The West Wing

A newly energized administration prepares to take on soft money, increase addiction treatment, and remove mandatory minimum sentencing.

1. Would you agree that this is one of the finer episodes for the women in the cast (and guest star) compared to the previous efforts of this season?
2. Josh was in fine Lymanian form (take that as you will) but did it seem that Sam was well off of his game, especially in missing Steve Onorato's obvious baiting?
3. Leo's stunt with the congressional aides and the press: cynical ploy, or brilliant political strategy?
4. Okay, really, if you were Joey Lucas, what would you have said to Josh and his hand lotions and special suit?
5. Can the President get a little daggone peace and quiet, for cripes sake?

The morning after Mendoza's confirmation, various staff members are brought back to earth by difficult meetings.

President Bartlet is making a whirlwind 20-hour trip to Los Angeles. On the flight he meets Zoey's new bodyguard, who assures him that she will protect his daughter from those who have been sending racist threats. Josh is excited to hear that Joey Lucas will be at the evening's fund raiser, but dismayed to learn that the host is threatening to cancel the party unless the President makes a public statement supporting gay rights. Back in Washington, Leo needs to convince Vice President Hoynes to break a 50-50 tie by voting for an ethanol gas tax.

1. Josh & Joey: adorable or a little offputting considering how much of an ass he was the only time they met before?
2. Like "Take This Sabbath Day" this was a very politics-heavy episode (as opposed to policy-heavy). Where there was strife and pushback against the realities of the politics of the death penalty in Sabbath Day, did it seem that everyone was just accepting, with a note of cynicism, the realities of polling and fundraising and unpopular positions in this episode, except, perhaps, for John Hoynes?
3. In the ongoing b-plot, is Zoey being cavalier about the need for protection (especially after the terrible scare her father gave her about worst case scenarios) or naive about the realities of being visible to the public?

A drug dealer's appeal of the federal death penalty is rejected by the Supreme Court, which upholds the death sentence with execution scheduled for the following Monday. One of the defense lawyers on the case is Sam's old high school bully, and he appeals directly to Sam to involve the president. During a weekend in which he was supposed to be in a yacht race, Sam opts to stay at the W.H. and try to convince his fellow staffers and ultimately Bartlet that the president should commute the sentence. Meanwhile Josh, after a night of heavy drinking at a bachelor party, meets congressional campaign manager Joey Lucas while is hung over. She assails him for having the DNC cut off funding for her candidate, but the decision was deliberate, as the W.H. likes the conservative nutjob currently holding the Calif. seat. Opinions on the death penalty are exchanged throughout the weekend, including those of Quaker Joey Lucas and Toby's rabbi, and Bartlet winds up calling both the Pope and his old parish priest from N.H. for counsel.

1. Did the President seem really conflicted over the advice he was given, or was he just being a politician, as he told Joey?
2. This episode marks one of the strongest representations of the occasional intermingling of religion and the work of the administration. How does that come across?
3. Another woman, another instance of Josh being a jackass. Was he totally over the line with Joey Lucas because that's Josh, or was it the booze in his "delicate system" doing the talking?