Vox populi, vox dei.
The voice of the people is the voice of a dog.
The voice of God, Joshua.
Yes.
S120 Hours in L. A.
[on Air Force 1] How you doing?
Hi.
Listen, uh, I don't know if I'm going to be able to be as attentive on this trip as you would like.
That's okay. You're working.
Well, I've been trying to listen to some of the many lessons you've been giving me on how to be a better boyfriend and I know that attentiveness--
No, this is one of the times when it's okay.
Okay. It's hard to tell the difference between those times and the other times.
I know. Doesn't that suck for you?
A little bit, yeah.
Okay. Zoey's 19 and she wants to be a teenager. She wants a college experience, and I can't blame her. I loved college. So did my other daughters. I want Zoey to be comfortable with her protection, I don't want her to try and give you the slip. It's not your job to tell me she wants to cut English Lit, it's not your job to tell me if she's dying her hair blue, or going to a strip club, or whatever it is she's doing with her friends. You know what your job is.
GGina
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
GGina
[gets up and shakes his hand] Thank you, Mr. President.
Gina?
GGina
Yes, sir?
If she's cutting English Lit, I want to know about it.
GGina
No deal, Mr. President.
Okay. [smiles]
AKAl Kiefer
Mr. President, do you want to sew up reelection right now? Do you want a lock on your second term right here, right now in this room?
What do you got?
Why do you encourage him?
What do you got, Al?
AKAl Kiefer
A truckload of voters, Mr. President, about 47%, overwhelmingly white men, pool and patio types, who voted against you by 20 plus points. They share an affinity towards authority, a President. And they see you as smart and having vision, so why didn't they vote for you? Because they also see you as a wimp. Two-thirds of them on a thermometer place you as some degree of weak.
We've heard these numbers before.
Yeah, but I never get tired of hearing them, you know. Especially in front of my daughter.
AKAl Kiefer
Look, I get that this is not the most popular idea in the room. But I got numbers, and I know numbers, and I trust numbers. And the reason you're all looking a little pale right now is so do you. This is not theoretical. The flag burning amendment made it through the House with 20 votes over the required two-thirds. It hasn't made it through the Senate yet, but that day will come, that day will come, that day will come soon. Laws against flag burning are favored overwhelmingly in the polls, and a constitutional amendment won't be subject to a Presidential veto, or overturning by the Supreme Court.
Look...
AKAl Kiefer
This all adds up to one thing, Mr. President. It's over! The game's been played and won. But because of guys like me, you get the results before anyone else does, so you get to pick which side you're on. And not only do we get to be on the winning team, we get to lead the winning team.
[Josh's phone rings. He walks away from the table.]
Excuse me.
AKAl Kiefer
Toby, you're smiling.
I just figured out who you were.
AKAl Kiefer
He's going to say Satan.
No. You're the guy that runs into 7-Eleven to get Satan a pack of cigarettes.
John, I know we've had our ups and downs, but let me be your guy here for a second. You can't be thinking about being the first vice president in history to break a tie going the other way.
I'm not looking to make history.
Then what are you looking for, John? You're going to get ink either way.
Leo.
I know that it eats at you that there is friction between you and my staff. You think they don't respect you. And they do. They just don't trust you. And frankly, neither does the President.
Well...
I mean I know that's tough. But God, John, I'm the one that convinced him to put you on the ticket. And I'm going to be the one standing here when you make history, whether you're going to or not.
Leo, one of these days you're going to have to allow for the possibility that my motives might not always be sinister. You and your staff are remarkably smug, and frankly so is the President. And the fact that you think I give a damn that there is some friction between me and your staff is certainly proof enough of that.
John, you will not be able to set foot in the West Wing. You will not be on the ticket in three years.
Leo, I think you guys set me up.
You think the President of the United States can arrange for a 50-50 tie in the Senate?
I think the President of the United States can do pretty much whatever he wants.
You're wrong.
S1The White House Pro-Am
We're gonna do 'good cop, bad cop.'
No, we're really not.
Why not?
'Cause this isn't an episode of Hawaii Five-O. How about you be the good cop and I be the cop that doesn't go to the meeting?
Try to find out who those friends of my wife's are in the wire piece and take them out back and have them shot. Can I do that?
Yeah.
Yeah, Leo says I can do that.
You're concerned about American labor and manufacturing.
CCongressman
Yeah.
What kind of car do you drive?
CCongressman
Toyota.
Then shut up.
...
What would you have done if he had said he drove an American car?
Found some other way of humiliating him.
This, right here, this is the reason why you have a reputation as a pain in the ass.
I've cultivated that reputation.
I'm not used to having members of the print media in here.
I'll try not to get ink on the furniture.
Aw, Danny, and I was just about to offer you a cookie.
And now?
No.
I saw you guys are going to the opening on Friday.
No.
No?
Security.
Is Zoey bothered?
You know, Danny, I don't mind talking, but I say it here and 10 million people read about tomorrow.
Thanks for the boost in my circulation but I'm actually off the record up here.
[looks down] It's not going to work.
What's not going to work?
You know what I'm talking about.
You and Zoey?
Yeah.
Why?
[angry] Look, I do what I do...I go where I go. If it's a problem for the Secret Service that I'm black...
Whoa....
...then that's the way it is. But she shouldn't expect candy and flowers, you know what I mean?
I know what you're saying. But I don't think the problem is you're black. I think the problem is you're stupid.
Well, thanks, Danny. You picked me right up.
You bet. Listen, the Hardy Boys in the letters they're talking about, they may be heavily armed but I wouldn't put a lot of money on their marksmanship. One of these days they're gonna miss her and hit me. Two thousand marriage proposals, 2,000 death threats, a dozen bodyguards. Everyone wants to get close. Everyone wants a thing. Plus, and I say this standing fifteen feet from the Oval Office, life with father couldn't have been a real company picnic, you know. If it was me, just for now, I'd make sure I was the one guy in her life who was hassle free. That's just me.
Okay. So just ease up on the high ground.
BBartlet
On that point I concede the high ground.
And I concede I was wrong about the thing.
BBartlet
Good.
However...
BBartlet
No. No "however". Just be wrong. Just stand there in your wrongness and be wrong and get used to it.
S1Six Meetings Before Lunch
JBJeff Breckenridge
You got a dollar?
Yeah.
JBJeff Breckenridge
Take it out. Look at the back. The seal, the pyramid, it's unfinished, with the eye of God looking over it, and the words annuit coeptis - he, God, favors our undertaking. The seal is meant to be unfinished, because this country's meant to be unfinished. We're meant to keep doing better. We're meant to keep discussing and debating. And, we're meant to read books by great historical scholars and then talk about them...
Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense. That is my position. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.
I feel like I've lost 180 pounds. I am smiling, I am laughing, I am enjoying the people I work with - I gotta snap outta this. What's on your mind?
I want you to help me get the Chinese to give us a new panda bear to replace LumLum.
Well that did the trick.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The West Wing pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.