The West Wing, Season Five

Josh:
I think we made a mistake.

Donna:
What?

Josh:
Letting the President step aside.

Will:
Have you been watching CNN, MSNBC? Even FOX is treating it as a seminar on the resiliency of the Constitution.

Josh:
The President's daughter is probably tied up in the back of a gas station. We have no idea how this is playing.

Will:
He showed he's a leader, nobly embracing his own flawed humanity.

Josh:
Lincoln and Kennedy had children who died. They didn't take a sabbatical.

Toby:
Who's been calling?

Josh:
Congressional leadership.

Toby:
Lincoln never got a ransom note from Jefferson Davis. He's putting country before family. I'd carpet bomb Mecca to get my kids back.

Josh:
What if they like Walken better? What if he seems more presidential? What if they want Walken to stay?

Will:
In a few days, President Bartlet turns the second letter over to Congress.

Josh:
What if it doesn't take a few days? What if it takes a few weeks, a few months? What if she's never found?

Walken:
What are the chances Zoey Bartlet's still alive?

Casper:
Hard to say, but I think yes she probably is. They'll want to milk this for all its worth.

Walken:
Get your people in place, Admiral. We don't go today unless we're provoked. [to Casper] Find her and find her fast. But if Zoey Bartlet turns up dead, I'm going to blow the hell out of something, and God only knows what happens next.

Bartlet:
You work for the President. He's going to need you down there.

Charlie:
I work for you, sir. Someone else can show him where the Xerox paper is.

Bartlet:
You do a lot more than that.

Charlie:
Thank you, sir, but I'd prefer to stay here with you.

Democrat Speaker:
You've elevated Walken and the Republicans. You've made them genuine players on the world stage.

Leo:
I didn't elevate them. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 did. And I'm not prepared to think about politics when we're under terrorist attack. The Republic comes first.

Walken:
You know I'm not the enemy. The things that unite us are far greater than things that divide us. We both believe in democracy, preservation of American values, protection of our citizens in a sometimes hostile world.

C.J.:
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?

Walken:
Exactly.

Josh:
You're campaigning in the middle of a national tragedy....

Atwood:
You don't get it, do you? The Republicans are in awe of Bartlet. He recused himself in the only way he could. In the way envisioned by the Constitution... The whole notion of the 25th Amendment is that the institution matters more than the man. Bartlet's decision was even more self-sacrificing because he willingly gave power to his opposition.

Josh:
The institution may matter more, but it's your guy protecting it, not ours.

Atwood:
A truly self-sacrificing act usually involves some sacrifice.

Josh:
So, now you're going to nail us to the cross.

Atwood:
No. You beat the terrorists at their own game. We're not stupid, Josh. We try to use this to our advantage, it will blow up in our faces. We'd seem callous and unfeeling. In contrast to Bartlet's extraordinary gesture of courage and patriotism. And anyone who thinks otherwise has a particularly craven way of looking at politics.

Bartlet:
'The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral. Returning violence with violence only multiplies violence adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.'

Leo:
Dr. King.

Bartlet:
I'm part of that darkness now, Leo. When did that happen?

Leo:
Dr. King wasn't wrong. He just didn't have your job.

Walken:
This is a weird-looking room.

Debbie:
Truman called it the crown jewel of the federal penal system.

Walken:
You a Truman fan?

Debbie:
Yes, sir.

Walken:
Me, too.... If Truman were alive today, he'd be a Republican.

Debbie:
Oh, I doubt that very much.

Toby:
If we go two lines without using the phrase 'unimaginably large military arsenal' we're out of our minds.

Bartlet:
The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Words I did not fully understand until our daughter was taken from us three days ago. But now we can rejoice and be glad, for that which was lost has been found. That my child is back in her mother's arms is serendipity and grace, a second chance that will not slip through our fingers again. I wish I could tell you there is some new policy, some new weapons system, a silver bullet perhaps that could meet this moment, that could keep us safe from the terror that is now among us. But if I were to say that I'd be lying. All I can promise you is that I will fight with every fiber of my being, with every weapon in our arsenal, and with every ounce of God's grace to keep us strong, and free, and safe.

Will:
Diane Frost is a serious name.

Josh:
Diane is a serious loon of the left.

Toby:
I love Diane Frost. I'd marry Diane Frost if I were a member of her stated sexual preference, but Diane is the definition of unelectable.

Will:
We're having trouble with the Democrats.

C.J.:
Wow, along with the Republicans. That's kind of everyone.

Debbie:
Mrs. Bartlet, I can't tell you how hard I prayed for you.

Abbey:
I appreciate that.

Debbie:
Well, you shouldn't. I'm not very religious. So there's the risk that my praying could be taken as insincere or even an affront, which, if it's a vengeful God, could have made matters worse.

Abbey:
Well, it didn't, so maybe there's a clue.

Bartlet:
Are you a horseman Bob? I'm looking at your boots.

Russell:
Oh, I love to ride.... No, I wear these boots, um... Oh, I could give you some crap about remembering my roots, but I wear these because I've got flat feet and they don't hurt my arches.

Toby:
In a triumph of the middling, a nod to mediocrity, and with gorge rising, it gives me great nausea to announce Robert Russell - Bingo Bob, himself - as your new Vice President.

Will:
This lapdog of the mining interests is as dull as he is unremarkable...

Toby:
...as lackluster as he is soporific. This reversion to the mean...

Will:
...this rebuke to the exemplary...

Toby:
...gives hope to the millions unfavored by the exceptional...

Russell:
[entering] ...not the worst, not the best, just what we're stuck with.

C.J.:
We've certainly come a long way from "Give me your tired, your poor." If we don't allow this defection, if we blithely exploit this young man's ignorance, then I don't know who we are anymore.

Josh:
By refusing to put language to it, we pretend it does not exist. But it's something. Even if we don't know what to call it. I just think it's time to start working on a language plan for whatever it is we're doing, too.

Bartlet:
There's a Korean word, Han. I looked it up. There is no literal English translation. It's a state of mind. Of soul, really. A sadness. A sadness so deep no tears will come. And yet, still, there's hope.

Will:
I need to see my bed, I'm thinking of carrying a picture of it in my wallet.

Leo:
He's a Democrat from Idaho. They use Democrats for target practice up there. Sometimes he's got to lean to the right.

Josh:
You're leaving the party because of me?

Carrick:
I'm not leaving the party because of you - but you made it a whole lot easier.

Russell:
I admire speech writers. They have to have the tendency to doubt and the capacity to believe in equal measure.... I'm playing with a handicap.... Spare tire on the automobile of government. Heartbeat away from having a heartbeat.... I may need more help than that dead guy you got elected in Orange County, Will. I may need some political life support myself.... I'd like you to be my Communications Director.... I know I'm not the best politician, but here I am Vice President of the United States.

Will:
Sir, I'm a special assistant to the President.

Russell:
Chief strategist and senior counselor to the Vice President.

Will:
Are we playing poker?

Russell:
I'm showing you my hand.

Will:
You're looking for your own Toby Ziegler.

Russell:
I'm looking for someone who can beat Toby....

Will:
Thank you, sir, but I'm not interested.

Russell:
I like loyalty, Will. I respect loyalty. But you can run out the clock on a Bartlet Presidency that in effect is over. You can finish something that you never started in the first place.... Or you can shape the next presidency from the ground up. Total access. Coach of the team.

Josh:
It's a missile defense system that can't hit missiles.... when were you promised-?

Carrick:
Seven years ago.

Josh:
Under the last President?

Carrick:
Right.

Josh:
Okay, a bunch of things have fallen by the wayside since then, like Communism....

Donna:
Schadenfreude?

C.J.:
You know, enjoying the suffering of others. The whole rationale behind the House of Representatives.

Josh:
When I write my political memoir, this will be the character building funny part.

Donna:
I thought I was the character building funny part.

Will:
[about Toby] He hates me.

C.J.:
Oh, yeah. The way you hate the girl you ask to the prom who says, 'No thanks, I already have a date.' You made a choice. Now own it.

Josh:
I'm just trying to see around the corner so I don't get bit in the ass.

Donna:
Are you going around the corner ass-first?

Josh:
Vast and violent vacuum cleaner, uprooting everything in its path.

Toby:
It's a funnel cloud.

Josh:
Vast and violent vacuum cleaner.

C.J.:
It's a vacuum cleaner and a funnel cloud. See, men? Peace on earth.

Chief Justice Ashland:
It's all compromises, now. The ones who have no record of scholarship; no body of opinions, nothing you can hold them to. That's who they'll confirm. Raging mediocrities...I have good days and bad. But on my worst days, I am better than the amped-up ambulance chasers you could get confirmed by this Senate. You can't do it, Jed. You're not strong enough. The Speaker's running the table and I can't take a chance.

C.J.:
Okay, but I've got to be careful about saying "man."

Toby:
Why, because--? Oh, c'mon!

C.J.:
You'd be surprised. I get letters.

Toby:
Fine, "human being," then, or do the other mammals complain?

Josh:
No, Leo, how is this acceptable? Haffley's not the prime minister, you take this to the president, you'll know what he'll say?

Leo:
He'll say yes.

Josh:
How can you say that?

Leo:
To keep the lights on! To make sure a couple of million government employees keep getting paid. It's two more months...

Josh:
This isn't governing, it's duck and cover.

Leo:
He'll say that too.

Donna:
There's no agreement.

Josh:
How far apart are we?

Donna:
They're leaving the building.

Bartlet:
Well, I'm not going to negotiate with anyone who holds a gun to my head. We had a deal. I don't care if my approval ratings drop into single digits. I am the President of the United States, and I will leave the government shut down until we come to an equitable agreement.

Leo:
Don't go out there again until morning.

C.J.:
Okay, but the enemy's advancing and you had better give me more than a squirt gun before the sun comes up.

C.J.:
That's one way to make the shutdown seem real to the country -- don't mail eleven million checks.

Will:
It'd be catastrophic if we don't fix this.

Toby:
FDR will rise from the dead?

Will:
Millions of angry grandparents are going to march on Washington, burn us in effigy.

Toby:
Sell me.

C.J.:
We had agreed to a one percent cut on a thirty-day continuing resolution, but the Speaker pulled a bait-and-switch.

Toby:
One percent, two percent -- what's so unreasonable about three percent?

C.J.:
Three percent equals X dollars, which is Y flu vaccinations, Z school lunches...It's more convincing with numbers.

Will:
Are you people trying to kill me?

Toby:
We're trying to make sure you can move to Oregon and kill yourself.

Donna:
There are pages turned down with Post-its to tell you which of your relatives the gifts are for. If you're happy with the choices you should initial at the X. If you're not happy with the choices, you should remember how this goes when you try to do this yourself.

Josh:
I like the polar fleece stuff.

Donna:
Who's in charge of shopping?

Josh:
You are.

Leo:
[to Josh] You have to go back and tell him no. In no uncertain terms. Draw a picture if you need it. A ballot in a circle with a line through it.

Bartlet:
She dumped a Rhodes Scholar for this guy. Zoey left Charlie for the frog. Ellie and the guitar player with the purple van. My children choose morons, every one.

Debbie:
They say daughters look for their fathers.

Bartlet:
You know, 15 years ago, we took a trip to Egypt, all five of us, saw the pyramids and Luxor, then headed up into the Sinai. We had a guide, a Bedouin man, who called me "Abu el Banat." Whenever we'd meet another Bedouin, he'd introduce me as "Abu el Banat." The Bedouin would laugh and laugh and then offer me a cup of tea. And I'd go and pay them for the tea, and they wouldn't let me. "Abu el Banat" means "father of daughters." They thought the tea was the least they could do.

C.J.:
Toby.

Toby:
Yeah.

C.J.:
Is there something you wanted?

Toby:
World peace?

C.J.:
Toby, I'm not protecting you. Go hide from the President somewhere else.

Toby:
Who needs Dante? I'm on my way to hell at 30,000 feet.

President Newman:
You start saddling up camels in every country in the Middle East then you better be prepared to spend the next 50 years sifting through sand because this isn't a quick run on the beach, Jed. This is the new world order.

Donna:
A lot of them, their judges spoke at their sentencing about the harshness of what they had to impose.... Scrutinize away. You tell me? Do we toss out Daisy Aimes, mother of three... had a boyfriend who stored a kilo in her closet. She's done eight years and is facing eleven more. That's longer than rapists and child molesters get.... I don't see a list anymore. These are people.

Bartlet:
I will never surrender in the War on Drugs, but if you are consistently getting slaughtered on the battlefield, you've probably misjudged your enemy.

Charlie:
C.J., with the press - could you ever trust a reporter?

C.J.:
Is this the beginning of a joke?

Leo:
If it was you whispering pardons in his ear, it was the right thing.

Abbey:
I don't whisper, Leo. That's not how it works between us. My job is to help Jed be as good a President as he is a man.

Bartlet:
I can't dress for this thing without you. Which one screams "dominance"?

Abbey:
Do I get to wear it afterwards?

Bartlet:
No comment.

Toby:
More college kids think they'll see UFOs than Social Security checks.

Bartlet:
But they don't tell you how many believe in UFOs; that's the number we ought to be worried about.

C.J.:
If we're not running offense, we're running defense, and if we're playing defense, then there's some clever sports analogy that explains what happens then....

Josh:
We're screwed.

C.J.:
That'll do...

C.J.:
A little tough love's what these people need. If that doesn't work, I'm moving on to Molotov cocktails.

Bartlet:
Social Security is the third rail of American politics. Touch it, and you die.

Toby:
That's 'cause the third rail's where all the power is.

C.J.:
We've been over this. We need a hard news announcement each and every day or the press runs amok!

Leo:
My generation never got the future it was promised... Thirty-five years later, cars, air travel is exactly the same. We don't even have the Concorde anymore. Technology stopped.

Josh:
The personal computer...

Leo:
A more efficient delivery system for gossip and pornography? Where's my jet pack, my colonies on the Moon?

Bartlet:
I thought when the Soviet Union fell, we could actually have disarmament. You go from trying to get rid of these weapons altogether to holding your breath that one doesn't go off on your watch. Strike another goal off the list.

Josh:
What I know is politics, public perception. And the image of NASA is not good. Telescopes launched that can't focus, planetary probes that crashed because engineers mixed up meters and feet. The only time NASA makes the front page anymore is when something goes wrong. You need to get off the front page. This administration only has one space priority: that you guys stop screwing up.

Josh:
Voyager, in case it's ever encountered by extraterrestrials, is carrying photos of life on earth, greetings in fifty-five languages, and a collection of music from Gregorian chant to Chuck Berry, including "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" by 1920s bluesman Blind Willie Johnson, whose stepmother blinded him at seven by throwing lye in his eyes after his father beat her for being with another man. He died penniless of pneumonia after sleeping bundled in wet newspapers in the ruins of his house that burned down, but his music just left the solar system.

Bartlet:
Hans Bethe wrote, "If we fight a war and win it with H-Bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for, but the methods used to accomplish them. These methods will be compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who brutally killed every last inhabitant of Persia.

C.J.:
That was fun! Sanctimonious little guttersnipe sent a great big fat one up and over the plate. Health care reform! From a guy who's still on the fence about the application of leeches!

Josh:
Eve Harrington in penny loafers here just corrected me in front of the President.

Donna:
Were you wrong?

Josh:
That's not the point.

Donna:
What is the point?

Josh:
I'm going into my office now.

Carol:
Toby and Josh are in your office.

C.J.:
What do they want?

Carol:
To make fun of you, I think.

C.J.:
And you let them in?

Carol:
And made them coffee.

Josh:
Taylor Reid was talking about your spin on the decline in manufacturing jobs and he said...

Toby:
'The tall lady's back to telling tall tales.'

C.J.:
The tall lady.... Carol, call 'The Taylor Reid Show' and book me on the next open slot. I'm going to reach down and rip off his puny, little face.

Josh:
Congressman Wendt, who single-handedly blocked our tax credit to expand child care to working families, is attempting to bind the feet of your entire gender with his paleo-chauvinist stay-at-home mom tax cut.

C.J.:
I'm going to read the bill and supporting materials.

Josh:
What if you just kick up a cloud of dust about the revenue impact and mention that he's the Darth Vader of child care?

Toby:
[to Ed & Larry] This meeting's about politics. Facts won't help.

C.J.:
What do I need to catch up on?

Toby:
The President signed a school vouchers bill for D.C.

C.J.:
Are you kidding? I leave the building for an hour and he switches parties.

Toby:
Promise me something.

C.J.:
What?

Toby:
You'll never let them make a list of my screw-ups. They wouldn't have enough paper.

Charlie:
C.J.

C.J.:
Yeah?

Charlie:
Don't go on TV with Taylor Reid again unless you're going to tell him what an idiotic, shallow, uninformed, and lying punk he is.

C.J.:
I think he knows that.

Leo:
Check with Margaret about the Mural Room.

Will:
The Vice President has it.

Toby:
For what?

Will:
He's the Vice President, Toby. I don't have to justify his using a room.

Toby:
Of course not. For what?

Leo:
I'm sorry but can we really justify spending $800,000 on 'A Bio-Cultural Approach to the Study of Female Sexual Fantasy and Genital Arousal'?

Toby:
How can we afford not to?

Abbey:
Would you like me to do interviews with the Press Corps?

C.J.:
God, no. They're the most cynical bastards on the planet. You need to get beyond the Washington echo chamber and speak right to the people.

Toby:
This conversation would be a whole lot easier if I weren't fighting my way through a cloud of Obsession.

C.J.:
There's no cloud.

Toby:
It's about to precipitate out. It's about to rain Obsession.

Mark Hayden:
You still smarting I had to carry your ass through Con Law?

Josh:
You did not have to carry--

Mark Hayden:
You thought strict scrutiny was a pickup technique.

Josh:
Hey, it worked on Pam Sussman. I mean, not that well. How is your lovely wife?

Abbey:
So, what was it? The tube top to meet the Queen of England, or the low-rise jeans with the North Korean delegation?

C.J.:
Mrs. Bartlet, the press didn't know what to make of you before the MS became public. You've never been the traditional hat-knitting President's wife.

Abbey:
Oh, shoot. Was that in the handbook? Maybe just get me a photographer and seven years' worth of yarn.

Josh:
Lang? Isn't she a lefty?

Leo:
Yes. We want the left flank sufficiently mollified and the right flank sufficiently panicked so as to inspire a little conciliation on all flanks.

Toby:
If... If we were gonna try this. What would be the plan?

Josh:
We give the President and Leo the name. We bring Christopher Mulready in. We bring Lang back in. Hopefully the two of them woo the pants off the President, and he agrees to the deal without noticing he's standing in the gaze of history, pantless.

Debbie:
I hate to do this, but it's Rina, sir. The girl in the dress with the flowers--

Bartlet:
Just now?

Debbie:
Yes.

Bartlet:
What'd I call her?

Debbie:
Lana.

Bartlet:
Who's Lana?

Debbie:
I'm guessing an exotic dancer from your spotty youth.

Toby:
Where's the Senator?

Josh:
He's with C.J. He got me a little drunk.

Toby:
Is he leaving?

Josh:
I think he's getting C.J. a little drunk.

C.J.:
You begin every day juggling a very precise schedule which completely, completely falls apart by mid-morning.

C.J.:
One of the hardest things to learn: There are so many true crises, so many lurking situations that could be dangerous for the President, its hard not to get caught up in the adrenaline and make everything lethal. It's more than picking your battles, marshaling your energy. It's about grace under fire. All war metaphors. I guess that's it; being able to tell when its a matter of life or death.

Josh:
Sir, have you read the talking points?

Bartlet:
I'm an economist. Some would say half-decent. I don't need a primer on this.

Charlie:
Due respect,sir, your answers on economics can be a bit---

Bartlet:
Polysyllabic?

CJ:
Academic.

Leo:
I was going to go with incomprehensible.

Bartlet:
Anybody got any crayons so I can color in my Ph. D.?

Ryan:
Today's my last day at the White House.

Josh:
Thank you.

Ryan:
I was hoping you'd give a toast at my going-away party.

Josh:
How about a plaque, for best impersonation of a blue blazer?

Ryan:
So, you're coming to the party?

Josh:
I'm having my own celebration with five cloves of garlic and the cast of The Exorcist.

Ryan:
Where you going?

Josh:
To meet Congressman McKenna.

Ryan:
That's funny, actually.

Josh:
No, it isn't funny. He's a two-bit jerk of a House member. He holds us hostage every time we have a budget or a trade deal, or enough discretionary authority to buy an ice cream cone. I've got the Speaker of the House in ten minutes. I'm gonna smile, bob my head, and stick him in the outbox.

[The two walk into the Roosevelt Room together]

Josh:
Beat it. I've got a meeting.

Ryan:
So do I's the thing.

Josh:
It's just me and McKenna.

Ryan:
I'm his new Legislative Director. Hi. He figured it'd be leverage enough that he's on two authorizing committees and can stall half your budget priorities. Is this the part where you smile and bob your head?

Leo:
'You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose'.... We run a country; we deal in abstractions.

Debbie:
[to Bartlet] For an Anglo Saxon, you were darn funny.

Toby:
He's a featherweight who only looks like a lightweight because he's got you propping him up.

Will:
He's the heir apparent.

Toby:
Don't say 'heir apparent' when we have men in moon suits hermetically sealing the Oval. This is Russell's only shot... A night like this.

Leo:
Believe me, I love the idea of you ministering to the wayward and unwashed. I don't love you becoming a de facto spokesperson for a load of issues we can't support.

Abbey:
I'm not on a lecture tour, I'm seeing patients.

Leo:
'Hello. My name is Clarissa Ponsissa. I'm 14 and sexually active. But I know it's okay, 'cause I got my condoms from the First Lady.' Fox News is throwing a party.

Admiral Fitzwallace What do photographers say in the digital age, now that the old 'Come up and see my darkroom' line has gone the way of the dodo?

C.J.:
Say you're from Minnesota.

Toby:
I'm from Minnesota.

C.J.:
No, we're pretending you're from there.

Toby:
We're not actually.

C.J.:
And you'd like prescription drugs from Canada.

Toby:
What do I have?

C.J.:
Not important.

Toby:
It could be clouding my judgment.

C.J.:
You're no fun anymore.

Toby:
I'm having fun.

Toby:
[on the phone] Are you kidding? Do you know the term "decent interval"? Go away. [hangs up] Magley from the DNC, wants to talk about who to run for the two vacant House seats.

Will:
You're joking.

Toby:
They're still picking up pieces of these guys over there, he's talking about DeSantos' poachable district.

Will:
What's he calling you for?

Toby:
He thought Josh'd be upset about Donna being in the car. I guess he figured since my ex-wife was only almost blown up that I'd be only almost upset.

Toby:
Listen, we need to make a call on Camden Yards.

Josh:
Huh?

Toby:
It's Memorial Day. He's gonna toss out the first pitch at Camden Yards.

Josh:
Cancel it. Eh, can't cancel it; sends the wrong message. Ask for a moment of silence. And Toby, he's gotta, you need to take him out with gloves and a ball.

Toby:
It's a six foot toss from the stands. It's Little League.

Josh:
FDR threw from the stands; beaned one of his photographers in '37, extended the Depression by four years.

Bartlet:
Damn it, Shira, if I'm going to find the people behind this, I need access to the bomb site, access to the evidence and the cooperation of the Palestinian Authority, three things I cannot get if you keep firing missiles into Gaza!

Reporter:
The cuts aren't reflective of the President's attitude on military response in Gaza?

C.J.:
The cuts are reflective of the fact that Toby Ziegler has never written a five-minute speech in his life.

Leo:
You know, on May 13th, the day before Israeli Independence Day, the TV stations in Israel screen the names of every soldier who's fallen for the country. A name flashes on the screen for a second or two, then the next name appears, you go to bed, you get up, the names are still flashing. That's how they observe Memorial Day.

Leo:
The country wants action. Bringing Farat back to the table--

Bartlet:
I'm not saying it's Camembert and wine, I'm saying it's what we got! Tell Hutchison to find a way to get Nassan without taking out a city block, I'll launch the damn missile myself!