February 2012
7 posts
5 tags
Inauguration: Over There (4.15)
CJ: The guy across the street is beating up a pregnant woman. You don't go over and try and stop it?
Toby: Guy across the street is beating up anybody, I like to think I go over and try to stop it. But we're not talking about the President going to Asia or the President going to Rwanda or the President going to Qumar. We're talking about the President sending other people's kids to do that.
CJ: That's always what we're talking about, and in addition to being somebody's kids, they're soldiers and sailors. And if we're about freedom from tyranny, then we're about freedom from tyranny, and if we're not, we should shut up.
Josh: Yes.
Toby: Back at the office, you were telling Will -
CJ: He said that to Will cause that's what we say.
Toby: You were't even there.
CJ: It's what we always say.
Toby: On Sunday, he's taking an oath to ensure domestic tranquilty.
CJ: And to establish justice and promote the general welfare. Stand by while atrocities are taking place, and you're an accomplice.
Toby: I'm not indifferent to that, but knuckleheaded self-destruction is never going to burn itself out? You really want to send your kids across the street into the fire?
CJ: Want to? No. Should I? Yes.
Toby: Why? And don't give me a lefty answer.
CJ: A lefty answer is all I've got.
Toby: Why are you sending your kids across the street?
CJ: Cause those are somebody's kids, too.
5 tags
Arctic Radar (4.10)
Amy: It's about Vicky Hilton. And I'm here in no official capacity and I'm wielding nothing, but the League of Professional Women is going to represent her, and they've asked me if I could help get them time with the President.
Josh: There's no way the White House is going to get involved in it. It's a military thing.
Amy: Civilians run the military. Not only is it okay for you to get involved, you're supposed to. It's the law.
Josh: And the Commander in Chief chooses not to overrule his commanders.
Amy: He chooses to do that without hearing informed argument?
Josh: Yes. Cause then when he says no, I got a problem with women.
Amy: Except that my friends and I can give you a problem with women right now.
Josh: What happened to "I came wielding nothing"?
Amy: I forgot that women just got him re-elected. Evidently, you did too.
Josh: "Evidently, you did, too."
Amy: I met her last night. This is a special girl. I want to speak up for her.
Josh: All right, we'll talk in 15 minutes.
Amy: "All right, we'll talk in 15 minutes."
Josh: Shut up.
Amy: You shut up.
Leo: Oh, God help me somedays.
4 tags
In This White House (2.4)
Ainsley: I've been thinking about that ever since your office called me on Tuesday, and I have something to say on my own behalf, if you'll permit me a moment to say it, and I understand if you won't, but I would really appreciate it if you did.
Leo: I didn't really follow that, but whatever.
Ainsley: I think that it is wrong for a man in your position to summon someone to the White House to reprimand them for voicing opposition. I think that that is wrong, and it is inappropriate. It's inappropriate, and I'll tell you what else.
Leo: It's wrong?
Ainsley: Yes.
Leo: That's fine. Except you weren't summoned here to be reprimanded.
Ainsley: Well, then, if you'll permit me, why was I summoned?
Leo: You have an interesting conversational style, do you know that?
Ainsley: It's a nervous condition.
Leo: I used to have a nervous condition.
Ainsley: How did yours manifest itself?
Leo: I drank a lot of scotch.
Ainsley: I get sick when I drink too much.
Leo: I get drunk when I drink too much.
5 tags
The Portland Trip (2.7)
Congressman Skinner: Josh, all the Marriage Recognition Act does is ensure that a radical social agenda isn't thrust upon an entire country that isn't ready for it yet.
Josh: 32 states have passed laws banning same-sex marriage. The states are doing a fine job protecting themselves from a radical social agenda without a federal shield.
Skinner: Josh.
Josh: I like you guys who want to reduce the size of government and make it just small enough so it can fit in our bedrooms.
4 tags
The Black Vera Wang (3.19)
CJ: I'm driving myself home. You want to follow me in a chase car, that's fine. But you have been annoying me for six days. You annoyed me here for three days then you annoyed me in Finland. You're quiet, you're polite, and you're, you're there. You're always there. I can't shake you. You followed me to Scandinavia and back.
Simon: Well, that's-
CJ: Don't give me the aw shucks answer - well that's my job, ma'am. And don't call me ma'am. Don't call me ma'am, don't call me Ms. Cregg. This isn't a western.
Simon: I'm required to call you ma'am or Ms. Cregg. There are rules and regulations.
CJ: Okay, okay, secret agent man, here's my rules and regulations. I'm getting in my baby blue '65 Mustang convertible and I'm gonna feel the wind in my hair and any place else I want. You can look at my taillights.
Simon: I think I'm not allowed to do that either.
5 tags
In The Shadow of Two Gunmen, part II (2.2)
CJ: This is our 5th press briefing since midnight. Obviously, there's one story that going dominating news around the world for the next few days, and it would be easy to think that President Bartlet, Joshua Lyman, and Stephanie Abbott were the only victims of a gun crime last night. They weren't. Mark Davis and Sheila Evans of Philadelphia were killed by a gun last night. He was a biology teacher and she was a nursing student. Tina Bishop and Linda Larkin were killed with a gun last night. They were 12. There were 36 homicides last night, 480 sexual assaults, 3411 robberies, 3685 aggravated assaults, all at gunpoint. And if anyone thinks those crimes could have been prevented if the victims themselves had been carrying guns, I'd only remind you that the President of the United States himself was shot last night while surrounded by the best trained armed guards in the history of the world. Back to the briefing.
Danny: She's good.
Leo: Yes, she is.
4 tags
Manchester part 1 (3.1)
Toby: CJ.
CJ: Yeah?
Toby: You wanna play some pool?
CJ: I don't know how to play pool.
Toby: You wanna play for money?
CJ: Yeah.
January 2012
11 posts
4 tags
Two Cathedrals (2.22)
Mrs. Landingham: Look at you, you're a boy king. You're a foot smarter than the smartest kid in the class. You're blessed with inspiration. You must know this by now, you must have sensed it. Look, if you think we're wrong, if you think Mr. Hopkins should honestly get paid more than Mrs. Chadwick, then I respect that. But if you think we're right, and won't speak up because you can't be bothered, well, god, Jed, I don't even want to know you.
Jed: Mrs. Mueller gets half as much to teach band as Mr. Ryan does to coach crew?
Mrs. Landingham: You're going to do it.
Jed: Well, I didn't say that.
Mrs. Landingham: Yes, you did.
Jed: When?
Mrs. Landingham: Just then. You stuck your hands in your pockets. You looked away and smiled. That means you made up your mind.
4 tags
Bartlet's Third State of the Union
Ainsley: Have you been watching?
Sam: Yes.
Ainsley: Aren't I delightful?
Sam: Yes. You know what I'd like? I'd like it if you didn't say you weren't a hundred percent sure that the President's proposal is constitutional.
Ainsley: The ACLU has a reasonable case to make against the President
Sam: They do a fine job of making it without the help of the President's lawyer.
Ainsley: That's a fair point.
5 tags
The Drop-In (2.12)
Bartlet: Where are you on the missile shield?
Lord John Marbury: Well, I think it's dangerous, illegal, fiscally irresponsible, technologically unsound, and a threat to all people everywhere.
Bartlet: Leo?
Leo: I think the world invented a nuclear weapon. I think the world owes it to itself to see if it can't invent something that would make it irrelevant.
Marbury: Well, that's the right sentiment, and certainly a credible one from a man who's fought in a war. You think you can make it stop? Well, you can't. We build a shield, and somebody will build a better missile.
4 tags
Galileo (2.9)
Josh: Leo, ask me how long a Martian day is.
Leo: No, I don't think that I will.
7 tags
100,000 Airplanes (3.11)
Bartlet: A President stood up. He said we will land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. You know what we knew when he said that? Nothing. We didn't know anything. We didn't know about the lunar surface. We didn't know how to land one of these things. All we'd ever done is crash it into the ocean. And God knows we could figure out how to land soft. We didn't know how to blast off again, but a President said we're gonna do it, and we did it. So I ask you, why shouldn't I stand up and say we are going to cure cancer in ten years? I'm really asking.
Josh: Well, how close are we to really being able to do this?
Bartlet: Nobody knows.
Josh: Then -
Bartlet: Toby?
Toby: It'll be seen as a political ploy.
Bartet: Why?
CJ: It can be seen - excuse me - it can be seen as self-serving.
Bartlet: How?
CJ: Using cancer to deflect attention from MS.
Bartlet: You think people with cancer care what my motives are? You think their families do?
CJ: I'm saying -
Bartlet: Joey?
Joey: I agree with everything that's been said, except, I don't think they'll see it as deflecting the MS. I think they'll see it as deflecting the censure.
Bartlet: Once again, why would somebody...?
Joey: Everybody cares about motive, Mr. President.
Bartlet: I didn't -
Kenny: She said, "Everybody cares about motive," sir.
Bartlet: Sam?
Sam: Yes sir?
Bartlet: Why shouldn't I do it?
Sam: I think you should. I think ambition is good. I think overreaching is good. I think giving people a vision of government that's more than Social Security checks and debt reduction is good. I think government should be optimistic.
4 tags
Take This Sabbath Day (1.14)
Toby: I had a strange experience this weekend. One of the PD's on the Cruz case, I guess trying the things you do when you're desperate, he went and spoke to my rabbi.
Bartlet: Jewish law doesn't prohibit -
Toby: I know.
Bartlet: The commandment does not say "Thou shalt not kill." It says "Thou shalt not murder."
Toby: I know. But the fact is that, even two thousand years ago, the rabbis of the Talmud couldn't stomach it. I mean, they weren't about to rewrite the Torah, but they came up with another way. They came up with legal restrictions, which make our criminal justice system look... They made it impossible for the state to punish someone by killing them.
Bartlet: We make it very hard to kill anybody in this country, Toby.
Toby: It should be impossible.
Bartlet: But it's not.
Toby: But it should be.
4 tags
He Shall, From Time to Time (1.12)
Bartlet: Oh, Roger, if anything happened, you know what to do, right?
Agriculture Secretary Tribby: I honestly hadn't thought about it, sir.
Bartlet: First thing always is national security - get your commanders together, appoint Joint Chiefs, appoint a Chairman, take us to Defcon 4. Have the governors send emergency delegates to Washington. Your assistant attorney general is going to be the acting AG - if he tells you he wants to bring up the National Guard, do what he tells you. Oh, you have a best friend?
Tribby: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: Is he smarter than you?
Tribby: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: Would you trust him with your life?
Tribby: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: That's your chief of staff.
4 tags
Five Votes Down (1.4)
Josh: I put you in your seat. I got you elected to the House of Representatives.
Congressman Wick: Yeah, and now you think I'm on the leash. Look, I get taken for granted, Josh. I've had one photo op with the president. Me and sixteen other freshmen. That makes me weak.
Josh: You're not serious.
Wick: I've been here over a year. Where's the courtship? This isn't ego - a relationship with the White House is currency around here and I need some.
Josh: You're voting down a measure that would restrict the sale of deadly weapons because no one invited you to the cool kids' table?
Wick: Got your attention.
Josh: You know, I'm so sick of Congress I could vomit.
4 tags
Ellie (2.15)
Josh: Millicent, what were you thinking about?
Dr. Griffith: I was asked a question, Josh.
Josh: I understand, but your answers -
Dr. Griffith: My answers were correct. Is anyone challenging me on the facts?
Josh: Not yet.
Dr. Griffith: Well, they won't. As a doctor, I have an obligation to tell the truth. Come to think of it, as a person I have that obligation as well.
Josh: The truth is different if you're a GP or a member of the Stanford Faculty Club than if you're the country's chief medical practitioner.
Dr. Griffith: Well, no, I think truth is pretty much truth across the board, never more so than if you're the country's chief medical practitioner.
Josh: Did you know that 69% of Americans oppose legalization? Only 23% support it.
Dr. Griffith: The number gets a lot higher than that if you ask people under 30.
Josh: Well, that's a shock. Did you know that the number gets even higher than that if you limit the polling sample to Bob Marley and the Whalers?
4 tags
Mandatory Minimums (1.20)
Bartlet: I get nervous around laws that fundamentally assume that Americans can't be trusted. We'd better have mandatory sentencing, because judges can't be trusted to disperse even-handed justice. We'd better have term limits 'cause voters can't be trusted to recognize corruption. Oh, and by the way...I say, by the way, when the playing field is leveled and the process is fair and open, it turns out we have term limits. They're called elections.
December 2011
2 posts
4 tags
4 tags
Evidence of Things Not Seen (4.20)
CJ: At the exact moment of the equinox. At the exact moment of the equinox.
Josh: It doesn't work.
CJ: It does work. It has to be the exact moment of the equinox.
Josh: It doesn't work.
CJ: I've seen it.
Josh: I've tried it.
CJ: And?
Josh: It doesn't work.
CJ: I don't think you did it at the exact moment.
Josh: I did.
CJ: When?
Josh: Last September.
CJ: That was the autumnal equinox.
Josh: It only works for the vernal equinox?
CJ: Yeah.
Josh: You know what's more likely?
CJ: That it doesn't work at all?
Josh: That's right.
CJ: It does, I've seen it.
November 2011
5 posts
5 tags
Shibboleth (2.8)
Donna: The turkeys came.
CJ: So Carol said.
Donna: Josh and Toby and Sam said they should go in your office.
CJ: Yes.
Donna: These are the turkeys.
CJ: The turkeys for what?
Donna: You weren't here last year.
CJ: When?
Donna: Over Thanksgiving. You were sick.
CJ: Yes.
Donna: Every year on Thanksgiving, the President pardons a turkey.
CJ: He pardons a turkey.
Donna: Yeah, and it's your event, so -
CJ: Why are there two?
Donna: I'm sorry?
CJ: Why are there two turkeys?
Donna: Customarily, the Press Secretary decides -
CJ: No.
Donna: Which of the two finalists is more photogenic. Their names -
CJ: I don't want to know their names.
Donna: This one's Eric and this one's Troy.
CJ: Eric and Troy.
Donna: Yeah.
CJ: And I'm to choose the more photogenic of the two to receive a Presidential pardon.
Donna: Yeah.
CJ: Okay, I have actually a Masters degree from the University of California at Berkeley.
Donna: That's a good school.
CJ: Yeah.
Donna: They eat grain or really whatever's lying around, and Troy doesn't like to be touched.
CJ: Okay. I'd like to be alone now.
5 tags
The Indians in the Lobby (3.7)
Bartlet: They want the nickel and dime stuff, I'll tell you one thing we can do.
Charlie: What's that, sir?
Bartlet: This time of the year there should be a hotline you can call with questions about cooking turkey. A special 800 number where the phones are staffed by experts.
Charlie: There is.
Bartlet: What do you mean?
Charlie: The Butterball hotline.
Bartlet: Butterball has a hotline?
Charlie: Yeah. It's an 800 number, the phones are staffed by experts.
Bartlet: Are you kidding me?
Charlie: No.
Bartlet: God, I'm sorry, I love my country.
4 tags
Enemies Foreign and Domestic (3.18)
Bartlet: The marketplace will take care of Antares.
Leo: The marketplace will kill Antares.
Bartlet: That's what's supposed to happen.
Leo: It's not like it's unprecedented, sir. We helped out steel.
Bartlet: That was an industry that was hurt by unfair trade practices. Antares was hurt by their own carelessness.
Leo: A loan guarantee doesn't cost the taxpayers a nickel.
Bartlet: Unless they go under. And either way we've just said "We're open for business."
Leo: For a corporate icon that feeds into tech companies, computers, aerospace. The ripple effects, workers losing jobs, it's a blue chip stock that's in every major -
Bartlet: They were huge contributors! How the hell am I supposed...They were huge contributors!
Leo: Carelessness doesn't have to exist for a mistake to be made.
Bartlet: What?
Leo: You said it was carelessness and I don't believe carelessness has to exist for a mistake to be made. Jake was a contributor, and he's never asked for a favor, not even now. He was a contributor 'cause he knows us, and we know him. And we know that if a mistake happened in design or production at Antares it wasn't shoddy, it wasn't on the cheek. You know how many chips have acted up so far? One. Dollars to donuts, he could have gotten away with it. But he wanted to warn people they may have a problem before - I don't even know what happens when eighty million computers stop working right. But tell me this isn't exactly how we want American businesses to behave. I know it doesn't look good, he's a friend of ours. But there is a reason he's a friend of ours.
4 tags
October 2011
10 posts
6 tags
Inauguration: Over There (4.14)
Bartlet: We're for freedom of speech everywhere. We're for freedom to worship everywhere. We're for freedom to learn for everybody. And because in our time, you can build a bomb in your country and bring it to my country, what goes on in your country isvery much my business. And so we are for freedom from tyranny everywhere, whether in theguise of political oppresion, Toby, or economic slavery, Josh, or religious fanaticism, CJ. That most fundamental idea cannot be met with merely our support; it has to be met with our strength. Diplomatically, economically, materially. And if pharoah still don't free the slaves, then he gets the plagues or my cavalry, whichever gets there first. The USTR will go crazy and say that we're not considering global trade. Committee members will go crazy and say I haven't consulted enough. And the Arab world will just go indescriminately crazy. No country has ever had a doctrine of intervention when only humanitarian interests were at stake. That streak's going to end Sunday atnoon. So if you're on board with this, what I need you to do.
Toby: What we're going to do is comb through the language again, this time with counsel.
CJ: Carol? It's me. I'm going to need new talking points for the full Cabinet, no embargos, except -
Toby: We have to move from a lone rogue, to a posse.
Bartlet: Do I just keep standing here?
Leo: No. Excuse me! It is so ordered.
All: Thank you, Mr. President.
5 tags
The US Poet Laureate (3.16)
CJ: The Federal Page of the Washington Post just called Carol to confirm that you're the Josh Lyman who stated on an Internet website that the White House could order a GAO review on anything it wants.
Josh: Without threatening the separation of powers is what I was saying.
CJ: You posted on a web site?
Josh: I was communicating with the people.
CJ: Really?
Josh: CJ, it's a crazy place. It's got this dictatorial leader, who I'm sure wears a muumuu and chain smokes Parliaments.
CJ: What did you go there for in the first place?
Josh: It's called LemonLyman.com.
CJ: Let me explain something to you. This is sort of my field. The people on these sites? They're the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The muumuu wearing Parliament smoker? That's Nurse Ratched. When Nurse Ratched is unhappy, the patients are unhappy. You? You're McMurphy. You swoop in there with your card games and your fishing trips -
Josh: I didn't swoop in, I came in exactly the same way everybody else did.
CJ: Well, now I'm telling you to open the ward room window and climb on out before they give you a pre-frontal lobotomy and I have to smother you with a pillow.
Josh: You're Chief Brom-
CJ: I'm Chief Bromden, yes, at this particular moment. I'm assigning an intern from the press office to that web site. They're going to check it every night before they go home. If they discover you've been there, I'm going to shove a motherboard so far up your ass. What?
Josh: Well, technically, I outrank you.
CJ: So far up your ass!
9 tags
The Crackpots and These Women (1.5)
Margaret: We do it at the first of every month.
Cathy: We’ve missed a few months.
Sam: But generally speaking, we try to do it on the first of every month.
Toby: We’ve done it twice in twelve months.
Sam: We’re a little behind.
Mandy: I still don’t know what we’re talking about.
Toby: It’s Throw Open Our Office Doors To People Who Want To Discuss Things That We Could Care Less About Day.
Mandy: Well, that sounds goofy, doesn’t it?
Sam: It’s not so bad. You talk to them for a minute. You give them a souvenir pen with the Presidential seal on it.
Mandy: This isn’t a waste of time?
Margaret: Oh, it’s definitely a waste of time, but it’s one of Leo’s pet office policies.
Mandy: Why?
Leo: Good morning.
Toby: Sadly you’re about to find out.
Leo: Andrew Jackson, in the main foyer of his White House, had a big block of cheese.
Toby: Hmm.
Leo: I am making a mental list of those who are snickering, and even as I speak I am preparing appropriate retribution. The block of cheese was huge. Over two tons. And it was there for any and all who might be hungry.
Toby: Leo, wouldn’t this time be better spent plotting a war against a country that can’t possibly defend itself against us?
Leo: We can do that later, Toby. Right now I’m talking about President Andrew Jackson.
Sam: Actually, right now, you’re talking about a big block of cheese.
Leo: And Sam goes on my list!
Sam: What about Toby?
Leo: I’m unpredictable. Jackson wanted the White House to belong to the people, so from time to time, he opened his doors to those who wished an audience.
Mandy: And then he locked the doors behind them and made them eat two tons of cheese.
Leo: It is in that spirit -
Sam: Hang on. Mandy doesn’t go on the list?
Leo: Mandy’s new.
Sam: So it’s just me on the list?
Leo: Yes. It is in the spirit of Andrew Jackson that I, from time to time, ask senior staff to have face-to-face meetings with those people representing organizations who have a difficult time getting our attention. I know the more jaded among you see this as something rather beneath you. But I assure you that listening to the voices of passionate Americans is beneath no one, and surely not the peoples’ servants.
Josh: Sorry we’re late. Is it Total Crackpot Day again?
6 tags
The Supremes (5.17)
Josh: Let's talk a little bit about what the judiciary committee's concerns would be. We can safely say reproductive rights are gonna come up.
Toby: They're going to say judicial activism, particularly in jury. How would you address that?Evelyn Baker Lang: And you're who?
Toby: I'm sorry?
Lang: Who are you? We're playing committee.
Josh: This will be coming from one of the eleven Republicans on Judicial.
Lang: You can know anything you want.
Josh: We don't know anything.
Lang: If you're Webster, the question is "Where do you stand on Roe v. Wade?" And the answer is "Judicial ruling shouldn't be based on personal ideologies, mine or anyone else's." If you're Davies, the question is "How would you approach the next case?" because he's the drum banger on partial birth. And the answer is "I don't comment on hypotheticals." If you're Malkin, you're from Virginia, so you're asking in re: Drury. I take you point by point from the doctor to the father to Casey to undue burden to equal protection back to Roe at which point you can't remember the question and I drink my water for a minute while you regroup.
Josh: Will you excuse us for a second? [leaves room] I love her. I love her mind. I love her shoes.
4 tags
The Drop-In (2.12)
Bartlet: Two thousand environmentalists are going to try to kill me tomorrow night.
Charlie: We should go, sir.
Bartlet: They're going to come at me with vegan food and pitchforks.
Charlie: That doesn't really sound like something people do.
Bartlet: Still, I'd like you to get between me and any boiled seaweed you see coming my way.
Charlie: Yep.
6 tags
Ways and Means (3.3)
Toby: Mr. President, we’re here to recommend that you threaten to veto any repeal of the estate tax.
Bartlet: Really?
Toby: Yes, sir.
Leo: What happened with Richardson?
Josh: No guarantees. He wants to see what we’re gonna do next.
Toby: Let's make the threat.
Bartlet: You like this?
Doug: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: I thought you don't oppose a tax cut in an election year?
Doug: Well, let’s be clear. We’re not talking about opposing a tax cut. We’re talking about vetoing one. Your first veto ever. That's shooting the moon.
Bartlet: I’ll say.
Doug: I like the bold gesture. I think you gotta get out the stamp.
Josh: You sign it. You don't do it with a stamp.
Doug: I thought it was a stamp.
Bartlet: Actually, you stamp it, then sign it.
Toby: Who gives a damn, sir? This is a tax cut that benefits only 4500 families.
Bartlet: It doesn't matter if most voters don't benefit. They all believe that someday they will. That's the problem with the American dream: it makes everyone concerned for the day they're gonna be rich.
4 tags
The Warfare of Genghis Khan (5.13)
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?
4 tags
The Indians in the Lobby (3.7)
Toby: Listen, the OMB's gonna come out with a recommendation for a new way to calculate the poverty level.
Bruno: Show of hands?
Toby: No. But the formula raises the poverty level two thousand and change.
Bruno: So what is it now?
Toby: $20,000 a year. The problem is we're without a campaign and with four million new poor people.
Bruno: That's the problem?
Toby: Yeah.
Bruno: Not that someone making $21,000 a year is considered comfortable?
Toby: We're working on that one too.
4 tags
We Killed Yamamoto (3.20)
Josh: Listen, I’m sending you to Bismarck, okay? You got to go tomorrow and sit in on a DNC platform meeting where they’re discussing whether or not -
Donna: Hang on. I’m sorry, hang on a second. Did you just say you were sending me to Bismarck?
Josh: Yeah.
Donna: North Dakota?
Josh: It’s just overnight.
Donna: Am I being punished?
September 2011
12 posts
6 tags
Galileo (2.9)
Bartlet: "Good morning! I’m speaking to you live from the West Wing of the White House. Today we have a very unique opportunity to take part live in an extremely historic event which -" Whoa, boy.
Sam: How you doing, Mr. President?
Bartlet: Who wrote this intro?
Scott Tate: I did, sir. I’m Scott Tate from NASA Public Affairs.
Bartlet: Scott, unique means “one of a kind.” Something can’t be very unique, nor can it be extremely historic.
CJ: While we’re at it, do we have to use the word “live” twice in the first two sentences like we just cracked the technology?
Tate: Look -
CJ: We’re also broadcasting in living color, right?
Bartlet: Sam?
Sam: Yeah.
Bartlet: He’s gonna make some changes.
Tate: You’re going to clear them with me?
Sam: I doubt it. Write this: “Good morning. Eleven months ago a 1200 pound spacecraft blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Eighteen hours ago…” Is it eighteen hours ago? We’re on the air at noon eastern.
CJ: Yeah.
Sam: “Eighteen hours ago it landed on the planet Mars. You, me, and 60,000 of your fellow students across the country along with astroscientists and engineers from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Southern California, NASA in Houston, and right here at the White House, are going to be the first to see what it sees, and to chronicle the extraordinary voyage of an unmanned ship called Galileo V.”
Bartlet: He said it right.
The Indians in the Lobby (3.7)
Charge d'affaires Fedrigotti: You stand hand in hand with no other country on this except Somalia. You know that, don't you? Even China doesn't allow children to be executed.
Josh: Well, federal law doesn't allow it, but the people in the state of Georgia do, so there's not much -
Fedrigotti: Josh, you're in a restaurant -
Josh: Alberto.
Fedrigotti: And there's a little girl who is really misbehaving. She runs around, she's throwing food. The father decides to punish her right there by cracking the wine bottle over her head, throwing her to the ground, and kicking her repeatedly. You sit at the next table. What do you do?
Josh: The kid wasn't throwing food.
Fedrigotti: Is there a crime that girl could commit that would justify what the father did?
Josh: See, it's problematic when others make my arguments for me.
Fedrigotti: Yes. And if the father said "This is my child, and I will punish her any way I choose," would you come to the conclusion that this father has lost all perspective and all judgement and should be removed from the equation?
Take This Sabbath Day (1.14)
Bartlet: I’m the leader of a democracy, Tom. Seventy-one percent of the people support capital punishment. People have spoken. The courts have spoken.
Father Cavanaugh: Did you call the Pope?
Bartlet: Yeah.
Father Cavanaugh: And how do you do that?
Bartlet: Oh, for crying out loud, Tom! I open my mouth and say, “Somebody get me the Pope.”
Father Cavanaugh: No, I’m sorry, Mr. President, but I was thinking - you’re just this kid from my parish and now you’re calling the Pope.
Bartlet: Anyway, I looked for a way out, I really did.
Father Cavanaugh: Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. You know what that means? God is the only one who gets to kill people.
4 tags
The Fall's Gonna Kill You (2.20)
Donna: What’s so funny?
Larry: Ed just got a fax. I'm sorry. Ed just got a fax from a man named Byron Talmadge. He’s the Associate Administrator for NASA’s Office of Space Cadets.
Ed: Flight.
Larry: Office of Space Flight.
Ed: The OSF.
Donna: What’d the fax say?
Larry: A huge Chinese satellite is gonna come crashing to Earth, and we don’t know where and we don’t know when.
Donna: Seriously?
Ed: Yeah, it’s right here in the fax.
Donna: A satellite is crashing to Earth and NASA sent us a fax?
Ed: Yeah.
Donna: This is for real?
Larry: Yes.
Donna: A satellite is gonna crash into the Earth?
Ed and Larry: Yes.
Donna: Why are you laughing?
Ed: We thought it was funny.
5 tags
Let Bartlet Be Bartlet (1.19)
Chairman Fitzwallace: We’re discussing gays in the military, huh?
Major Thompson: Yes sir.
Fitzwallace: What do you think? I said, what do you think?
Thompson: Sir, we’re here to help the White House form a possible -
Fitzwallace: I know. I’m asking you what you think.
Major Tate: Sir, we’re not prejudiced toward homosexuals.
Fitzwallace: You just don’t want to see them serving in the Armed Forces?
Tate: No, sir, I don’t.
Fitzwallace: Cause they pose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion.
Tate: Yes sir.
Fitzwallace: That’s what I think too. I also think the military wasn’t designed to be an instrument of social change.
Tate: Yes sir.
Fitzwallace: The problem with that is that's what they were saying to me fifty years ago. Blacks shouldn’t serve with whites, it would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I’m an admiral in the U.S. Navy and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Beat that with a stick.
4 tags
Posse Comitatus (3.21)
Josh: You have an extra billion in child care.
Amy: That's great, but the marriage incentives are terrible.
Josh: We don't like the marriage incentives either, don't be ridiculous. But independent voters -
Amy: Please, say "white men" instead of "independent voters." And if you're serious about making welfare a second chance and not a way of life, you have to give people job training.
7 tags
The Portland Trip (2.7)
Sam: Oratory should raise your heart rate. Oratory should blow the doors off the place. We should be talking about not being satisfied with past solutions, we should be talking about a permanent revolution.
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 everybody to be Communists?
4 tags
Bartlet's Third State of the Union (2.13)
Sam: Okay, can I talk to you about adrenaline for a second?
Ainsley: Adrenaline?
Sam: Yeah. You’re feeling it right now and it’s gonna get even more cause it’s a big night and you were a hit and you’ve never experienced anything like this.
Ainsley: And you think I’m going to have a nutty.
Sam: I’m saying don’t drink until you’re off television.
Ainsley: God, thanks, Sam for that debating tip. You have a feel for nuances. You say I shouldn’t be drunk when I’m representing the White House.
Sam: Yeah. And please don't forget you’re a blonde Republican girl and that nobody likes you.
Ainsley: I’m going back on television now.
Sam: Try to remember you’re on our side.
4 tags
Galileo (2.9)
Charlie: What the hell, CJ? He doesn’t like green beans.
CJ: We won Oregon by 10,000 votes. I don’t know how many green bean farmers they have out there, but if there are 10,001 -
Charlie: CJ.
CJ: This is a serious thing now.
Charlie: Well, I’m sorry I mouthed off to a reporter, but you’re out of your mind.
CJ: No, I -
Charlie: Education’s a serious thing. Crime, jobs, national security. In eighteen months, I’ve been to Oregon four times, and not a single person I’ve met there has been stupid.
CJ: Everybody’s stupid in an election year, Charlie.
Charlie: No. Everybody gets treated stupid in an election year, CJ.
5 tags
Guns Not Butter (4.12)
Josh: 68% think we give too much in foreign aid, and 59% think it should be cut.
Will: You like that stat?
Josh: I do.
Will: Why?
Josh: Because 9% think it's too high, and shouldn't be cut! 9% of respondents could not fully get their arms around the question. There should be another box you can check for "I have utterly no idea what you're talking about. Please, God, don't ask for my input."
5 tags
Election Night (4.6)
Bartlet: How'd you know?
Abbey: You were off the prompter.
Bartlet: Just for a minute at the end. I couldn't see it.
Abbey: It's all right. There are going to be more days like this. It starts now. It's going to be harder this time.
Bartlet: Yeah, I know. We can still have tonight, though, right?
Abbey: You got lots of nights. Smart people who love you are going to have your back.
2 tags
He Shall, From Time to Time... (1.12)
Toby: I want to change the sentiment. We’re running away from ourselves, and I know we can score points that way. I was the principle architect in that campaign strategy, right along with you, Josh. But we’re here now. Tomorrow night, we do an immense thing. We have to say what we feel. That government, no matter what its failures are in the past, and in times to come, for that matter, the government can be a place where people come together and where no one gets left behind. No one gets left behind. An instrument of good. I have no trouble understanding why the line tested well, Josh, but I don’t think that means we should say it. I think that means we should change it.
August 2011
2 posts
2 tags
The Indians in the Lobby (3.7)
CJ: Isn't Camp David a farm?
Bartlet: Nooo.
CJ: Oh.
President Bartlet: What makes you think it's a farm?
CJ: I don't know, it's outside?
3 tags
Ways and Means (3.4)
Toby: Ninety-eight percent of estates pay no taxes at all. We're talking about people who are loaded!
Doug: You think that just because people can afford a tax, it should be levied?
Toby: I think that if we're going to spend millions of dollars on tax breaks, we should consider spending it on people who don't have millions of dollars.
July 2011
10 posts
5 tags
Shutdown (5.8)
Josh: How long a walk would you say it is from here to Haffley's office?
Angela: Five or ten minutes.
Josh: Secret Service's going to love this.
Bartlet: During the campaign, I visited the Westford Rehabiliation Center there. They're closed today too because of the shutdown. But if Congress has their way, it will lose 40 percent of it's funding. I'd rather see it shut down for a week than for good.
Josh: Mr. President.
Bartlet: Excuse me.
Josh: The Capitol is just a five or ten minute walk from here. Care to stretch your legs?
Bartlet: I'm sorry folks, I've got a meeting on the Hill.
Tourist: You go get them, Mr. President!
Bartlet: You bet! Granville?
Agent Granville: Sir?
Bartlet: What do you say we walk the rest of the way?