Toby Ziegler quotes from The West Wing

Josh

[about Haffley] What the hell just...

Leo McGarry

Will. In the Oval, and grab C.J.

Josh

We just... we got tagged. [They walk into the Outer Oval Office.] Idiot thinks he tagged us.

Toby

He did.

Josh

He's bluffing.

Will

We don't blink.

Leo

What the hell is he thinking? Is he just in over his head?

Josh

He's an idiot. And he's bluffing.

Will

We put up Berryhill and we wait for the Republicans to self-destruct.

C.J.

If we have the time.

Josh

He's an idiot, he's bluffing, and we're going to destroy him.

Leo

You worried about it leaking or are you worried about our numbers?

C.J.

Both. How long can we spin this so our numbers hold? If it drags on and gets ugly and people have time to worry...

Toby

We've got a fight; with this list it's a joke. August Adar would bore the country into a stupor and Starkey is, forgive me, sir, more likely to keel over in the next three years than you are.

Josh

That's what Haffley's counting on. The longer he drags this out, the longer he's next in line.

Will

Diane Frost is a serious name.

Josh

Diane is a serious loon of the left.

Toby

I love Diane Frost. I'd marry Diane Frost if I were a member of her stated sexual preference, but Diane is the definition of unelectable.

Josh

That's their agenda: sniper anyone who looks hard to beat next time around.

C.J.

I thought this choice wasn't about partisan politics.

Josh

It is now.

Will

Wait, the Democrats actually like the list?

Josh

They aren't wild about Berryhill. Donna!

Toby

Our esteemed Minority Leader thinks it's not a bluff and we won't win a battle in the House.

Josh

Our esteemed Minority Leader is running for President in three years. Donna, get me Leo!

Ryan

[pokes his head in] Donna went to the bathroom.

Josh

She's not allowed to do that. Just get me Leo.

Ryan

Uh, Leo McGarry?

Josh

Yes, Leo McGarry.

C.J.

[enters] They leaked the list; the Starkey Russell list.

Will

Is that bad? It makes Berryhill look even better.

Toby

Guys, we can't confirm Berryhill.

C.J.

We can't?

Will

We're having trouble with the Democrats.

C.J.

Wow. Along with the Republicans, that's kind of everyone.

Toby

We've got to move on.

Josh

Move on? We don't move on from our first post-Walken showdown. This is the single, most defining decision the President makes.

Toby

No kidding. And time's running out and if we don't find someone they'll confirm by tomorrow...

C.J.

We had other names.

Ryan

[comes back in] Hey, uh, sorry. Does anyone know Mr. McGarry's extension?

Toby

In a triumph of the middling, a nod to mediocrity, and with gorge rising, it gives me great nausea to announce Robert Russell -- Bingo Bob, himself -- as your new Vice President.

Will

This lapdog of the mining interests is as dull as he is unremarkable...

Toby

...as lackluster as he is soporific. This reversion to the mean...

Will

...this rebuke to the exemplary...

Toby

...gives hope to the millions unfavored by the exceptional...

Bob Russell

not the worst, not the best, just what we're stuck with.

Will

The President wants altitude.

Toby

As befits this vertiginous choice? [Toby stands up] Distinguished is as high as we go; you have to be high to go loftier. Here's what it should be. [Will begins typing] In a triumph of the middling, a nod to mediocrity, and with gorge rising, it gives me great nausea to announce Robert Russell — Bingo Bob, himself — as your new Vice President.

Will

This lapdog of the mining interests is as dull as he is unremarkable...

Toby

...as lackluster as he is soporific.

Will

Good.

Toby

This reversion to the mean...

Will

This rebuke to the exemplary...

Toby

...gives hope to the millions unfavored by the exceptional...

Will

Yes.

Toby

The Vice Presidency, being famously once described as not being worth a warm bucket of spit; let's now hock a big loogie for Bob Russell. Not the worst. Not the best. Just what we're stuck with.

Will

Amen.

Josh

Vast and violent vacuum cleaner, uprooting everything in its path.

Toby

It's a funnel cloud.

Josh

Vast and violent vacuum cleaner.

CJ

It's a vacuum cleaner and a funnel cloud. See, men? Peace on earth.

CJ

Okay, but I've got to be careful about saying "man."

Toby

Why, because--? Oh, c'mon!

CJ

You'd be surprised. I get letters.

Toby

Fine, "human being," then, or do the other mammals complain?

Toby

You used to clerk for the Chief Justice. That's interesting.

Joe

Is it? I don't know, I mean if you find it interesting...

Toby

I've just never heard you mention it. Guys around here with two-bit appellate courtships staple it to their foreheads.

Joe

I can't do it, Toby, I'm sorry.

Toby

You haven't even heard what I'm going to say.

Joe

You want me to do the approach, about getting him to resign.

Toby

I didn't say that.

Joe

I can do the math. You've got a limited amount of time to pick the next guy and get him confirmed before the midterms politicize everything. But I work for you. It's a question of propriety.

Toby

I see.

Joe

Do you? The White House can't be seen as pressuring a Supreme Court Justice to change his breakfast order, let alone resign. Separation of powers.

Toby

I see.

Joe

You say that, but in a way that makes me wonder if you really do.

Toby

The President sets the direction of the Court. I've read the Constitution too.

Joe

He sets it when there's a vacancy.

Toby

You don't have to ask him to resign, only to sit down with the President.

Joe

You're talking about a guy who stood up to six Administrations, 22 Congresses, and at one time or another had half the country ready to lynch him. You think a former clerk can pry him lose?

CJ

That's one way to make the shutdown seem real to the country -- don't mail eleven million checks.

Will

It'd be catastrophic if we don't fix this.

Toby

FDR will rise from the dead?

Will

Millions of angry grandparents are going to march on Washington, burn us in effigy.

Toby

Sell me.

CJ

We had agreed to a one percent cut on a thirty-day continuing resolution, but the Speaker pulled a bait-and-switch.

Toby

One percent, two percent -- what's so unreasonable about three percent?

CJ

Three percent equals X dollars, which is Y flu vaccinations, Z school lunches...It's more convincing with numbers.

Will

Are you people trying to kill me?

Toby

We're trying to make sure you can move to Oregon and kill yourself.

CJ

Toby.

Toby

Yeah.

CJ

Is there something you wanted?

Toby

World peace?

CJ

Toby, I'm not protecting you. Go hide from the President somewhere else.

Toby

More college kids think they'll see UFOs than Social Security checks.

Bartlet

But they don't tell you how many believe in UFOs; that's the number we ought to be worried about.

Bartlet

Social Security is the third rail of American politics. Touch it, and you die.

Toby

That's 'cause the third rail's where all the power is.

Bartlet

[about Social Security] If it becomes public we've even discussed this, both sides will go crazy. It'll jeopardize our whole agenda on the Hill.

Toby

What if I do it? I'll do all the negotiating. You'll have total deniability. No one else in this building has to know.

Bartlet

And if it blows up, I'm supposed to pretend we've never met?

Toby

We'll always have Paris. [beat] Mr. President, life expectancy's rising. The biggest generation, ever, is retiring and we don't have the money! Every year we wait means we have to cut deeper, take away more, 'til Social Security's not enough to live on... 'til retirement's a one- way ticket to a flop house. We have an opening. There's seventeen ways to fix it. Twenty years of blue-ribbon commissions have told us how. This isn't a government program, it is a moral covenant. We don't want to be the administration that saves it from oblivion? We don't want that legacy?

Bartlet

Social Security is the third rail of American politics. Touch it, and you die.

Toby

That's 'cause the third rail's where all the power is.

Leo

Closest we've been to a deal in 20 years and it breaks down over who we approached first.

Josh

If you approach the Republicans, he's a right-wing sell out, if you approach the Democrats, he's a fire-breathing partisan.

Leo

Hard enough caving on principle without looking like you're caving on principle.

Josh

And, we have a little problem called the Wall Street Journal.

Bartlet

We don't take credit.

Leo

What?

Bartlet

We don't take credit at all.

Toby

It's the only way.

Bartlet

They approached each other. Bi-partisan down the line. No one can say I'm setting anyone up.

Leo

Mr. President, a victory like this comes along once in a generation.

Josh

We'll have practically saved the New Deal and no one will even know we were in the room.

Toby

We'll know. And if we don't do this... if this system collapses, which is what'll happen, if we go back to breadlines, if growing old in America means growing poor again ... we'll know that, too.

Josh

There is no such thing as an invisible legacy, sir.

Leo

You have to know you'd be giving it away.

Bartlet

All day we've been talking about my legacy, my portrait, what's going to be carved on my tombstone. Maybe we pay a little more attention to what's being rendered. And the rendering takes care of itself.