The West Wing · Season 2
And why doesn't he ask the First Lady about the $500 check himself in the normal course of, you know, being married to her.
When the President inquires into the First Lady's personal bookkeeping, the First Lady gets angry at him... and yells.
Well, she's gonna get angry and yell when I inquire too.
Well, the President doesn't care so much about that.
They have bathrobes at the gym?
In the women's locker room.
But not the men's.
Yeah.
Now, that's outrageous. There's a thousand men working here and fifty women...
Yeah, and it's the bathrobes that's outrageous.
Okay, can I talk to you about adrenaline for a second?
Adrenaline?
Yeah. You're feeling it right now and it's gonna get even more cause it's a big night, and you were a hit and you've never experienced anything like this.
And you think I'm going to have a nutty.
I'm saying don't drink until you're off television.
God! Thanks Sam for that debating tip. You have a feel for nuances. You say I shouldn't be drunk when I'm representing the White House.
Yeah. And remember you're a blond, Republican girl and that nobody likes you.
[to Josh] You have to ask a girl out on a date. You can't just randomly tumble into a girl sidewise and hope she breaks up with you soon - the way you always do.
Why when the second amendment clearly says that the federal government will not infringe upon citizen's right to keep and bear arms.
Because it doesn't say that. In fact it doesn't say that at all. The only way it says that if you remove some words from it. It says a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the government shall not infringe. The words well regulated and militia are in the first sentence. I don't think the framers were thinking of three guys in a Dodge Durango.
You don't really know what the framers were thinking do you?
No. But I know that if you combine all the populations of Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and Australia you'll get a population roughly the size of the United States. We had 32,000 gun deaths last year, they had 112. Do you think it's because Americans are more homicidal by nature or do you think it's because those guys have gun control laws?
Numbers don't lie.
They lie all the time. They lie when 72 percent of Americans say they're tired of a sex scandal, while all the while, newspaper circulation goes through the roof for anyone featuring the story. If you polled a hundred Donnas and asked them if they think we should go out, you'd get a high positive response. But, the poll wouldn't tell you it's because she likes you. And she knows it's beginning to show and she needs to cover herself with misdirection.
Believe me when I tell you that's not true.
There are people you haven't persuaded yet. These numbers mean dial it up. Otherwise, you're like the French radical watching the crowd run by and saying, "There go my people. I must find out where they're going so I can lead them."
Damn it! How the hell did it happen?
It was bad intelligence, sir.
You think?
Ferente left behind a radio and a soldier at the outpost. And they were deliberately sending us misinformation.
We never anticipated they somebody might try that? We weren't prepared for someone to try and outfox us with a stratagem so sophisticated it's an entire generation behind "Hey look, your shoelaces are untied!?" Is that how I just lost nine guys, to a damn street gang with a ham radio?
[about the President] Last night you were scared to meet him.
And I'm still scared to meet him, but I'll overcome that in order to erase the humiliation that I've brought upon myself and my father.
You are just in your own little Euripides play over there, aren't you?
I fought a jungle war. I'm not doing it again. If I could put myself anywhere in time, it would be the Cabinet room, on August 4, 1964. When our ships were attacked by North Vietnam in the Tonkin Gulf. I'd say, "Mr. President...don't do it. Don't consider authorizing a massive commitment of troops and throwing in our lot with torturers and panderers, leaders without principle and soldiers without conviction; no clear mission, and no end in sight." This war is at home. The casualties are in our prisons, and not our hospitals. The amount of money the American government is spending in Colombia is the exact same amount American consumers are spending buying drugs from Colombia, we're funding both sides of this war and we'll never win it that way.
[angry] I don't think it's a good idea for us to talk about this now.
Why?
Cause you've got to focus on Columbia.
[angry] I can do two things at once.
You don't have two things at once, Jed. You have ninety-two things at once and one of them is five hostages in Columbia.
Yes and I'd like to go about my day without this black cloud around me so I'd like to talk now!
And I'm saying this is a longer conversation than that. I don't want you all over the place and we can talk about it later and you should focus.
What are you, my Zen master? Can I be in charge of my own mind?!
Let me tell you something, jackass! Get as chippy as you want if that makes you feel better. I am your wife... I love you... you have a crisis... you have to deal with it. When it's done we'll talk.
[pause] I feel better already.
I didn't make the decision to run again!
Yes, you did! [faces him angrily] If we're gonna talk about this, let's talk about this. The moves over the last few weeks... the changes in last night's speech. This whole place is in reelection mode.
That's what we do, Abbey. We run for things! From the day a Congressman is sworn in he's got to raise $10,000 a week to get reelected! A President gets to govern for eighteen months. We try to get people to vote for us and in the process we hope the people force us to do good things.
We had a deal!
Yes, we had a deal.
Yes, Jed. [She walks back over and sits across from him.] Look at me! [He reluctantly looks at her.] Do you get that you have M.S.?
Abbey...
Do you get that your own immune system is shredding your brain? And I can't tell you why. [tearfully] Do you have any idea how good a doctor I am and that I can't tell you why?
I've had one episode in two years.
Yes, but relapsing-remitting M.S. can turn into secondary-progressive M.S. oftentimes ten years after the initial diagnosis which is exactly where we'll be in two years! Do you know what that's going to look like when it happens?
I know what it's going to...
Fatigue... an inability to get through the day...
Look...
...memory lapses... loss of cognitive function... failure to reason... failure to think clearly. And I can't tell you if it's going to happen. I don't know if it's going to get better I don't know if it's going to get worse. But we had a deal. And that deal is how you justified keeping it a secret from the world. It's how you justified it to God. It's how you justified it to me.
[about the President's movie options] Well, he would have especially enjoyed the scene where the Prince Myshkin character has a seizure while engaging in an erotic fantasy in a Long Island church.
Charlie, please don't say the word "erotic" in the Oval Office.
I'd be perfectly happy never to say any of those words anywhere ever again.
[to the Surgeon General] Red meat has been found to cause cancer in white rats. Maraschino cherries have been found to cause cancer in white rats. Cellular phones have been found to cause cancer in white rats. Has anyone examined the possibility that cancer might be hereditary in white rats?
[about the movie producer] This guy's trying to get a little bit of free media by screwing with us. I'm the enforcer, Sam. I'm gonna crush him, I'm gonna make him cry, and then I'm gonna tell his mama about it!
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The West Wing pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
