“Bad Moon Rising” · Season 2
In this episode: Josiah Bartlet (3), Josh Lyman (2), C.J. Cregg (1), Leo McGarry (1), Sam Seaborn (1), Charlie Young (1), Donna Moss (1), Oliver Babish (1)
[on Babish] He looks down his nose at me 'cause I'm not a lawyer.
Yes.
I didn't go to law school. I got a PhD in economics instead.
Your parents were very proud.
Yeah, and all that happened was I won a Nobel Prize and got elected President so I guess that decision didn't really pay off.
Yeah.
Should I run back and get my Nobel Prize?
I think he knows you've got one.
The number of people whose permission I need before I can do whatever the hell I want... Let me tell you something - there's really a lot to be said for fascism.
I'm less visually observant than others but I make up for it.
How?
With cunning and guile.
You got a phone call while you were in there.
From who?
Europe, in 1939.
Yeah?
Yeah, I jotted it down. Apparently, they're at war, but we'd taken a firm stand as an isolationist nation and refused to get involved. Our resources are ours, and their problems are on the other side of the world, though, they do have problems. Sounds to me from what they said on the phone that France, Austria, and England are getting absolutely pounded by the Germans and with no end in sight. They say that by 1941 they're gonna desperately need our help if they have any chance of survival, but I think they're just being hysterical. This son of a customs agent with the Charlie Chaplin mustache ain't going anywhere, but there's no telling that to Franklin Roosevelt, who's trying to convince his country to get involved. That's why he came up with this.
An eighth-grade social studies textbook?
Turn to the page I flagged.
The Lend-Lease Act.
Yeah. Simply put, a loan of arms to Russia and Britain with the understanding that they pay us back when the war was over. And he said this - he said, "If your neighbor's house is on fire, you don't haggle over the price of your garden hose." ... There are too many things in the world we can't do. Mexico's on fire. Why help them? Because we can.
There is no group of people this large in the world that can keep a secret. I find it comforting. It's how I know for sure that the government isn't covering up aliens in New Mexico.
We won't discuss this any more for the time being. It'll be public soon enough. And the more conversations you have with me, the more lawyers you're gonna have to talk to, and they bill in an hour what you take home in a week, so we won't discuss it except to say this: you're gonna be subpoenaed. I'm confident in your loyalty to me; I'm confident in your love for me. If you lie to protect me, if you lie just once, if you lie just a little, if you lie 'cause you can't stand what's happening to me and the people making it happen, if you ever, ever lie, you're finished with me. You understand?
Yes, sir.
Say you understand.
I understand, sir.
This isn't what you signed up for. Leo begged you to take this job. This isn't what you signed up for. If you leave, I'd appreciate it if you did it now, so it doesn't look like my lawyer bailed on me when the rain starts. No one's gonna hold it against you.
Well, I appreciate that, Mr. President. [pause] If I stay, will you do exactly what I tell you to do?
I guess it depends.
I'm afraid it can't depend, sir.
[pauses and thinks] What would my first step be?
First tell your staff.
Yeah.
Then, decide how to make a public announcement.
Yeah.
Then, order the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor. Not just any special prosecutor, the most blood-spitting, Bartlet-hating Republican in the Bar. He's gonna have an unlimited budget and a staff like an army. The new slogan around here is gonna be "Bring it on!" He's gonna have access to every piece of paper you ever touched. If you invoke executive privilege one time, I'm gone. An assistant D.A in Ducksworth wants to take your deposition, you're on the next plane. A freshman Congressman wants your testimony, you'll sit in his kitchen. They wanna drag you to The Hague and charge you with war crimes, what'll we say?
Bring it on.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The West Wing pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
