Perich’s analysis and review of The West Wing Season 2 continues with Episodes 6 through 8: “The Lame Duck Congress,” “The Portland Trip” and “Shibboleth.”
Episodes 1 and 2
Episodes 3, 4 and 5
THE LAME DUCK CONGRESS
The administration considers recalling Congress to pass a nuclear test ban treaty; a Ukranian politician arrives unannounced at the White House; Sam reluctantly asks Ainsley to summarize a position paper; C.J.’s personal and professional relationship with Danny becomes more complex. (c/o IMDb)
“It’s going to look like politics,” C.J. complains, when discussing the prospect of calling a “lame duck” session of Congress to get a favorable vote on a nuclear test ban treaty. “It is politics,” replies Toby. That’s the core of the episode right there: the balance between political process and noble ideology. Toby has strong feelings about the test ban treaty. He considers it essential to avoiding nuclear war between India and Pakistan, a position that he yells to a White House tour group. And yet the strength of his belief does not help him barrel through the petty politics necessary to get the votes needed.
I can’t imagine anyone watches The West Wing who doesn’t already know American Congressional procedure backward and forward, but: when one set of representatives is voted out of Congress and another is voted in, there’s a window of about eight weeks where a bunch of Representatives and Senators who are about to lose their seats still have power. Members who lose their seats typically fly home to immediately begin their career as lobbyists, but they can still cast votes until January, when the new members of Congress are sworn in.
A “lame duck” session isn’t considered truly dirty pool, but it can look shifty or desperate. Since the party membership of Congress didn’t change in “The Midterms” (S2E3), the Democrats have just as many seats now as they did before the election. Sneaking in a vote while many of the Republicans who lost their seats are out of D.C., while scrambling to make sure that the Democrats who lost their seats fly back to D.C. and vote for it, requires logistical finesse. And if it fails, it’s a blow to the President’s image as the leader of the Democratic party.
Those are the two facets of politics that frustrate the Bartlet Administration the most: process and image. Process is the “republic” part of America’s democratic republic: the body of rules that govern how legislators can pass or block votes, the Constitutional trivia that the White House staff love to rattle off. Image is the “democratic” part: how the actions of elected representatives look to voters. Opening up on process can cost you image; relying on image can leave you vulnerable to process.
In S2E6, some folks worry about process (Toby and Leo, off “counting noses”) and some folks worry about image. C.J. shies away from Danny Concannon, hoping that he’ll take the editorial job he’s been offered at the Washington Post so that they can date more openly. She doesn’t like the image of a White House press correspondent dating the Press Secretary.
Meanwhile, Josh has to deal with a drunken Ukranian minister who insists on meeting with the President. Josh explains (and, we suspect, the minister already knows) that this man is too low on the org chart to merit a meeting with President Bartlet. But Romanov merely wants to say that he met with the President: a useful bit of currency in Ukranian politics.
Towering above process and image, the tip of the iron triangle, is ideology. Ideology is the element that gives meaning to process and image. Politics is a game, to be sure, but you have to be playing that game for a reason: the game is not an end in itself. Mastering process for its own sake makes you a schemer; mastering image for its own sake, a huckster. The question the Bartlet staff grapples with is “what noble goal does the process serve? what image should we be presenting?”
It’s people without ideology who are the villains in The West Wing. Not people who believe different from the White House staff (as the next episode will illuminate), but people who lack ideology. This is why Ainsley can call the Republican staffer who Sam meets with a “schmuck” to his face: he’s a games player, not a believer. This is why Ainsley still gets to work in the Bartlet White House, even helping Sam out with a key memo: because she believes in something and uses process and image to serve it.
AINSLEY
See, I don’t think you think the treaty’s bad, I don’t think you think it’s good, I think you want to beat the White House.KEENE
Yeah.AINSLEY
You’re a schmuck, Peter. Today, tomorrow, next year, next term, these guys’ll have the treaty ratified and they’ll do it without the reservations he just offered to discuss with you.(pause)
Can I take this muffin?
“You understand there is something outside yourself that has to be served,” observes Michael Lonsdale in Ronin. “And when that need is gone, when belief has died, what are you?” Delight in battle is not enough for the Bartlet staff. This is why, when Toby realizes that Senator Marino isn’t going to come back to vote for the test ban treaty that he helped to craft, the momentum deflates. There are a dozen other legislative tricks that Barlet might try to get the treaty signed. But ideology must yield to process and image. The tripod has to remain stable.
We have people for whom ideology trumps process or image: Senator Marino, honoring his voters’ intention and staying out of Congress. We have those for whom process trumps ideology or image: Peter, the Republican staffer who won’t help Sam out on the test ban votes. And we have people for whom image trumps ideology or process: Vasily Romanov, who just wants to tell his Ukranian constituency that he met with the President of the United States.
Were it not for a couple of lame (ha!) rhetorical flourishes, this would be a great episode. Bartlet caps the day off with a hokey observation about the difference between a democracy and a republic, an observation that would impress anyone who’s too dumb to watch this kind of show but sounds obvious to its target audience. Sixth-grade civics, Sorkin; we expect better.
The Portland Trip
C.J. joins the President on a flight to Portland after a wisecrack about Notre Dame; Josh seeks to defeat an anti-gay marriage bill; Sam wants to rewrite an education speech; an oil tanker appears to be violating UN sanctions; Josh teases Donna over her dating record. (c/o IMDb)
Oil sanctions in Iraq and gay marriage – a plot that could be ripped from today’s headlines. Say what you will about The West Wing, you can’t say it’s not timely.
Bartlet and all the staff save Josh and Leo embark on a flight of fancy, literal and figurative, across the U.S. at night. Bartlet tries to inspire the staff to come up with imaginative ideas to common problems, using the imagery of a nighttime transcontinental flight as a metaphor. That’s Bartlet’s job: to be the ideologue and visionary. It’s the job of his staff to turn his visions into reality.
Sam’s very concerned about policy in this episode. He’s frustrated that the President’s new education initiative is weak and uninspiring. He insists on revising the President’s speech several times, leading C.J. to make the embarrassing request of asking to get it back from the Press Corps. Danny asks if this is because of changes in policy. It’s not – at least, not initially – but that’s the appearance it creates. Last episode, we saw how process and image were two parts of the political tripod. Here, we see how they feed into each other: Sam’s concerns over image turn into changes in policy.
Sam’s ideology also informs image, as he tries to sneak the phrase “permanent revolution” into the President’s education speech.
TOBY
Where have I heard that?SAM
Permanent revolution?TOBY
Yeah.SAM
I got it from a book.TOBY
What book?SAM
The Little Red Book.TOBY
You think we should quote Mao Tse-tung?SAM
We do need a permanent revolution.TOBY
Still, I think we’ll stay away from quoting Communists.SAM
You think a Communist never wrote an elegant phrase?TOBY
Sam…SAM
How do you think they got everyone to be Communist?
While Sam’s not a doctrinaire Communist, he obviously read Mao’s Little Red Book and found parts of it memorable enough. He seizes on the phrase and grills Toby: why can’t education be a revolutionary idea in the U.S.? Ideology informs image.
(Meanwhile, in the conservative alternate universe The West Wing, White House Deputy Communications Director Dan Dearborn tries to sneak the phrase “moochers of the spirit” into a speech, only for his boss to recognize it as a line from Atlas Shrugged. “You want to quote the most famous American atheist of the Twentieth Century at the National Prayer Breakfast?” he asks. “Gotta admit,” Dearborn says, “the line sticks with you.”)
Back on the humble ground, Josh spars with an old friend of his, a Republican Congressman who’s backing the GOP on a bill that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Josh throws out one objection after another, but can’t breach the Congressman’s smooth rhetoric. Finally, he cracks, asking the question that’s been on his mind the whole evening: “How can you be a member of this party?!? […] This party who says that who you are is against the law.”
(“You’ve been holding that in way too long,” the Congressman remarks. As a writing device, this is pretty weak: forestalling an obvious conflict just to fill out a narrative arc.)
But Congressman Skinner goes on to explain how he can be a member of a party that doesn’t consider him enough of a human being to deserve marriage recognition:
I agree with 95% of the Republican platform. I believe in local government. I’m in favor of individual rights rather than group rights. I believe free markets lead to free people and that the country needs a strong national defense. My life doesn’t have to be about being a homosexual. It doesn’t have to be entirely about that.
As I mentioned in reviewing the last episode: so long as you have ideology, you’re not a villain on The West Wing. So long as you don’t sell out entirely to the games-playing or the sound bites, it doesn’t matter what you believe. Skinner believes in the GOP platform. He believes in it enough that he’ll stand by his party even as they vote to obstruct his right to marry whom he wants. What’s the alternative – cross the aisle to side with a party where he only agrees with one issue? It’s a hard choice, sure, but it’s the choice anyone makes when they play politics.
Politics requires compromise. I’d be willing to bet a fiery ideologue like Sam opposed oil sanctions on Iraq, knowing that the populace would bear the brunt of the economic harm. I’d also be willing to bet an idealist like Toby wasn’t keen on America’s cozy relationship with Bahrain (where Leo says the Navy plans to divert the captured oil tanker). We don’t see any of those conflicts this episode, though. Ideology is not an obstacle to politics: it’s an accelerant. Ideology informs image (“permanent revolution”), image informs policy (college incentives for teachers) and policy informs ideology (put the right incentives in place and good things can happen!).
This is the brand of managerial liberalism that Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein (currently President Obama’s Information and Regulatory Affairs czar) proposed in Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness. Thaler and Sunstein describe the proposed policies in this book as “libertarian paternalism”: leaving people’s freedom to choose untouched, while simultaneously arranging the available choices in such a way as to direct people toward what’s healthier. Examples include posting calorie information in restaurant menus, or creating tuition incentives for students who pledge to teach in underserved schools (as Charlie proposes in this episode).
Libertarian paternalism is a textbook example of the blending of ideology, policy and image. It arises from the belief that people’s lives can be made better, while at the same time respecting their freedom to choose. The policies are all delicate balances of psychology, incentives and timing. And everything is phrased in such a way as to be as inoffensive as possible. It’s a pronounced change from the culture wars that dominate the headlines (like gay marriage) or the blunt application of military force (like oil sanctions).
I mentioned Bartlet’s lack of character flaws when analyzing the first two episodes and some folks pointed out his love of Notre Dame. That’s not a character flaw; that’s a comic quirk. Sure, he makes C.J. wear a goofy hat, but he doesn’t exhibit poor behavior. It’s thrown off for a laugh. I’d find him – or any of the White House – easier to swallow if they had something wrong with them. And not in the job interview sense of a character flaw: “Sam’s problem is that he believes too much.” I want Josh to be lazier, Toby to be more paranoid, and C.J. to snap back when the men in her life think it’s cute to tease her. And while I love Leo, I’d prefer him as an actual drunk to a recovering one.
SHIBBOLETH
Dozens of Chinese stowaways are discovered in a container ship in California; Toby looks to pick a fight over school prayer with a recess appointment; Thanksgiving at the White House sees C.J. in charge of turkeys and Charlie looking for the ultimate carving knife. (c/o IMDb)
TV episodes connected to major holidays always need a special tolerance for sappiness. And when it’s The West Wing, which tends to be sappy even under the best of circumstances, we really have to lower the bar. But when the “Previously on …” montage consists entirely of scenes where the characters introduce themselves and their job titles, you know not to expect much. That’s the producers’ way of saying this episode is so trivial that it requires no prior context.
There are two big conflicts within the episode: the nomination of Leo’s sister Josie as an Assistant Secretary of Education and the sudden arrival of the Chinese refugees. Josie is nominated for one of the most harmless sounding positions in the history of bureaucracy, but the Republicans are willing to fight her nomination tooth and nail over the subject of school prayer. Toby’s willing to go to the mat defending her in order to pick a fight over school prayer. And Leo, normally the practical one, has to throw her under the bus because she violated one of his principles: “we do not strut, ever.” Every gesture is rife with meaning, which would be easier to stomach if the gestures weren’t so petty and procedural.
The Chinese refugees are a weightier matter. Shipping them back to China will likely result in their incarceration or death. However, keeping them in the States requires some tricky navigation of precedent, especially with relations with China as tense as they are. When the Chinese claim to be fleeing religious persecution, Bartlet has one of them flown to the White House to verify if his faith is sincere. I don’t know why this is Bartlet’s job, given that the Scrooby Separatists fled a country where the head of state was also the head of the church, a flight that Americans commemorate with an annual day of Thanksgiving, which Bartlet proclaims in this very episode. Couldn’t Jhin Wei meet with one of those humorless reverends that Josh and Sam met with earlier in the episode?
Jhin Wei proves his faith to Bartlet by quoting St. Paul: “For we hold that man is justified by faith alone.” This is an odd shibboleth, especially when directed at Bartlet. Bartlet is a devout Catholic, as evidenced by his passion for Notre Dame, in which he enrolled with the intent of becoming a priest (as established in “The Portland Trip”). Even if you’re fuzzy on the details, you might recall that the Catholics and certain other sects had a bit of a falling out over whether faith alone (sola fide) or faith plus good works would save a man’s soul. The Catholic Church took the position, hammered out in the Council of Trent (1545-63), that faith was necessary but not sufficient for salvation. This announcement led to a bit of a scrap in Europe.
For Bartlet to nod and glow when Jhin Wei attests that “faith is the true shibboleth” is, at best, a remarkably relaxed view of the catechism. We’ve seen that Bartlet is not a totally doctrinaire Catholic, as evinced by his dressing down of Dr. Jenna in “The Midterms” on the subject of gay marriage. But the prohibition against gay marriage is one line of Leviticus, a body of Mosaic law that no Catholics practice in their entirety. The idea that faith plus good works equals salvation is not an escapable tenet. It’s pretty much the core belief of the Roman Catholic faith. You can’t just say you believe; you have to demonstrate that belief through a Christly life and through following certain sacraments.
But these aren’t Bartlet’s Catholic beliefs that are set on the scale here. They’re Sorkin’s beliefs. For Sorkin, remember, ideology is necessary. It’s having an ideology that separates you from the cynical games-players (pure process) and hucksters (pure image). Obviously, being able to count noses and trade votes makes it easier for you to pursue your ideology, and being able to sell your ideology to the public will keep you in power longer. But Sorkin has a soft spot for those who believe, even if they lack the power to make their beliefs into law. For Sorkin, sola fide: faith alone is enough.
There’s also a thing with turkeys and Paul Revere’s knife; the less said of those the better.
