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?
