EXACTLY! I respect The Office of The President but rarely like the the actual POTUS!
BTW, I used to jokingly say that Martin Sheen should run for President, but now that we live in a world where Donald Trump is front runner, I think Sheen should really consider it!!!
This is kinda off topic, but it’s my thread…
I thought Ainsley Hayes (Emily Procter) was brilliant and hilarious, the relatively few times that we got to see her. I’ve often wondered what that character would have become if Procter hadn’t landed the role of Calleigh Dusquesne in CSI:Miami??? Granted, she MADE that show, but still I wonder what if…
Sidebar- WTF is up with the names of the characters that Emily Procter plays? Ainsley Hayes? Calleigh Dusquesne??? She stretches Horatio into at least five or six syllables, it could take her half the show to say her own characters name!
I really like physical humour when it’s done well. In fact you often know it’s coming - the set up - but that doesn’t seem to detract from the reveal.
I still like the first time Josh meets the deaf pollster chick and he’s got a hangover and is wearing yellow waders in his office. But my fav is the White House Counsul smashing the dictaphone on his desk with his gavel - it’s the timing that does it 
Can’t find it on youtube - I believe its S2E19
Josh: I thought you wanted to hug me.
Leo: Boy, did you read THAT one wrong!
For me, it’s the cursing at God in Latin. Better than Shakespeare, my friends.
My son and I just watched the episode with Matthew Perry’s first day, when he brings down the VP for having an affair. Josh’s snarl as they leave the VP’s office, “I better not have seen you crack a smile in there” was spot on. Matthew plays a Republican lawyer, replacing Ainsley Hayes, who I heard went to Miami 
but he didn’t gloat at all. He seemed genuinely horrified at what he found, and I think that would be true of most people who work in the White House. You’re there to get things done, not play politics.
I liked him cursing out god in the National Cathedral. I loved it when he stomped out his cigarette on the floor.
Mandyville.
There were many great moments in the West Wing, but this short sequence makes me cry (for multiple reasons):
I’m going to pick a couple of smaller moments that I really liked.
When Bartlett was shot, the first bulletin had just come on the TV and Mrs. Landingham was out of the office and on her way to the hospital before anyone else on the staff even had time to react.
Just seconds before the debate, when Abby Bartlett decided that Jed needed to get his adrenaline pumping, so she cut off his tie. Pandemonium ensued, but what clinched the scene for me was Stockard Channing’s mischievous expression.
Season 1: Let Bartlet Be Bartlet
Major Tate: Sir, we’re not prejudiced toward homosexuals.
Admiral Fitzwallace: You just don’t want to see them serving in the Armed Forces?
Major Tate: No, sir, I don’t.
Admiral Fitzwallace: 'Cause they impose a threat to unit discipline and cohesion.
Major Tate: Yes, sir.
Admiral Fitzwallace: That’s what I think, too. I also think the military wasn’t designed to be an instrument of social change.
Major Tate: Yes, sir.
Admiral Fitzwallace: The problem with that is, that’s what they were saying to me fifty years ago. “Blacks shouldn’t serve with whites. It would disrupt the unit.” You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I’m an admiral in the U.S. Navy and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff… Beat that with a stick.
John Amos totally rocked that scene…
So many great moments, but the one that sticks with me is a very small bit, at the end of the episode where the Coast Guard(?) ship was caught in the storm, and Bartlett had some junior rating on the radio link, and tells him, “Okay, son, I’m right here with you” …and IIRC, the ship ended up being lost, but that scene went to black/end credits.
Ah damn…that one made me cry all over again, too.
Another one that sticks is Donna on the operating table looking pretty messed up and about to go under. Josh comes in and she has a sign saying ‘nice hat’, and then ‘scared’. awwwww ,
Stockard Channing was often a ‘scene stealer’ just as she has been in many movies! She is brilliant and her facial expressions and body language often say far more than anything coming from her mouth. I am a huge fan. I thought the role of Abbey Bartlett was perfect for her!
The sequence where the Republican-led house shuts down the government, and Barlet walks through DC streets to the Capitol buildlng and the guy can’t get his shit together before Josh says “sir… let’s go” and they leave, with reporters recording the fact that Congress would not make time for him.
One of the tiny moments that will always stand out in my mind was in the Season 4 opener “The West Wing: 20 Hours in America, Part I”.
Sam is briskly walking down the hall with Communications Aide, Ginger, following and he says- “Do we have some sort of condensed, Reader’s Digest index of…well, all human knowledge?”
Ginger replied, “We usually just use Margaret.”
Yeah.
I’ve been avoiding re-watching the show just because there are SO many tender, brilliant, poignant moments.
This was mine as well. First season, don’t remember which episode. They were moving elements of the Atlantic Fleet, trying to avoid getting caught at Port during a hurricane. They read the storm wrong and sailed into the teeth of a “Perfect Storm” type scenario. Bartlett, relatively new a President, wants to talk to the Fleet, Presumably to chew them a new one (yes, while they’re dealing with a hurricane).
The only person they can reach on the radio is a junior radio-man on one of smallest ships in the Fleet. Bartlett demands the Captain. “Sorry, sir, I can’t get him right now.” “Well, what the hell is going on out there?”
Gradually, as the scene emerges, (the ships have been scattered by the storm, and this ship is small and unlikely to survive the storm), Bartlett’s bluster fades. You can tell the kid on the radio is scared. Bartlett tells him that he’ll stay on the line with him as long as he can.
It’s implied that the ship sinks, but I don’t think we’re ever told. I just love the way that Bartlett, the new President, is sort swept up in his own self-importance and then re-discovers his humanity.
One of my favorites was a throwaway scene, where they are playing poker and CJ owns the table with a full boat: sixes full of queens. And the smile on her face when she rakes in the loot.
I loved the moment when Leo tells this story-- a subtle reference to AA:
BTW, this is a good site for WW fans.