval ratings, it seems like a sure thing.
Except, of course, it isn’t: a few sticky details in Tom’s past prevent the President from endorsing him, which costs him the race. The scene where Leo breaks the news to Sam hurts, especially because of its inevitability. Sam made the promise to Tom in good faith, but can’t back it up. It’s not a case of him choosing between his friends and the White House – he can’t choose. It has to play out the way it does, in disappointment. Serving the interests of an institution forces you to make shitty calls sometimes.
That said, while I love the direction I have a hard time with the tone. I’m glad they didn’t make Tom an overt racist, instead sprinkling his past with spinnable elements – a preference for white juries, membership in an all-white fraternity. This is good, because we shouldn’t be supporting Sam for casting aside his racist chum; we should be sympathizing with him for letting a friend down. And yet – jury selection? an old fraternity? These are the elements that cost a candidate the Presidential seal of approval? Did Sorkin actually know who was in Congress at the time of writing?
Also, while the scene where Tom and Sarah confront Sam in his office is great, Sarah unloads an awful lot of venom. This over a Congressional run that wasn’t even a dream of theirs three months earlier. I have several friends who’ve made failed Congressional bids, and they all have successful careers, happy marriages and the support of their friends.
But, of course, the point of the scene isn’t to be realistic but to forebode. Something tells me that this is going to come back to haunt Sam, perhaps the thunder pounding outside and the dark-eyed woman snarling, “If we ever get a chance to screw you in the future …” Is this what passes for foreshadowing in Sorkin’s writing? Was the gun that Josh got shot with stolen from above his fireplace in S1, perhaps?
I find Toby’s concerns about the legality of his proposed witch-hunt even more quaint than Leo’s concerns about Tom. What would an 18-year-old watching this show for the first time – someone whose political consciousness was formed during the War on Terror – think of this story arc? There might be a statute that prevents the FBI from going after people tangentially connected with an extremist group? Cheap shots at the [last / current / next] administration aside, this was old news even when The West Wing was being written. The Clinton Administration had no problem going after domestic terrorists (of which there were a few in that time), or using tools like extraordinary rendition.
I can’t swallow that someone who researched the details of the White House as meticulously as Sorkin did could be so wrong on the tone of its staff. But of course, Sorkin isn’t wrong, because he’s not telling a story about real White House staffers. He’s telling a story about conflicted, passionate heroes who happen to work in the White House. Sorkin’s protagonists are always deeply passionate people, whether they’re working in sports broadcasting (SportsNight), sketch comedy (Studio 60 …) or social media (The Social Network). Sorkin’s acknowledged embellishments in the story of the founding of Facebook don’t make The Social Network a less compelling story and, I suppose, neither do Sorkin’s embellishments of how Democrats act when they have power.
This is also the episode where Bartlet goes off on a rant to a Dr. Laura stand-in. I mention it now but I’m going to talk about it later, because it ties in better with “And It’s Surely to Their Credit.” But here it is, since I know you love it so:
The episode ends with the staff sitting on Josh’s stoop, passing a bottle of wine and saying, “God bless America.” And they mean it, too. I would have written it off as cheap fluff were it not for my girlfriend sitting next to me, who observed (unprompted) that that’s the sort of thing White House staffers probably say. And while I’m not sure I agree with that, it’s definitely the sort of thing we might hope White House staffers would say (especially if it’s an administration we like). And to take it one further, it’s the sort of thing a White House staffer might say, not out of deep sincerity but out of a conscious imitation of what they imagine a White House staffer is supposed to say. We are all conscious of the roles we’re expected to play to varying degrees, and sometimes we make choices based on the role rather than our desires. I imagine you can’t get to the White House, the most powerful office in the history of the human species, without being very conscious of the meaning of roles and images.
Sitting around with your coworkers and saying, “God bless America” with throaty solemnity is simultaneously unrealistic and very likely to happen. That’s the sort of weird pageantry that the White House and The West Wing demand of us.
IN THIS WHITE HOUSE
Sam’s humiliation on TV at the hands of a conservative writer gets compounded when Leo offers her a job. CJ panics over a slip of the tongue to a junior reporter. Toby and Josh coordinate a summit between the President of an African country and a panel of pharmaceutical CEOs on lowering the price of HIV drugs.
You wouldn’t think a show this dense with plot, character and verisimilitude would need to pad out a script with fluff. But consider this exchange between Leo and Ainsley Hayes when he offers her a job:
AINSLEY
Yes, sir. I’ll ask again: for what purpose was I brought here today?LEO
So I could offer you a job.AINSLEY
I’m asking because I do not think that it is fair that I be expected to play the role of the mouse to the White House’s cat in the game of, well, you know the game.LEO
Cat and mouse?AINSLEY
Yes. And it’s not like I’m not, you know… the fact that I may not look like some of the other Republicans who have crossed your path does not mean I am any less inclined towards…LEO
Here it comes.AINSLEY
Did you say offer me a job?LEO
Yes. Associate White House counsel. You’d report to the Deputy White House Counsel, who reports to the White House Counsel, who reports to me.AINSLEY
I’m sorry… A job in this White House?
I know that’s Sorkin’s attempt at being clever, but it just drags. It adds nothing to the narrative. We know, before the scene even begins, that Leo’s going to offer Ainsley a job. We can guess, based purely on what we know of her character, that her feelings will be conflicted. There’s no reason that this scene had to take three minutes. There’s no reason it couldn’t take 30 seconds.
This is one of my least favorite Sorkin tricks. It’s his homage to screwball, the machine gun patter of Cary Grant comedies of the 30s and 40s, but it rarely works. I never thought I’d find myself missing the laugh tracks of Sports Night, but at least they gave a script room to breathe.
It’s not purely a stylistic flourish, of course. It’s important that everyone in a Sorkin script be smart. We see lots of characters who act as villains, or as obstacles, or as comic foils, but they’re very rarely stupid. Ainsley may be confrontational, and she may be defending people that Sam considers reprehensible (gun owners), but she doesn’t mouth hollow rhetoric. She has smart, or at least clever, rejoinders to every point he makes, rejoinders that she deploys with lightning speed in her Round 2 with Sam outside Leo’s office.
You think because I don’t want to work here it’s because I can get a better gig on Geraldo? Gosh, let’s see if there could possibly be any other reason why I wouldn’t want to work in this White House? This White House that feels that government is better for children than parents are. That looks at forty years of degrading and humiliating free lunches handed out in a spectacularly failed effort to level the playing field and says, ‘Let’s try forty more.’ This White House that says of anyone that points that out to them, that they are cold and mean and racist, and then accuses Republicans of using the politics of fear. This White House that loves the Bill of Rights, all of them – except the second one.
This works even with the pharmaceutical company CEOs, who make it out of “In This White House” without being painted as venomous lizards. Yes, they’re stiff white assholes who are out of touch with the people their HIV medication serves – sub-Saharan Africans, who have a rate of HIV infection that makes the Black Plague look choosy. But there are legitimate reasons why flooding the nation of Kundu with HIV drugs won’t work. The CEOs may be callous but they’re not villainous.
No character in The West Wing, whether on the side of the angels or not, ever lacks for a comeback. This makes for stimulating dialogue and gives everyone depth, or at least the appearance of depth. But it can also make the conflicts fake and stagey. When all you have is Final Draft, everything looks like a monologue. No one expresses their feelings through a hurt look, or quiet reflection, or a wordless gesture, when there’s an opportunity to rant.
“The Midterms” was a sharp, strong episode, because everything flowed into one theme: the merit of holding fast, even when it seems like your efforts are futile. Sam’s faith is tried when he has to disappoint his friends; Toby’s faith is tried when the FBI can’t hunt down extremists. But everyone cleaves together because they believe that the system has merit.
In contrast, “In This White House” doesn’t have as strong of a theme. Ainsley tries to provide one with her clunky capstone monologue – that, despite disagreements, the staff of the Bartlet Administration are “righteous.” But where does CJ’s adolescent evasion of a feared felony charge fit into that theme? Or the existentialist muddle that comes from trying to aid African politics? The moral of this story is …?
AND IT’S SURELY TO THEIR CREDIT
Ainsley Hayes deals with her first week of working in a hostile White House. CJ chases down a disgruntled general. Sam tries convincing Josh to sue the white supremacists behind the men who shot him. Bartlet tries recording the weekly radio address despite several distractions.
If “In This White House” was a setup to the developments in “And It’s Surely to Their Credit,” I get what Sorkin was trying to do. It’s not the best choice, since an episode should stand or fall on its own merits, but it makes “And It’s Surely …” that much stronger. There is a theme to this episode, unlike “In This White House,” and it’s a theme that strikes right at the heart of the series.
This episode is replete with people rattling off trivia to win arguments. When CJ is facing off with the retiring General Barrie, she answers each of his criticisms of the President, and of recent defense strategy, with not just a string of facts but with meaningful insight as well. Sam tries to excite Josh about suing the Klan by delivering a series of precedents (all real, by the way). Abbey forestalls Bartlet’s excitement by launching into a list of historical women whom the U.S. has yet to honor. And there’s a recurring debate over whether a lyric came from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance or H.M.S. Pinafore.
GENERAL BARRIE:
Two divisions, the 10th Mountain Division at Ft. Drum and the 1st Infantry in Germany, have been rated C4. That’s the lowest of four possible readiness grades. It means, “Unfit for service.”C.J.: No sir. Again, with all respect, I hate to disagree, but it means unfit for service based on the Pentagon’s “two war” doctrine. It’s based on how fast these divisions would be able to extract themselves from their peacekeeping mission, retrain on home bases, and ship off to a second of two, full-scale Gulf-War-sized conflicts.
In three of these four instances, victory goes to whoever has the best grasp on the trivia at hand. Abbey gets Bartlet to mention women who need to be honored in his radio address. C.J. gets the general to back down, not only answering his points but also leveraging some knowledge about military history to extort his silence. And Sam convinces Lionel Tribby that “He is an Englishman” comes from Pinafore, not Penzance by citing his history with the Princeton Gilbert and Sullivan Society.
Having a more complete knowledge of precedent is the key to victory over your opponents in The West Wing. We see that in a few other places, and will doubtless see it again, but it’s bold here. You prove that you’re right by proving that you know more about the subject than the other guy, and you prove what you know by reciting it at hummingbird speed. He who has the best memory for quotes wins.
This brings me back, as promised, to Bartlet’s rant to the Dr. Laura stand-in at the end of “The Midterms.” Bartlet proves he knows the Bible better than she does by rattling off a number of barbaric punishments, chapter and verse. The implication, unspoken but obvious, is that Exodus and Leviticus are full of lots of monstrous trivia that nobody lives by today. The President wins because he has more data on his side. “That’s how I beat him,” he tells Toby at the end, referring to an earlier political opponent he’s been stressing over.
I’m leaning on this point because it’s a distinctly Sorkin choice. The staffers of the Bartlet administration are heroes because they have facts and precedent on their side. But we could just as easily imagine a staff that was heroic because they disregarded precedent. “To hell with tradition,” Sam might say. “So what if no one’s ever sued the Klan because of a tenuous connection to some lone wolf assassins? Let’s beat a new trail!” It wouldn’t even be that jarring of a story. We’re more accustomed to our heroes doing new things than wrapping themselves in the mantle of the old.
Or let me put it another way. Suppose Leviticus 18:22 said homosexuality was an abomination, but none of the other chapters of Leviticus said anything too bad. Would Dr. Jenna have won that face-off?
But The West Wing isn’t about breaking with tradition. It’s steeped in tradition. The staffers aren’t pioneers; they’re magistrates. They know all the twists and turns of the institution of democracy, and they prove it by keeping every obscure detail at their fingertips.
This, I suspect, is a large part of The West Wing‘s appeal. It tells smart people that their mastery of details is not only valuable, but a sign of goodness. It’s a Kantian ethic: right emerges not from right ends, but from correct action. Correct action – fidelity to the facts; knowing Pentagon readiness standards or Leviticus verses better than anyone – naturally flows into right ends. The categorical imperative tells us to keep our eyes on the path; that way, we’ll know we’re doing the right thing.
We must live and act morally, per Immanuel Kant, not because it makes us feel good but because it is our obligation. Acting to attain pleasure or satisfaction or just the warm certainty of rightness is utilitarianism, the way of Locke and Bentham and J.S. Mill. But doing right simply because it’s the right thing to do, regardless of how it makes us feel, is deontological. We do the right thing not because we derive pleasure from it, but because it is our duty.
Duty is the other major theme of “And It’s Surely …”. When arguing with Ainsley about Penzance, Lionel cites “Penzance or Iolanthe … one of the ones about duty.” “They’re all about duty,” replies Ainsley. This observation pops up more than once in the episode. Gilbert and Sullivan’s musicals are all about duty. They all involve formal societies, whether under the flag of England, Japan or a pirate fleet. The protagonists are torn between their hearts and the obligations of their social status. Fortunately, comic twists at the end allow them to fulfill both (you’re secretly a noble! everyone marries everyone else!).
Ainsley Hayes joins a Democratic White House out of a sense of duty. She feels drawn to the pomp and tradition of American government and will jump at the chance to serve it, even if it’s under an administration she disagrees with. General Barrie claims that it’s his duty to alert the public to “staggeringly dangerous vulnerabilities” in the American defense posture. CJ points out, however, that the General is following his heart, not his duty, and that his own sense of protocol is weak. Everyone argues about and wonders over what their duty entails and how best to live up to it.
And that’s one of the most striking tones of The West Wing. Conservative critics may have struggled with the show due to Sorkin’s liberal politics, but the characters are hardly radical. Nothing they propose is radical. Rather, they spend significant portions of each episode arguing over which of them hews closest to tradition. Toby looks for a legal precedent to justify sending the FBI after the Klan. CJ panics because she thinks she’s leaked grand jury information. And everyone in the White House staff has an opinion on Gilbert and Sullivan.
It’s easy to throw an old framework up against the wall and put a bullet in its head in the name of revolution. It’s hard to work within the system and still get the changes you want. And while yours truly would say that working within the system isn’t always worth it, I still recognize the appeal.
