I just watched the episodes where CJ takes over as Chief of Staff, and there was a scene where she entered the office while Leo’s stuff was still there. There was a folded American flag on a shelf, presumably from a military funeral. So was this from Leo’s father or what?
I don’t get the concern that Toby’s story was never properly resolved. It was clearly stated in the show that Toby got the information about the military shuttle from his brother, and that he then leaked it. All the other alternative possibilities involving Jed, C.J., etc. are just fans speculating and trying to make the story more complicated than it actually was. Revenant Threshold’s spoiler box gives the details. The story was completely tied up in a logical way. In fact, I was very surprised during the break between the sixth and seventh season to read all sorts of theories, since it was always clear to me that Toby was the leaker.
I agree, but like good storytelling, there were possibilities given to us to make it entertaining, the possibility that he was covering for CJ being the most obvious.
Where exactly was this “clearly stated,” please? Can you cite a scene, or at least a show?
Revenent Threshold’s spoiler describes the scene. I don’t have the exact reference, since I’m waiting for the complete series to buy the DVDs (November 7, yay!), but it might be during the Halloween episode. Toby himself maintained that the information had come from his brother, however, some characters within the show refused to believe this (because they wanted to implicate other members of the Bartlet administration) which contributed to the fan speculation.
Huh. See, that was actually an episode I saw, and maybe taped (I’ll check) but my impression was that
[spoiler] Toby didn’t actually admit getting the information from his brother before he died, but rather refused to blame his dead (and therefore unprosecutable) brother, as Andi had suggested he do.
He wanted to protect his REAL source from prosecution, but he wanted to protect his dead (and blameless) brother, too, so he refused to take the deal that was being offered him if he would only reveal the soure of his information. [/spoiler]
To me, that interpretation seems excessively complicated. As I said before, it had seemed clear to me during the previous season that Toby was the leaker and that the information came from his brother, so all of the other evidence just confirmed what I believed already. All of the online speculation on this topic truly surprised me, because there was never any question in my mind about what had happened, and I felt that the writing had been fairly unambiguous (in spite of the obvious misdirected promos and political intrigues).
But it’s a T.V. show, and there’s no way to really know for sure, so other interpretations are reasonable and legitimate.
From what I remember of that scene, it just didn’t seem like they were talking about blaming his brother when in fact it was someone else. I can’t remember them explicitly saying “yes, it was the brother that told him”, but the inflection and tone of some of the things they said really did make it sound like the argument was about admitting the truth, and not using him as a scapegoat (yes, I know, I remember inflection but not words? I have an odd memory).
Yes, Toby got the info on the military space shuttle from his late brother, a NASA astronaut. There was a lot of fan speculation that someone else was the leaker, and Little Nemo’s theory is certainly an intriguing one, but the actual aired episodes made it clear that it was all Toby’s doing. President Bartlet really thought long and hard about pardoning him, too, and it was literally one of the last things he did before leaving office.
Good show. I miss it already.
And pseudotriton, Leo’s selection as Santos’s running mate was pretty farfetched, I agree. Someone who’d just had a heart attack and was not physically up to the job as White House chief of staff, having resigned from the post just a few months earlier for that very reason, isn’t going to be up to the rigors of a national campaign and eventual service as Veep. His past alcoholism would also not be, um, an electoral plus.
But hey, it’s Leo! And everybody liked Leo…
I have no doubts that it was Toby that leaked the information to the press. That was made very clear in the 7th season. But I don’t think it was ever explicitly explained who leaked the information to Toby. I watched every episode of the last two seasons and I don’t recall any scene where I felt it was made clear (and I had my Bartlett theory at the time and was watching for it).
I think it’s very unlikely to have been Toby’s brother. My recollection of the scene where Andy tried to convince Toby to implicate his borther was she was telling him to say it was, regardless of whether it was true or not, because his brother was dead and safe from prosecution. Toby said something to the effect that he wouldn’t implicate an innocent person, especially his brother.
There’s also the point that Toby’s brother had died before the shuttle was endangered and there was a crisis about whether or not to reveal the existence of the other shuttle. But if it had been Toby’s brother, he must have told Toby the classified information as basically a piece of gossip before any crisis existed. That seems out of character for Toby at least.
It also would fail to explain why Toby kept fighting the investigation even while he wasn’t denying his own guilt. He essentially said that there were more damaging secrets that might get revealed. But if it was his brother than everybody already suspected him anyway and the investigation was virtually at a dead end.
As for CJ being named Chief of Staff and Leo being named as a VP candidate - I definitely agree that neither one made real world sense. And the Cuba story got a big set-up and then disappeared entirely.
I assumed that the Cuba story would have had a resolution if John Spencer had lived.
Toby was always a bad choice to be the leaker in this arc, in my opinion. Way back on the fifth show of the third season, one of Toby’s staffers leaked something he said about VP Hoynes polling better than Bartlett in the MidWest, and it made it to the front page of a national paper. Toby got all of his staff together, and chewed them out in his patented low-key way (yeah, he could be calm when he wanted to). This was the last half of his talk to the staff:
We win together, we lose together, we celebrate and we mourn together. And defeats
are softened and victories sweetened because we did them together…And if you don’t like
this team… then, there’s the door… It’s great to be in the know. It’s great to have
the scoop, to have the skinny, to be able to go to a reporter and say, “I know something
you don’t know.” And so the press becomes your constituents and you sell out the team…
So, an item will appear in the paper tomorrow, and it’ll be embarrassing to me and
embarrassing to the President. I’m not gonna have a witch hunt. I’m not gonna huff and
puff. I’m not gonna take anyone’s head off. I’m simply gonna say this: you’re my guys.
And I’m yours… and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.
Hmm, that was supposed to be preview, not post. The name of this episode is “War Crimes”.
Anyway, Toby was established as a person who didn’t leak things. And while his connection to NASA through his brother made him a candidtae for this leak, I believe he wouldn’t have done it. So there was a distinct lack of continuity on this one, not just implausible real life - to - reel life inconsistancies.
Which pretty much explains my whole problem with “clearly stated.”
It may have been “mysterously implied” or “murkily hinted at,” but unless Sean and I and a few other WW viewers suddenly got smited with a heavy dose of drain bamage, I’m thinking this point was clear only to those it was clear to.
Your opinion is right. What you have to do is edit the series in your mind: it ended with Sorkin’s departure, during the Zoe kidnapping arc. And she was rescued by…um…Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Entirelely different situations. In the case of the shuttle, Bartlett was considering letting seven men and women die to keep the secret of the military shuttle. Toby saw that as a betrayal of those men and women.
Not as I remember. Toby’s excuse for leaking was that the weaponization of space was something that needed to be discussed in the national forum, not decided in the back room of who ever was in power. I don’t remember him ever saying anything about the loss, however tragic, of astronauts in the line of duty.
Hmmm…about the only thing I remember about it is when CJ is first talking to Toby about it and they get around to his brother and he says his brother would have (literally) preferred to die before giving up the secret (ie, his brother would have died on the space station before asking them to reveal the shuttle by using it to rescue him), but that Toby wouldn’t want that (or something that effect, it’s been a long time).
As I recall, CJ asked Toby if his brother would have died to keep the secret and Toby said, “Absolutely.”