Yesterday's West Wing (SPOILERS...)

hopefully. I was out last night, and didn’t see the first half, so was of course horribly confused. Anyone want to share what the major plot threads were?

thanks!

Freshman senator ducks Josh and Donna for 14 hours as they attempt to get the foriegn aid bill passed. Charlie gets handed a note about a military family on food stamps and CJ and Danny share chinese food while he tries to get to the bottom of the plane crash story. Every one calls Will Bailey everything but Will Bailey and he comments on the whole “walking and talking” phenomenon. That’s the really quick version, maybe someone else will go into much better detail.

Thanks, Jane. So was the WW unwilling to go with the one Senator’s wacky proposal purely on prinicpal there at the end, or was there something more serious keeping them from getting the extra vote?

You mean you didn’t catch Toby’s mumbled line - something about “rights” and “pennies.”

Rewound the damn thing twice, and still couldn’t get the wording clear.

I liked the dressing down of the admin for being weeines in how they presented foreign aid.

I think it was purely on principal. A refusal to fund religious activities - basically the ends DO NOT justify the means. I didn’t get why POTUS felt the need to point out to Josh that he wants to be the guy the guy counts on.

Dinsdale We close caption and what he said was something to the effect of “The loss of civil liberties come at a cost of a few cents (dollars) at a time”

It was all about civil liberties Shibb. The beginning of the infamous slippery slope as it were.

You know, I love this show, but it always makes me feel so stupid - like, “Yeah, you think your job is hard…” I often have trouble just following all the subplots. What was the big mystery about the blue folder given to Charlie?

How does C.J. respond to Danny’s inquiries? At what point does the President say, “All right, you got me. I did it”?

I would have thought the remote prayer money for the vote was acceptable - stupid, but acceptable given what they had to lose in foreign aid. How do they know when to stop chasing an issue and lose the vote? Has the show been pretty consistent with slippery-slope constitutionality issues?

I like those moments when the President is this guy who knows what’s going on with his staffers - somehow he knew how hard Josh was taking this vote, and took a moment to reassure Josh that he does a great job and that the President appreciates him.

Nice plug for Heifer International.

It wasn’t a mystery as much as something that got WAY out of hand. Charlie was handed the blue envelope by a lady during a rope line. The letter was from a service woman who’s family was on foodstamps. Back to the office where Zoe’s French boyfriend is taunting Charlie for being nothing more than a mail-boy. Charlie shows off by saying what he did to help the woman. He had not really done it, so he follows through. He tries to call a sergeant who works in the Pentagon who he also plays basketball with to see what he can do for this lady, but ends up getting the Lieutenant Colonel who the sergeant works for. Next thing you know everyone from POTUS to VPOTUS to the Joint Chiefs of Staff are getting this huge memo on service members’ salaries.

As POTUS said, it was the military’s way of saying, “Yeah, we know and unless you are going to increase our budget, kindly get off our backs about it.”

Never! To do so would be to admit an actual criminal action. The MS thing would be a cake-walk compared to admitting this. Not to mention a potential war with the other country whose Defense Minister we assassinated.

Principles, people, principles.

Plus, in addition to what BC said, C.J. isn’t in the loop regarding this event, and thus can’t speak to the validity of the claim. Currently, she believes Danny, but doesn’t want him to come up with any hard evidence.

Yes, I don’t think CJ knows that they shot down Sharif’s plane.

Was anyone worried about the private getting in trouble for complaining about being on food stamps to the Prez? Ivylad was in the Navy, and when I told him what she did and now that someone at the Pentagon knew she did it, he said, “Uh oh, she didn’t follow the chain of command.” I know when Ivylad was in the Navy, we qualified for WIC.

And as a Libertarian, I kind of took umbrage to Sorkin’s characterization of the Dems trying to “save” Social Security, while the other side wants to “privatize” it. I know this isn’t the place for such a discussion, but really, to say that privatizing SS is the opposite of saving it? Humph.

So…they just wait for Danny (or somebody else) to break the story, and then refuse to answer any questions?

Urk!!

I had a real problem with the principle that the President was defending by not funding an NIH study of intercessory prayer. No, I don’t believe that prayer is the answer to all of our health problems, but I think that a government-approved, NIH-sponsored study on its efficacy is warranted, and is no way an “establishment of religion”. It’s just like any other unproven medical treatment. If there is some ambiguity about its effectiveness (as was pointed out in the episode, there have been studies showing that intercessory prayer works, although they may be flawed), then the proper approach is to do a carefully designed study to either prove it ineffective once and for all or to identify potential avenues for further study, not to say, “oh, that’s religion and we don’t want anything to do with it.” The $115,000 was an incredibly small price to pay to pass a foreign aid bill and maybe fight some ignorance at the same time.

I love Will Bailey and Elsie, though.

SV, even though I’m a dyed in the wool, athiest, I agree with you that if there were some intriguing initial data the topic might warrant study. However, funding for that study (as well as, IMHO, all others) should come from the private sector and not the government. C’mon, if it were a really viable issue, I think Pat Robertson could, and should, come up with the $115,000 out of his change jar.

ivylass, a couple of episodes ago, CJ was talking to Josh about what Danny had told her. Josh said something like, “So Danny thinks we staged a crash, assassinated Sharif and spread the wreckage in incredibly deep water over a huge area so it would look like the plane just went down in the Bermuda Triangle?”

CJ responded with something like, “That’s exactly what he thinks, and I think he may be right.”

Josh answered up with something along the lines of, “I think so too. Let’s hope he can’t put it together.”

Even if they believe Danny, they don’t want to know so they can retain their plausible denyability.

In closing, I loved Donna’s explaining the difference between Josh and her boss to the senator’s staffer. She’s so stinking cool.

Yeah, we know that the Senior Staff has been thrown hints on the Sharif thing, but they haven’t actually been informed. I think it was right after the Josh/C.J. discussion that FallenAngel references that Josh goes to Leo and hints around it. Leo says something to the effect of, “Josh, I have something to discuss with you.” And Josh says, “You’ll tell me when you’re ready.” (Because Josh doesn’t want to be the guy, he wants to be the guy the guy depends on, don’tcha know.)

Anyway, overall, good episode last night. I especially enjoyed the series of, “Zoey’s growing up nicely, isn’t she?” responses.

Million?

Wasn’t Danny supposed to be dead? I did miss an episode not long ago… Did they revive him, or am I wrong about his demise?

I’m another atheist who doesn’t see why they couldn’t fund the study. It wouldn’t be supporting or boosting religion. It would just be investigating an allegation; just an attempt to establish the truth or falsity of the thing.

There was a former White House reporter who was killed in Africa after he was kidnapped. But I don’t believe that he had been shown before.

I think was just a Richard Pearl tribute.

Daniel Pearl. And the reporter killed in the episode based on his story was not Danny – that character was created for that particular episode.

FallenAngel – Since I posted this morning, I’ve discovered that the NIH already funded a study on intercessory prayer back in 1994 (along with some other very questionable alternative medicine studies). I still don’t see how funding a scientific study causes any kind of first amendment problem or attack on our fundamental freedoms.

It wasn’t Sorkin’s characterization. It was Josh’s. Writers don’t necessarily agree with everything they have their characters say.

Josh is a Democrat, and he was having a bad day, so it seems like a believable thing for that character to say. Doesn’t make it true. Josh said a lot of things in that episode, and people around him didn’t seem too thrilled with a number of them. Maybe he was just feeling bumfuzzled.