October 2010
70 posts
4 tags
In The Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part 1 (2.1)
Bartlet: Why are you doing this? You’re a bigger player in the party than I am. Hoynes would make you national chairman. Leo, tell me this isn’t one of the twelve steps.
Leo: That’s what it is. Right after admitting that we’re powerless over alcohol and that a higher power can restore us to sanity, that’s where you come in.
Bartlet: Leo.
Leo: Because I’m tired of it. Year after year after year after year having to choose between the lesser of who cares, of trying to get myself excited about a candidate who can speak in complete sentences, of setting the bar so low I can hardly look at it.
4 tags
NSF Thurmont (6.1)
Leo: Just skip to the part that's going to piss me off.
Toby: That's going to be all of it.
3 tags
Election Day (4.7)
CJ: Listen, I know better than to stick my face into your personal life except, you know, for sport.
4 tags
The State Dinner (1.7)
Donna: I've been doing some reading on my own.
Josh: I wish you wouldn't do that.
Donna: Why?
Josh: Because you tend to call some bizarre factoid from a less than reputable source and then you blow it all out of proportion.
Donna: I do not.
Josh: Donna.
Donna: I just thought you might like to know that in certain parts of Indonesia, they summarily execute people they suspect of being sorcerers.
September 2010
74 posts
5 tags
Privateers (4.18)
CJ: We think we solved your problem.
Amy: Which problem?
CJ: Marion Cotesworth-Haye of Marblehead.
Amy: Who's organizing a boycott of the reception?
CJ: Yes.
Amy: How big a problem is it?
CJ: Not a problem at all, because we have her here.
Amy: Here in the White House?
CJ: Here in the Mural Room.
Amy: I thought she lives in Marblehead.
CJ: Turns out she came to Washington.
Amy: To boycott the reception?
CJ: What do you care? Just go in there and talk it through, and if you feel like that isn't working, tell her the First Lady wants to give her an award tonight.
Amy: I make up an award?
CJ: Save yourself the headache.
Amy: Am I being hazed? Is this a hazing? 'Cause I'll go along and everything but I have to see Josh again so...
Will: It's not a hazing. They don't do that. Except, yes, you put olives in my jacket again.
CJ: I did. I did put olives in his jacket but this is on the level.
4 tags
Ways and Means (3.3)
Sam: Technically, I'm not a professional firefighter, though there was a time I wanted to be.
Josh: When?
Sam: When I was four.
Josh: When I was four, I wanted to be a ballerina.
Sam: Yeah?
Josh: I don't like to talk about it.
7 tags
The Short List (1.9)
Leo: One in three?
CJ: Yes.
Leo: He said one in three White House staffers are on drugs?
CJ: Yes.
Leo: Where does he get these stats?
CJ: Leo-
Leo: I mean, where does he pull them from?
CJ: Out of the clear blue sky, but that doesn’t matter!
Leo: Is someone bringing me a tape on this?
Mandy: This isn’t happening to me.
Leo: Nothing’s happened, stay cool.
Sam: Is it possible for Peter Lillianfield to be a bigger jackass? You think if he tried harder, there’s room for him to be a slightly bigger horse's ass than he’s being right now?
CJ: At some point you hit your head on the ceiling don’t you?
Sam: I think there’s unexplored potential.
Josh: Sup.
Mandy: Josh!
Josh: Five White House staffers in the room. I would like to say to the one point six of you who are stoned right now that it’s time to share.
4 tags
An Khe (5.14)
Carol: Toby and Josh are in your office.
CJ: What do they want?
Carol: To make fun of you, I think.
CJ: And you let them in?
Carol: And made them coffee.
4 tags
The Lame Duck Congress (2.6)
Donna: If we backed off everything because of words Republicans find silly we'd have a lot of pregnant teenagers and no health care.
Josh: We do have a lot of pregnant teenagers and no health care.
Donna: So, how's your plan going so far?
5 tags
Debate Camp (4.5)
Josh: Sir, we need an answer on Rooker.
Bartlet: What’s wrong with ‘bite me?’
Josh: I think we’d lose.
Toby: Not in New Jersey.
3 tags
In The Shadow of Two Gunmen, Part II (2.2)
CJ: This is our fifth press briefing since midnight, and obviously there’s one story that’s going to be dominating news around the world for the next few days, and it would be easy to think that President Bartlet, Joshua Lyman, and Stephanie Abbot were the only people who were 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 Belinda Larkin were killed with a gun last night – they were twelve. There were thirty-six homicides last night, four hundred and eighty sexual assaults, three thousand four hundred and eleven robberies, three thousand six hundred and eighty five 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 was shot last night while surrounded by the best-trained armed guards in the history of the world.
4 tags
Celestial Navigation (1.15)
Bartlet: Who the hell is this?
Charlie: Sir.
Bartlet: And what could you possibly want?
Charlie: Sir, I need you to dig in now. It wasn’t a nightmare. You really are the President.
6 tags
The US Poet Laureate (3.16)
Josh: LemonLyman.com?
Donna: You have fans, Josh. Not many of them from the looks of it, but what they lack in numbers, they more than make up for in fervor.
Josh: What do they talk about?
Donna: You. You on "Capitol Beat." You on "Meet the Press." You in "US News & World Report."
Bonnie: Well, there's also the section called "Sightings about Town."
Donna: This is reserved for actual Josh encounters of the third kind. Most of which seem to have taken place in restaurants and haberdasheries to which you've never been, unless you're leading a double life, and I think we both know you're not that clever.
Josh: LemonLyman.com.
Donna: Right now, we're viewing the section devoted to the Josh Fantasy Date. This, it should be painfully self-explanatory, is where the women, and more then a few men I gotta say, discuss what they would do with you if...
Josh: All right, can everybody who doesn't work here, please go work where they work.
Margaret: I want to work here now.
4 tags
The Fall's Gonna Kill You (2.20)
Donna: A thing the size of a garbage truck is gonna be in a two-thousand-mile-an-hour free fall and no one knows where it's gonna hit!
Charlie: I'm rooting for Zurich.
Donna: Charlie?
Charlie: I've had it up to here with the Swiss.
3 tags
Faith Based Initiative (6.10)
Santos: And I'm here to tell you that hope is real. In a life of trials, in the world of challenges, hope is real. In a country where families go without health care, where some go without food, some don't even have a home to speak of, hope is real. In a time of global chaos and instability where our faiths collide as often as our weapons, hope is real. Hope is what gives us the courage to take on our greatest challenges, to move forward together. We live in cynical times, I know that. But hope is not up for debate. There is such a thing as false science, there is such a thing as false promises, and I am sure I will have my share of false starts. But there is no such thing as false hope. There is only hope.
3 tags
Undecideds (7.8)
Bram: The bus is here. We've really got to move.
Lou: Sir, do you know what the average SMT time was this week?
Santos: Bram clocks this. He rounds up because he's got money on it.
Lou: 92 minutes.
Santos: That's a lie!
Helen: SMT?
Edie: Santos Mean Time.
Helen: 92 minutes late?
Santos: The notion that I'm the problem is convenient, but completely fallacious.
4 tags
Pilot (1.1)
Leo: How many Cubans, exactly, have crammed themselves into these fishing boats?
Josh: It’s important to understand, Leo, that by and large they’re not fishing boats. You hear fishing boats and you conjure an image of, well, a boat, first of all. What the Cubans are on could charitably be described as rafts, okay. They’re making the hop from Havana to Miami in fruit baskets, basically. Let’s just be clear on that.
Leo: We are.
Josh: Donna’s desk, if it could float, would look good to them right now.
Leo: I get it. How many are there?
Josh: We don’t know.
Leo: What time, exactly, did they leave?
Josh: We don’t know.
Leo: Do we know when they get here?
Josh: No.
Leo: True or False: if I were to stand on high ground in Key West with a good pair of binoculars, I’d be as informed as I am right now.
Josh: That’s true.
Leo: The intelligence budget’s money well spent, isn’t it?
4 tags
And It's Surely To Their Credit (2.5)
Ainsley: You lied to me just then.
Leo: I'm a politician, Ainsley. Of course I lied to you just then.
4 tags
Manchester, Part II (3.2)
Josh: I said to you, I said this - I said: "Do you want food?"
Donna: Yes.
Josh: you said, "No, I don't want any food."
Donna: Yeah.
Josh: And now you're eating my food.
Donna: You'd kind of think you'd have learned it by now.
4 tags
The White House Pro-Am (1.17)
Toby: You're concerned about American labor and manufacturing?
Congressman: Yeah.
Toby: What kind of car do you drive?
Congressman: Toyota.
Toby: Then shut up.
4 tags
Holy Night (4.11)
Zoey: My dad's going to love him.
Charlie: Oh, yeah.
Zoey: Well, I love him, so my father will love him.
Charlie: That's absolutely the way it works.
4 tags
Commencement (4.22)
Danny: You want to comment on a wire report that says that the President lifted his gown and groped himself during the Invocation?
C.J.: Yeah, that was a troubling moment, but he had to get his napkin.
3 tags
He Shall, From Time to Time... (1.12)
Bartlet: I was watching a television program before with a kind of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends - apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends' mothers. And they brought the boyfriends out, and they fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don't vote, do they?
4 tags
The Portland Trip (2.7)
CJ: Why did you go to Notre Dame?
Bartlet: Why not?
CJ: Bearing in mind that I'm just repeating someone else's question, you were accepted at Harvard, Yale, and Williams. Why did you go to Notre Dame?
Bartlet: Because I was thinking about becoming a priest.
CJ: Really?
Bartlet: Yeah.
CJ: What happened?
Bartlet: I met Abbey.
CJ: Why don't you ever give me answers like that when we're running for something?
Bartlet: Because I like to bother you.
CJ: Well, I shall not be defeated.
4 tags
The Warfare of Genghis Khan (5.13)
Josh: Voyager, in case it's ever encountered by extra-terrestrials is carrying photos of life on Earth, greetings in 55 languages, and a collection of music from Gregorian chants to Chuck Berry. Including "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" by '20s bluesman Blind Willie Johnson, whose stepmother blinded him when he was seven by throwing lye in his eyes after his father had 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.
Donna: Okay, that got me.
3 tags
In God We Trust (6.20)
Vinick: I don't see how we can have a separation of church and state in this government if you have to pass a religious test to get in this government. And I want to warn everyone in the press and all the voters out there, if you demand expressions of religious faith from politicians, you are just begging to be lied to. They won't all lie to you, but a lot of them will, and it will be the easiest lie they ever had to tell to get your votes. So every day until the end of this campaign, I'll answer any question anyone has on government. But if you have a question on religion, please go to church.
2 tags
Take Out The Trash Day (1.13)
Mr. Lydell: The hate crimes bill is fine. Who gives a damn? It's fine. I don't care. If you ask me, we shouldn't be making laws against what's in a person's head but who gives a damn? I don't understand how this President, who I voted for, I don't understand how he can take such a completely weak-ass position on gay rights. Gays in the military, same-sex marriage, gay adoption, boards of education - where the hell is he? I want to know what qualities necessary to being a parent this President feels my son lacked? I want to know from this President, who has served not one day in Vietnam - I had two tours in Vietnam. I want to know what qualities necessary to being a soldier this President feels my son lacked. Lady, I'm not embarrassed my son was gay. My government is.
4 tags
Impact Winter (6.9)
Margaret: There's someone here from NASA. He needs to speak to whoever's in charge, and at this point I have no idea who that is.
Leo: Maybe keep the philosophical questions to yourself.
4 tags
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (1.2)
Toby: Mrs. Landingham, does the President have free time this morning?
Mrs. Landingham: The President has nothing but free time, Toby. Right now he's in the residence eating Cheerios and enjoying Regis and Kathie Lee. Should I get him for you?
4 tags
The Benign Prerogative (5.11)
Charlie: CJ, with the press...could you ever trust a reporter?
CJ: Is this the beginning of a joke?
5 tags
War Crimes (3.5)
Charlie: How was church?
Bartlet: It sucked.
Abbey: It was fine, stop it.
Bartlet: It sucked!
Abbey: You're talking about church.
Bartlet: Oh, like I'm not already going to hell.
4 tags
18th & Potomac (2.21)
Charlie: Who pays sticker price?
Mrs. Landingham: I do!
Charlie: You gotta let me go back there with you.
Mrs. Landingham: I wasn't duped, Charlie.
Charlie: You paid sticker price!
Mrs. Landingham: I'm a government employee.
Charlie: That doesn't necessarily mean you're a fool.
4 tags
Mr. Willis of Ohio (1.6)
Sam: You don't understand the census?
CJ: I don't understand certain nuances.
Sam: Like what?
CJ: Like…the census.
4 tags
Separation of Powers (5.7)
Donna: Stay away from heavy machinery.
Josh: Fortunately, Pa and I brought in the last of the winter wheat yesterday so I don't have to operate the combine.
4 tags
Five Votes Down (1.4)
Mandy: Sarah Wissin-slut gave him the jacket on July 3rd.
Josh: I really thought a nice byproduct of not going out with you anymore would be that you wouldn’t yell at me anymore.
Mandy: That was a bit unrealistic, wasn’t it?
4 tags
Night Five (3.12)
Sam: Hayes, you could make a good dog break his leash.
Ainsley: I was at a social function.
Sam: Americans for the Preservation of Family Values and White People?
4 tags
Game On (4.6)
Abbey: Well, it’s in the bag. You have someone here to show off for.
Bartlet: My daughters are here?
Abbey: Are you kidding? Ellie’s wearing makeup.
Bartlet: Well, I don’t approve of that.
Abbey: You understand she’s twenty-seven, right?
Bartlet: I don’t approve of that either.
4 tags
Celestial Navigation (1.15)
Josh: Long story short, you’re gonna be reading a bit today about your secret plan to fight inflation.
Bartlet: I have a secret plan to fight inflation?
Josh: No.
Bartlet: Why am I going to be reading that I do?
Josh: It was suggested in the Press Room that you did.
Bartlet: By who?
Josh: By me.
Bartlet: You told the press I have a secret plan to fight inflation?
Josh: No, I did not. Let me be absolutely clear, I did not do that. Except, yes, I did that.
4 tags
Life On Mars (4.21)
Charlie: I don't think I've ever seen you eat a salad. What kind of salad is it?
Toby: I don't know.
Charlie: Just mixed greens?
Toby: I don't know what kind of salad it is. I'm eating a salad, okay? I'm doing it. Do I have to know the names? There's no difference between them. It's a bowl of weeds. Some of them have cheese. This isn't the kind with cheese. Does that answer your question? How many years have you guys been "Toby, you eat like a teenager. Toby, that's red meat. That's your second cigar." Here I am eating a salad, which, by the way, you could cover this thing in barbecue sauce and it would still tastes like the ground, and I'm getting heckled from the gallery, who wanted to come in here to eat his roast beef sandwich with ketchup on a kaiser roll and watch the damn tennis on my TV! That's all I'm saying.
Charlie: Man, Toby, you're really doing everything you can do to get that woman to marry you?
4 tags
A Proportional Response (1.3)
Sam: Have you ever tried to overthrow the government?
Charlie: No sir.
Sam: What the hell’s been stopping you?
3 tags
2162 Votes (6.22)
Santos: You know I’d been hoping to stand here tonight under very different circumstances, and I have been asked by people that I respect to take this opportunity to support one of the other fine candidates who have made this race with me, to help decide who our nominee will be. But I can’t do that. I can’t do that because it’s not my place to decide who our nominee should be. That decision is yours and yours alone. Now there has been a great deal made about Governor Baker’s decision not to disclose his wife’s minor medical condition. Many people believe that he should have. But I don’t believe Governor Baker failed to disclose it because he was ashamed or embarrassed. I think he didn’t disclose it because we’re the hypocrites, not the Bakers; because we’re all broken, every single one of us, and yet we pretend that we’re not. We all live lives of imperfection and yet we cling to this fantasy that there’s this perfect life and that our leaders should embody it. But if we expect our leaders to live on some higher moral plain than the rest of us, well we’re just asking to be deceived. Now it’s been suggested to me this week that I should try to buy your support with jobs, and the promise of access. It’s been suggested to me that party unity is more important than your democratic rights as delegates. That’s right it’s not. And you have a decision to make. Don’t vote for us because you think we’re perfect. Don’t vote for us because of what we might be able to do for you only. Vote for the person who shares your ideals, your hopes, your dreams. Vote for the person who most embodies what you believe we need to keep our nation strong and free. And when you have done that, you can go back to Seattle, and Boston, to Miami, to Omaha, to Tulsa and Chicago, and Atlanta with your head held high, and say, “I am a member of the Democratic Party."
4 tags
The Two Bartlets (2.13)
C.J.: Duchamp was the father of Dadaism.
Toby: I know.
C.J.: The da-da of Dada.
Toby: It's like there's nothing you can do about that joke. It's coming, and you just have to stand there.
3 tags
The Debate (7.7)
Santos: What did liberals do that was so offensive to the Republican Party? I'll tell you what they did. Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things, every one. So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, 'Liberal,' as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.
3 tags
We Killed Yamamoto (3.21)
Man: Uh, Miss Moss? Are you aware that studies clearly show the word 'north' leaves the impression that this state is cold, snowy and flat, significantly depressing tourism and business startup.
Donna: With due respect, sir, your average temperature is 7 degrees. Your average snowfall: 42 inches, and a name change isn't going to take care of that.
Woman: We enjoy roughly the same climate as South Dakota. We took in 73.7 million in tourism revenue last year. They took in 1.2 billion. They have the word 'south'.
Donna: Also Mount Rushmore.
3 tags
20 Hours in America (4.1)
Bartlet: More than any time in recent history, America's destiny is not of our own choosing. We did not seek nor did we provoke an assault on our freedom and our way of life. We did not expect nor did we invite a confrontation with evil. Yet the true measure of a people's strength is how they rise to master that moment when it does arrive. Forty-four people were killed a couple of hours ago at Kennison State University. Three swimmers from the men's team were killed and two others are in critical condition, when, after having heard the explosion from their practice facility, they ran into the fire to help get people out. Ran into the fire. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight. They're our students and our teachers and our parents and our friends. The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless. This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars.
4 tags
Here Today (7.5)
Helen: I thought you liked it when I got loud?
Santos: In this, as in all things, context is the key.
4 tags
Abu El Banat (5.9)
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 chose morons. Every one.
Debbie: They say daughters look for their fathers.
4 tags
Take Out The Trash Day (1.13)
Bartlet: Is Simon Blye coming in to meet with you today?
Leo: How did you know that?
Bartlet: I broke into your secret schedule compartment and took infrared photos with my compact camera.
3 tags
Somebody's Going To Emergency, Somebody's Going To...
CJ: Where else could you put the Northern Hemisphere but on the top?
Sayles: On the bottom.
CJ: How?
Fallow: Like this.
CJ: Yeah, but you can’t do that.
Fallow: Why not?
CJ: Cause it’s freaking me out.
4 tags
Eppur Si Muove (5.16)
Leo: I'm sorry, but can we really justify spending $800,000 on "A Biocultural Approach to the Study of Female Sexual Fantasy and Genital Arousal?"
Toby: How can we afford not to?
