March 2011
19 posts
3 tags
The Warfare of Genghis Khan (5.13)
Bartlet: Your government conducted an atmospheric nuclear test over the Indian Ocean thirty-six hours ago. This action poses enormous problems for the region, for the world.
Israeli Prime Minister: And for the US.
Bartlet: Yes. It undercuts our counter-proliferation policy and makes us look at best biased and at worst like outright hypocrites.
Prime Minister: You do not look hypocritical espousing nonproliferation while funding research on a new generation of tactical nuclear bombs? This is not my view. The US is merely looking after its national interest as Israel has a right to do.
Bartlet: Proliferation breeds proliferation: China’s bomb produced India’s, India’s begat Pakistan’s.
Prime Minister: The United States’ ideal number of nuclear-weapons states is one.
6 tags
Dead Irish Writers (3.15)
Donna: It turns out I'm not an American citizen, so Secret Service wanted me to talk to INS.
CJ: What?
Donna: I was born in Warroad, Minnesota, only I wasn't, cause INS just clarified the border, and it's now in Manitoba.
CJ: You're not an American?
Donna: Missed it by four miles.
Amy: You seem pretty calm about it.
Donna: No, I'm very upset. I don't know the words to my national anthem. I've been throwing out Canadian pennies my whole life. I've been making fun of the Queen - we don't do that.
Abbey: I'm sure it'll all work out.
Donna: Thank you, ma'am.
Abbey: Where are you going?
Donna: They've let me into the party now.
Abbey: Why don't you stay and have some wine with us?
Donna: Really?
Abbey: Yeah.
Donna: That's very nice of you. I probably shouldn't drink though.
CJ: I wouldn't worry about it.
Amy: Canadian, huh?
Donna: Yeah.
Amy: You feel funnier?
Donna: No, but I am developing a massive inferiority complex.
4 tags
Gone Quiet (3.5)
Leo: We've gotta meet with Albie.
Bartlet: He's going to scold me. He's been at the State Department since Truman. He thinks I'm a kid and that he outranks me.
Leo: You'll be fine.
Bartlet: I've gotta tell him I lost a submarine! Can I make something up, like, "say, a friend of mine hypothetically..."
4 tags
Privateers (4.17)
Bartlet: You want to hear about Max Weber?
Abbey: Get into bed.
Bartlet: German thinker Max Weber said that "politics is the slow boring of hard boards and that anyone who seeks to do it must risk his own soul." You know what that means?
Abbey: I like how you think that patronizing me is going to make me feel better. It's sweet.
Bartlet: It means that change comes in excruciating increments for those who want it. You're trying to move mountains. It takes lifetimes.
3 tags
20 Hours in America, part II (4.2)
Bartlet: Charlie said it was because of him.
Debbie: He did?
Bartlet: He said you hired him and that's why you got fired.
Debbie: Charlie makes things up.
Bartlet: No, he doesn't.
Debbie: He's a bad seed. I knew it the moment I saw him.
Bartlet: I'm now ordering you to tell me why you were fired.
Debbie: Well, I'm afraid we're at a classic impasse, Mr. President.
Bartlet: You were strange the first time I met you, and you're strange now.
Debbie: Hey, the first time you met me there was a good reason.
Bartlet: What?
Debbie: I was high.
3 tags
Gone Quiet (3.5)
Toby: You guys should charge money for this, Tawny. You should sell tickets and charge money and call it "Journey Back to Germany." Where, in 1937, they held a show of degenerate art, vilifying art they deemed sick, art that featured insolent mockery of the divine, art that wasted the taxes of the German working people.
Tawny: Well, how much do you think we could get?
Toby: Look -
Tawny: I think it's in incredibly bad taste to equate the US Congress with the Nazis.
Toby: Me too.
Tawny: Toby.
Toby: In Europe and Japan they're spending between one-point-five and three billion on the arts. Congress thinks a hundred and five million is indulgent?
Tawny: Yes.
Toby: There is a connection between progress of a society and progress in the arts. The age of Pericles was also the age of Phidias. The age of Lorenzo de Medici was also the age of Leonardo Da Vinci. The age of Elizabeth was the age of Shakespeare.
4 tags
The War at Home (2.14)
Donna: You mind if I take off?
Josh: What time is it?
Donna: Two am.
Josh: All right, we'll call that a full day. But come in early tomorrow.
Donna: Yeah.
4 tags
The Crackpots and These Women (1.5)
Donna: Leo wants you to meet someone named Lacey from the National Security Council in his office after staff.
Josh: Thank you.
Donna: What do you think it’s about?
Josh: I don’t know. But this is the White House, so it’s probably not that important.
3 tags
War Crimes (3.6)
Adamley: Remember Operation Rolling Thunder?
Leo: Yeah. I think I do, yeah.
Adamley: September 1966?
Leo: Yeah.
Adamley: You were piloting an F-105 Fighter Chief. This was our first unit, 355th Tactical Fighter Wing out of Thailand.
Leo: Yeah.
Adamley: I was Forward Air Commander. I gave you your directions. From IP, heading 273 for 10.5 miles. Your target is north-south running bridge over river, one kilometer to the tree line running east-west.
Leo: Yeah? It was a military target.
Adamley: It was a civilian target. It was a dam. There were eleven civilian casualties.
Leo: Why did you tell me that?
Adamley: Because you could be charged and tried for a war crime.
Leo: Why did you tell me that?!
Adamley: All wars are crimes.
3 tags
College Kids (4.3)
Bartlet: Allergy medicine and tractor fluid we’re getting high on now.
Fitz: All right. You guys getting strippers or something?
3 tags
Posse Comitatus (3.21)
Simon: I have a phone to my ear. What does that mean to you?
CJ: I shouldn't be talking.
3 tags
The State Dinner (1.7)
Bartlet: Can you tell us what’s going on?
Signalman Third Class Harold Lewis: Well, we’re looking at, I guess, 80 foot seas with winds up to 120 knots. We’re shipping solid green water over the bow. And we’ve got a fire in the engine room. We lost our running lights and may get run over by an aircraft carrier that can’t see in the dark.
Bartlet: Well, I don’t know, man. Sounds pretty bad, Harold. I think I’m going to ask for my money back. Harold?
Harold: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: I’m going to stay right here, as long as the radio works, okay?
Harold: Yes, sir.
Bartlet: Hang on.
3 tags
Lord John Marbury (1.11)
Lord John Marbury: What is your take on the situation?
Bartlet: The world is coming apart at the seams.
Marbury: Well, then, thank god you sent for me.
5 tags
The Leadership Breakfast (2.11)
Sam: It's a private poll. The press doesn't have access to it. The only way they'd know what questions were being asked is if they were actually called by one of the pollsters and - oh my god.
CJ: Yes.
Sam: A reporter got called by one of the pollsters?
Josh: Wow. What are the chances of that?
Sam: The chances of that are astronomical.
Josh: We can calculate it. They sample 800 respondents -
CJ: Would the two of you stop being amazed by the mathematics!
4 tags
The White House Pro-Am (1.17)
Leo: You know, sometimes I don't even know what you're talking about.
Bartlet: Sometimes I'm just making it up.
4 tags
The Short List (1.9)
Toby: There's no way you saw this coming?
Leo: Toby.
Toby: Leo, I know I'm in your office, forgive me, but nobody saw this coming?
CJ: Yeah, I can't believe my psychic didn't tell me, Toby. Rest assured, I'm gonna get my twenty bucks back.
4 tags
Gone Quiet (3.6)
Josh: Why do you want to be President?
Bartlet: I don't.
Josh: Well, we'll put that in the hopper and get you a draft.
4 tags
365 Days (6.12)
Bartlet: I couldn't sleep.
Debbie: Couldn't or wouldn't?
Bartlet: I have three daughters and a wife, two of whom are also doctors. If you presume I don't get enough of that sort of comment, you're really not using your imagination.
4 tags
Shibboleth (2.8)
Charlie: Okay, Mr. President, I say this with all possible respect, but each of these knives cut, you know, meat. Why is it important?
Bartlet: Because it’s something we pass on. Something with a history so we can say: "My father gave this to me and his father gave it to him."
Charlie: Well, okay, sir, but if that’s true, then why don’t you already have one?
Bartlet: I do have one.
Charlie: Why do you need a new one?
Bartlet: I’m giving mine away.
Charlie: To who?
Bartlet: Whom.
Charlie: To whom?
Bartlet: Funny you should ask. Charlie, my father gave this to me, and his father gave it to him, and now I’m giving it to you. Take a look. The fully tapered bolster allows for sharpening the entire edge of the blade.
Charlie: It says "PR." I thought I knew them all, but I don’t recognize the manufacturer.
Bartlet: Yeah. This was made for my family by a Boston silversmith named Paul Revere.
