The West Wing · Season 2
[on operating table] It didn't hit anything, they're just gonna look around and make sure.
Are you in a lot of pain?
No...
Are you lying?
Yeah, cause I want these guys to tell reporters that I was brave and joking around.
You are brave. You were so good tonight, Dad.
What about our people?
: CJ hit her head on the ground, but other than that.
Get the cabinet together, and the security council. Tell Jerome to suspend trading on the stock exchange...do we know who the shooters were?
[shaking his head] No.
I'm gonna be under anesthesia for a couple hours.
It'll be fine.
You know what I'm talking about, right?
I'll talk to Abbey.
[grabbing Leo's arm] Sir, it's time.
Hey, come here. [Leo leans in toward the President and turns his head. Jed plants a reassuring kiss on Leo's cheek.] It's okay.
I'll see you in a few hours Mr. President.
[flashback]
You've been a... um, uh, what did you call it?
Professional political operative.
You've been one your whole life.
Well, there was a while back there when I was in elementary school.
[laughs] You any good?
[long pause] I'm very good at it.
What's your record?
My record?
How many elections have you won?
Altogether?
[The woman nods]
Including city council, two Congressional elections, a senate race, a Gubernatorial campaign, and a national campaign? [long pause] None.
None of them?
You gotta be impressed with my consistency.
[flashback]
Governor Bartlet, when you were a member of Congress, you voted against the New England Dairy Farming Compact. That vote hurt me sir. I'm a businessman. That vote hurt me to the tune of maybe, 10 cents a gallon. I voted for you three times for Congress. I voted for you twice for Governor. And I'm here sir, and I'd like to ask you for an explanation.
[pause] Yeah, I screwed you on that one.
I'm sorry?
I screwed you. You got hosed.
Sir, I...
And not just you. A lot of my constituents. I put the hammer to farms in Concord, Salem, Laconia, and Pelham. You guys got rogered but good. Today, for the first time in history, one in five Americans living in poverty are children. One in five children live in the most abject, dangerous, hopeless, backbreaking, gut wrenching, poverty, one in five, and they're children. If fidelity to freedom and democracy is the code of our civic religion then surely, the code of our humanity is faithful service to that unwritten commandment that says 'We shall give our children better than we ourselves received.' I voted against the bill 'cause I didn't want it to be hard for people to buy milk. I stopped some money from flowing into your pocket. If that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if you expect anything different from the President of the United States, I suggest you vote for somebody else. Thanks very much. Hope you enjoyed the chicken.
[flashback]
Why are you doing this? You're a player. You're bigger in the party than I am. Hoynes would probably make you National Chairman. Leo, tell me this isn't one of the twelve steps.
That's what it is. Right after admitting that we are powerless over alcohol and a higher power can restore us to sanity. That's where you come in.
Leo...
Because I'm tired of it! Year, after year, after year of having to choose between the lesser of who cares? Of trying to get myself excited over a candidate who can speak in complete sentences. Of setting the bar so low, I can hardly look at it. They say a good man can't get elected president. I don't believe that, do you?
And you think I'm that man?
Yes.
Doesn't it matter that I'm not as sure?
Nah. 'Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you.' Put another way: 'Fake it until you make it.'
[the President's motorcade races away from an assassination attempt]
Is anybody dead back there?
We don't know. We don't think so.
[seeing a bloodstained cloth wrapped around Agent Butterfield's right hand] What happened to your hand?
I got hit.
Oh, God. [to the driver] Coop, turn around! We've gotta go to a hospital!
No. We're going to the White House.
We're going to a hospital! Let's go!
I have to put you inside the White House, Mr. President! This isn't something we discuss.
This isn't-! [angrily] My daughter is throwing up on the floor of car behind us! You're losing blood by the liter, not to mention God knows how many broken bones you've got in your hand! [blood begins to leak from the corner of his mouth] But let's make sure that I'm tucked in bed before we-
Mr. President! [quickly checks the President's head and upper body for signs of injury, finding blood when he reaches the President's stomach; turning to the driver] GW! Blue, blue, blue!
We're confirming now that a suspect is in custody, and is being questioned by federal law enforcement . At this time, we cannot, we are not releasing any information whatsoever about the suspect.
Can you tell us anything, his name, where he's from, his ethnicity, if you guys suspect a motive?
Yes, Steve, I can tell you those things, because when I said that we weren't releasing any information whatsoever, I meant except his name, his address, his ethnicity, and what we think his motives are.
[flashback]
Come join the campaign.
How much does it pay?
How much were you making before?
$550,000 a year.
This pays $600 a week.
So this would be less.
Can I - can I just say something for the future?
Yeah.
I can sign the President's name. I have his signature down pretty good.
You can sign the President's name?
Yeah.
On a document removing him from power and handing it to someone else?
Yeah. Or... do you think the White House Counsel would say that was a bad idea?
I think the White House Counsel would say it was a coup d'etat!
Well...I'd probably end up doing some time for that.
I would think! And what the hell were you doing practicing the President's signature?
It was just for fun.
We've got separation of powers, checks and balances, and Margaret vetoing things and sending them back to the Hill!
This is our fifth press briefing since midnight. Obviously, there's one story that's going to dominate news around the world for the next few days, and it would be easy to think that President Bartlet, Joshua Lyman, and Stephanie Abbott were the only victims of a gun crime last night. They weren't. Mark Davis and Sheila Evans of Philadelphia were killed by a gun last night. He was a biology teacher and she was a nursing student. Tina Bishop and Linda Larkin were killed with a gun last night. They were 12. There were 36 homicides last night. 480 sexual assaults, 3,411 robberies, 3,685 aggravated assaults, all at gunpoint. And if anyone thinks those crimes could have been prevented if the victims themselves had been carrying guns, I'd only remind you that the President of the United States was shot last night while surrounded by the best trained armed guards in the history of the world. Back to the briefing.
[flashback]
Tonight, what began on the commons in Concord, Massachusetts, as an alliance of farmers and workers, of cobblers and tinsmiths, of statesmen and students, of mothers and wives, of men and boys, lives two centuries later as America! My name is Josiah Bartlet, and I accept your nomination for the Presidency of the United States!
C.J.'s starting to get some questions about why the President's exit wasn't covered in Rosslyn.
The Secret Service doesn't comment on procedure.
Yeah. Ron, a few weeks after the President was sworn in, you got a memo about his protection.
Yeah.
It said he wanted to enter and exit in the open air, and he didn't like the feeling of traveling around in an armored tank.
Yeah.
Specifically, it said he wouldn't use the tent or the canopy anymore.
Yeah.
I wrote that memo, and the President signed it at my urging.
I know.
Ron, I don't think it's right that the Secret Service get blamed for what happened last night, I want the Treasury Department to hand over my memo to the Press.
No, we can't do that.
There are going to be a lot of questions.
There are always a lot of questions.
Ron.
Don't worry about it, Toby.
It's not right. You're the guys - look at your hand.
My hand is fine.
Your hand is not fine.
Toby.
Let me go over there and tell them it was my fault.
It wasn't your fault.
Ron.
It wasn't your fault. It wasn't Gina's fault, it wasn't Charlie's fault, it wasn't anybody's fault, Toby. It was an act of madmen. You think a tent was going to stop them? We got the President in the car. We got Zoey in the car. And at a hundred and fifty yards, five stories up, the shooters were down nine point two seconds after the first shot was fired. I would never let you not let me protect the President. You tell us you don't like something, we figure out something else. It was an act of madmen. Anyway, the Secret Service doesn't comment on procedure.
Okay.
[Butterfield walks away.]
Good job last night.
Thank you.
Tell me democracy doesn't have a sense of humor. We sit here, we drink this beer out here on the stoop, in violation of about 47 city ordinances. I don't know, Toby, it's election night. What do you say about a government that goes out of its way to protect even citizens that try to destroy it?
God bless America.
Good morning, everybody. Anybody know what the word 'acalculia' means?
It's the inability to perform arithmetic functions...I'm sorry, Mr. President. You wanted to answer your own question, didn't you?
Yeah, but I'll get over it.
Good for you, sir. That's very mature.
Shut up.
You're not over it yet, are you?
Toby, I'm drinking the most fantastic thing I've ever tasted in my life: chocolate syrup, cold milk, and seltzer. I know it sounds terrible, but trust me, I don't know where this has been all my life.
It's called an egg cream, Mr. President. We invented them in Brooklyn.
In Brooklyn? Not New England?
There are many good things in this world not from New England, sir.
Toby, don't ever let me hear you say that again.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The West Wing pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
