I recall someone pointing out that, in the week before Thanksgiving, the president pardons a turkey, but allows people on federal death row to die. Did that come up in this episode of The West Wing?
I don’t want to debate whether the president should do this, at least not here. I’m just trying to remember if it was Aaron Sorkin, or someone else, who made that point.
Not in the Shibboleth episode, where the President is concerned with the Chinese immigrants who arrive in the US illegally aboard a cargo ship. No death penalty issues–that’s a little heavy-handed, don’t you think, even for Sorkin?
What?
It may have been, but that’s not the way to bet. In any case, thank you.
Are you saying the death penalty in general is too heavy for Sorkin? Because there was an episode in the first season where Bartlett was debating with himself whether or not he should pardon a man before he was executed.
*Shibboleth *has no death penalty - as prr says, it’s Chinese immigrants fearing religious persecution if they’re returned to China.
The death penalty one was Take This Sabbath Day.
I don’t recall this point being made.
C.J.: They sent me two turkeys. The most photo-friendly of the two gets a Presidential pardon and a full life at a children’s zoo. The runner-up gets eaten.
Bartlet: If the Oscars were like that, I’d watch.
No, of course not–that’s the one where Toby’s in synagogue listening to his rabbi preach an anti-death penalty homily, written specifically by the death-penalty lawyer for his ears–Sorkin can be way over the top in making ironic points. But this would be too much:
CJ: You really must decide, Mr. President, which of these fowls’ lives you’ll spare.
Bartlet: I’m still considering it, dammit, CJ. This isn’t an easy job, you know.
CJ: And then there this death sentence thing that requires your attention–
Bartlet: Oh, well, it’s an easy call. Why is such piffle cluttering up my desk anyway. Here, give me that pardon–what do you want you want me to do, anyway? Sign it, veto it, what? Come, come, woman there’s real work for me to do here, I’m a busy man…