April 2011
24 posts
3 tags
The U.S. Poet Laureate (3.17)
Reporter: Were you aware that several news organizations have been trying to obtain Governor Ritchie's transcripts from the University of Florida?
CJ: You mean since yesterday?
Reporter: Yeah.
CJ: No, I wasn't.
Reporter: I guess my question is: does the President feel college transcripts are an accurate barometer of a person's fitness to hold a high public office?
CJ: I've never asked him, but my guess is the President feels that a person's college transcripts are a reasonable barometer of how a person did in college.
4 tags
Five Votes Down (1.4)
Sam: You know, Toby, you could afford to buy one of those now if you want.
Toby: There is literally no one in the world that I don’t hate right now.
3 tags
The Drop-In (2.12)
Bartlet: Sweden has a 100% literacy rate, Leo. A hundred percent! How do they do that?
Leo: Well maybe they don't and they also can't count.
3 tags
Inauguration, part 1 (4.14)
Cardinal: Heavenly Father, assist with your spirit of counsel and fortitude the President of the United States, that his administration may be conducted in righteousness, and be eminently useful to your people over whom he presides. And we ask this morning for the safe evacuation of the 500 American missionaries and their children in the Republic of Equatorial Kundu and for the people of Kundu, where horrible violence has broken out. We pray to you, our Lord our God, forever and ever. Amen.
All: Amen.
Archbishop Kintaka: Patrick, you may pray all you wish, but thousands upon thousands African children will die unnless the U.S. intervenes. Tens of thousand of Kundunese children and their parents slaughtered.
Cardinal: Well, I don't control the armed forces, Zake.
Bartlet: No, he was talking to me, your Eminence. Your Excellency, I got a very sketchy intelligence report on the violence in the capitol about an hour ago.
Archbishop: The violence isn't limited to Bitanga, sir. It's spread to the countryside.
Bartlet: I didn't know that.
Archbishop: May I ask you something, sir, with all due respect, please?
Bartlet: Yes.
Archbishop: If mass genocide had broken out in a small European country, would your intelligence briefing this morning have been quite so sketchy?
4 tags
Stirred (3.18)
CJ: Twenty-two?
Hoynes: Yep.
CJ: You haven't had a drink since you were twenty-two?
Hoynes: Right.
CJ: Ulysses S. Grant would have slapped your face.
Hoynes: He did once.
4 tags
Election Day, part 2 (7.17)
Donna: You've done a remarkable thing. Win or lose. An extraordinary thing.
Josh: I talked him into this, into joining the ticket.
Donna: Nobody ever talked Leo into doing anything he didn't want to do. And he'd want you upstairs,not down here. You belong up there. It's your night. He was so proud of you, Josh.
4 tags
Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (1.2)
Sam: About a week ago, I accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Toby: Really?
Sam: Yes.
Toby: You accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Sam: Call girl.
Toby: Accidentally.
Sam: Yes.
Toby: I don't understand. Did you trip over something?
4 tags
On The Day Before (3.4)
Donna: Why don't you just wear a pre-tied tie?
Josh: Cause it's not the same.
Donna: It looks the same.
Josh: At the end of the night, you want to be able to pull it open like Tony Bennett.
Donna: You think the tie is the only thing standing between you and Tony Bennett?
Josh: He's also shorter than I am.
4 tags
Two Cathedrals (2.22)
Mrs. Landingham: Are you in a tough spot? Yes. Do I feel sorry for you? I do not. Why? Because there are people way worse off than you.
Bartlet: Give me numbers.
Mrs. Landingham: I don't know numbers. You give them to me.
Bartlet: How about a child born this minute has a 1 in 5 chance of being born into poverty?
Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans don't have health insurance?
Bartlet: 44 million.
Mrs. Landingham: What's the number one cause of death for black men under 35?
Bartlet: Homicide.
Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans are behind bars?
Bartlet: 3 million.
Mrs. Landingham: How many Americans are drug addicts?
Bartlet: 5 million.
Mrs. Landingham: And 1 in 5 kids in poverty?
Bartlet: That's 13 million American children. Three and a half million kids go to schools that are literally falling apart. We need 127 billion in school construction, and we need it today.
Mrs. Landingham: To say nothing of 53 people trapped in an embassy.
Bartlet: Yes.
Mrs. Landingham: You know, if you don't want to run again, I respect that. But if you don't run cause you think it's gonna be too hard or you think you're gonna lose? Well, God, Jed, I don't even want to know you.
5 tags
Six Meetings Before Lunch (1.18)
Mallory: Dad, I'm sorry, but Sam's asked me to have lunch with him and I need your permission.
Leo: What do you need my permission to have lunch for?
Mallory: Sam?
Sam: She says she always asks her father's permission before she has lunch with fascists.
Leo: Oh. Yeah, okay.
Mallory: He's in favor of school vouchers, Dad.
Leo: No, Mallory, he's really not.
Mallory: Yes, he is.
Leo: No, he's not.
Mallory: I read the position paper.
Leo: It's opposition prep.
Mallory: Opposition prep?
Leo: When we're gearing up for a debate, we have the smart guys take the other side.
Mallory: You stood there and argued with me.
Sam: Yes.
Mallory: Why?
Sam: You made an appointment.
Mallory: Sam.
Leo: Would the two of you take it outside?
Sam: I thought you were trying to drive a wedge between us.
Leo: Yeah, but now you're just boring the crap out of me.
4 tags
Six Meetings Before Lunch (1.18)
Mallory: Sam.
Sam: It's my day of jubilee!
Mallory: I despise you and everything you stand for.
Sam: All right, the day was a little bit better a few seconds ago, but that's all right.
Mallory: How could you write that position paper?
Sam: Which position paper?
Mallory: Don't play dumb with me.
Sam: No, honestly, I am dumb. Most of the time I'm playing smart.
5 tags
Galileo (2.9)
Toby: Give it to somebody else!
Leo: No.
Toby: Please?
Leo: This is a public face thing. And the Postmaster General wants your help.
Toby: Well he can wait on a line around the block, even while I have two of my 20 teller windows are open!
Leo: Make a recommendation by the end of the day.
Toby: Yeah.
Leo: What are you smiling at?
Josh: Nothing, I just... Toby got the stamp assignment.
Toby: Leo, I might need some help.
Leo: Take Josh.
Toby: Thanks. Congratulations, you're choosing the next stamp.
Josh: Wow, that happened fast.
4 tags
The U.S. Poet Laureate (3.16)
Josh: I think I need to clarify my original post.
Donna: Josh, there's a primetime press conference tomorrow and a new energy policy that you have spent months shepherding down the field, and now, on the one-yard line -
Josh: Sit down in the chair.
Donna: Has the pressure for you to get the energy package -
Josh: Sit down in the chair.
Donna: I think you've gone round the bend.
Josh: I'm dictating now. I don't think it falls under the category of "outrageous" to suggest that I might have friends on the other end of the Avenue who have the phone number of the GAO. Let me put this more plainly: the White House can get a GAO review of anything it wants without posing a threat to the separation of powers. And I believe I'll use capital, lowercase, or Sanskrit, right up until the moment the font police cuff me and read me Miranda!
Donna: That'll show them.
Josh: See, I think these are good people, by and large, but they've come under the thumb of a dictatorial ruler. So as with a small Central American country, my role is to incite the people to topple her.
Donna: You're way round the bend. Can I get you a damp towel or something?
Josh: No, but do we have any Yoo-Hoo?
4 tags
Internal Displacement (7.11)
CJ: You, I need. Come here.
Will: What's wrong?
CJ: Close the door.
Will: I didn't do it.
CJ: Close the door.
Will: Toby did it.
3 tags
The Al Smith Dinner (7.6)
Vinick: Politics is about practicality.
Hodder: Not if you think abortion is murder.
Vinick: Whether you do or not, Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land for decades. Most of the country is not ready to change that. Neither am I.
Hodder: Well, that's not the party's position.
Vinick: I joined this party because the liberals were the ones who always wanted something from the government. We just wanted government to leave us alone, especially when there's no consensus otherwise. I'm trying to lead the majority who agrees on that, not the minority who wants to enact their version of Leviticus into law.
4 tags
Shutdown (5.8)
Josh: So, that list of shutdown effects you faxed?
Donna: Yeah, the one about the elks over-populating is true. They stopped issuing hunting licenses.
Josh: Why'd you put social security on the list? It's an entitlement.
Donna: Yeah, but we sent home the people from the Social Security Administration who run the machines that cut the checks.
Josh: The checks won't go out.
Donna: Not unless we get the GAO to issue a ruling to bring those guys back in. What'd Counsel say about the other thing?
Josh: It's considered coercion if you come back to work as a volunteer.
Donna: Oh, but it's not coercion to work on a cell phone and run to Kinko's every ten minutes to send you faxes and emails?
Josh: AARP considers you essential.
Donna: When do you think I'll get my essential paycheck? Rent's due at the end of the month.
Josh: I'll lend you money.
Donna: Yeah, but wouldn't that just be emblematic of all these stop-gap continuing resolutions, taking out a loan, begging for an extension rather than grappling with the hard reality of -
Josh: You're right. Get a cheaper apartment.
Donna: I want to come in and do my job.
Josh: Tell me about it.
6 tags
College Kids (4.3)
Sam: I mean, you've got to ask yourself, multi-million-dollar bonuses are deductible and not tuition?
CJ: It's cause corporations donate to all the members of the tax-writing committee.
Sam: I didn't mean you really have to ask yourself. I knew you knew the answer.
CJ: Ritchie's already coming after us for politicizing the budget. Plus, Leo hates to make policy through tax code, cause then we can't do any kind of reform without unraveling it.
Sam: Was that Amy?
Josh: Yeah. If the Sullivan decision's upheld, Stackhouse wants into the debate. He's not going to endorse the President.
Sam: Had to see that coming.
Josh: I'm calling Bruno.
Sam: The Court's going to stay the effect. He's not going to be in the debate. Josh'll take care of it. Anyway, college tuition.
CJ: Another reason not to do it.
Toby: There are a lot of reasons not to do it. But we met a guy last night at an airport hotel in the bar. His daughter was upstairs in the room. They'd been looking at colleges. He makes $55,000 a year. His mutual fund got beat up yesterday on Wall Street. And he was so happy to be taking his daughter to colleges. He came downstairs to the bar 'cause he didn't want her to see that he didn't know how he was going to pay for it. There are a lot of reasons not to do it, but during the first campaign the President said there are two kinds of politicians.
Sam: The ones who try to say yes, and the ones who try to say no.
Toby: We're going to throw these guys out cause they want to say no.
CJ: I guess if we're going to get thrown out, I don't want it to be for that.
4 tags
Tomorrow (7.22)
Bartlet: Make me proud, Mr. President.
Santos: I'll do my best, Mr. President.
4 tags
Requiem (7.18)
Josh: You know, I was supposed to be doing this with Leo.
Bartlet: He loved you like a son. You know that, don't you? Leo and I are the past - you're the future. It's up to you now. We're counting on you.
4 tags
Commencement (4.22)
Will: This speech is about creativity. In my judgment it's a home run. But what it isn't is a speech that will convince Zoey not to go to France tomorrow.
Bartlet: Well, let's write that one.
4 tags
17 People (2.18)
Sam: You're going back to Smith College, the cradle of feminism, to argue in opposition of the Equal Rights Amendment?
Ainsley: And get some decent pizza, yeah.
Sam: They're gonna hate you.
Ainsley: I'm a straight Republican from North Carolina. You don't think they hated me the first time around?
4 tags
Internal Displacement (7.11)
Danny: We're both about to fall off a cliff. And I don't know what I'm gonna do with the rest of my life, except I know what I don't wanna do. And on Inauguration Day, you're going to be released from that glorious prison on Pennsylvania Avenue, with -
CJ: No human skills?
Danny: Seems to me.
CJ: I should punch you in the face.
Danny: That's what I'm talking about.
CJ: Keep going -
Danny: So, if I'm gonna jump off the cliff, and you're gonna get pushed off the cliff, why don't we hold hands on the way down?
4 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 lead 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 plane 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
Memorial Day (5.22)
Kate Harper: If someone wanted you dead, you'd be dead already.
Josh: Yeah, that's not reassuring.
