In the final episode of The West Wing, Abby Bartlet assures her husband that “You did a lot of good, Jed. A lot of good.” She’s straight-up lying.
I did research for the podcast The West Wing Thing, hosted by Josh Olson and Dave Anthony. As we approached the final episodes, I went through my write-ups to assemble a list of actual accomplishments of this fictional Presidency. It’s stunning: for more than twenty years, this show’s fans have trumpeted it as a portrayal of a model Presidency, run by reason and humane idealism– a show that presented liberal centrism at its best, a refuge from the monstrous Bush Presidency.It’s even considered inspiring, in that many Obama staffers credit the show for inspiring their entry into politics and public policy.
The fictional Bartlet Administration was eight years of failure, lack of follow-through, aspirations to half-measures and acceptance of quarter-measures, poor decisions, hostility to the political Left, and an eagerness to punish American workers through federal policy. Here’s the proof, episode by episode.
S1E1, Pilot
Bartlet greets evangelical leaders by quoting Scripture against them.
S1E3, A Proportional Response
Bartlet complains at length about not being allowed to order phenomenal destruction on Syria when his doctor friend is killed. The military talks him down to some token missile strikes in retaliation.
S1E4, Five Votes Down
Gun legislation is negotiated, but its passage is not shown, and Josh complains that it will accomplish nothing.
S1E6, Mr. Willis of Ohio
They negotiate a decision to continue conducting the Census as they always have.
S1E7, The State Dinner
A stand-off with right-wing fanatics ends in bloodshed. A labor dispute with truckers ends with Bartlet threatening to have truckers drafted into the military.
S1E8, Enemies
A good accomplishment: Bartlet rescues Big Sky from strip mining by declaring it a national park.
S1E9, The Short List
Bartlet nearly nominates an Ivy League racist to the Supreme Court: only when an old and ugly editorial surfaces does Bartlet change his nomination to Judge Mendoza.
S1E10, In Excelsis Deo
Leo argues CJ down over hate crimes legislation, claiming that they constitute punishment of thought– a long-standing right-wing argument. Result: no action.
S1E11, Lord John Marbury
A war between India and Pakistan is averted– not by Bartlet, but by Lord John Marbury and his sonic screwdriver.
S1E12, He Shall, from Time to Time…
Bartlet’s State of the Union address claims to have achieved “18 million new jobs, wages rising at more than twice the rate of inflation, the highest home ownership in history, the smallest welfare rolls in 30 years and the lowest peacetime unemployment since 1957. I stand before you to report that America has created the longest peacetime economic expansion in our history. For the first time in three decades, the budget is balanced. From a deficit of 290 million dollars just ten years ago…” during his first year in office.
S1E13, Take Out the Trash Day
Bartlet decides to not include the parents of a murdered gay man at a ceremony. Why? Because the father is critical of Bartlet’s lukewarm support for gays.
S1E14, Take This Sabbath Day
Bartlet shuts down a Democrat candidate because he wants to keep the crazy Republican in office for fundraising reasons. He also backs down in commuting the sentence of a man facing execution, and complains that God didn’t give him enough guidance.
Bartlet evaluates commuting the death sentence of a man convicted or murdering drug dealers. After long discussions about the evils of the death penalty, Bartlet decides to let the man be executed.
S1E15, Celestial Navigation
When Bartlet’s HUD Secretary, a black woman, calls the Republicans racist, Bartlet compels her to apologize. When Bartlet’s Hispanic Supreme Court nominee is arrested on bogus charges, he is urged to tamp down accusations of racism.
S1E16, 20 Hours in L.A.
Bartlet yells at a gay entertainment billionaire to back down on gays in the military. “Because I know what I’m doing, Ted! Because I live in the world of Professional politics, and you live in the world of adolescent tantrum!”
S1E17, The White House Pro-Am
Mrs. Bartlet nearly derails a NAFTA-like trade agreement with objections over child slavery. So Bartlet’s people dissuade her from these objections. In turn, Abby Bartlet shuts down the Congresswoman who informed her about child slavery.
S1E19, Let Bartlet Be Bartlet
No actual accomplishments in this episode, but a memo by Mandy outlines the Bartlet Administration’s fecklessness… despite the big achievements listed in S1E12.
Also:
LEO: And we’re gonna lose some of these battles, and we might even lose the White House, but we’re not gonna be threatened by issues. We’re gonna put them front and center. We’re gonna raise the level of public debate in this country, and let that be our legacy.
S1E20, Mandatory Minimums, and S1E21, Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
Bartlet nominates two Democrats to the FEC Board, breaking with the Democrat/Republican precedent. He is presumed to reject mandatory minimums for drug sentencing. Leo blackmails several Congresspeople with revealing the drug problems of their family members.
When Sam’s involvement with a prostitute is made public, it threatens to become a scandal. Bartlet smooths things over by promising the support of the Attorney-General in her application to the bar, i.e., buying her off with patronage. He says “It’s nice when we can do something for prostitutes once in a while, isn’t it?“ This counts as an accomplishment.
S1E22, What Kind of Day Has It Been
Bartlet authorizes a rescue effort into Iran.
S2E1,2, In the Shadow of Two Gunmen, parts 1 and 2
Bartlet negligently allows bullets to enter his body.
S2E3, The Midterms
Bartlet declines to have the FBI pursue the hate groups involved in his own assassination attempt. He explains why to Charley, who was the actual target of the attempt.
S2E4, In This White House
Bartlet brokers a deal for AIDS drugs for Africa, with a lot of conditions and loans imposed on African countries at the behest of American pharmaceutical companies. But the leader he negotiated with is killed in a coup almost immediately.
S2E6, The Lame Duck Congress
Bartlet backs down on a nuclear test ban treaty when a single, outgoing Senator decides to vote it down.
S2E7, The Portland Trip
Bartlet is presented with a DOMA-like bill: rather than denounce it, he quietly gives it his “pocket veto,” i.e., not signing it, expecting it to become law anyway. He also asks for a study for the feasibility of Charley’s “Teach for America”-like proposal.
S2E8, Shibboleth
Bartlet resolves a matter of Christian refugees from China claiming asylum– not by granting it, but by allowing them to escape from an immigration facility so the Chinese can save face.
S2E9, Galileo
A Russian missile silo explodes. It is unclear what the Bartlet Administration actually does about it.
S2E11, The Leadership Breakfast
Toby screws up negotiations over a “Patients’ Bill of Rights” bill.
S2E12, The Drop-In
Bartlet supports a “Clean Air Rehabilitation Effort” that’s basically cap-and-trade. He denounces an environmental group for insufficiently denouncing environmental terrorism.
S2E13, Bartlet’s Third State of the Union
Bartlet endorses a bipartisan “blue ribbon panel” to examine “entitlement reform.” Which is effectively revision to Social Security and government pensions. A “Violence Against Women Act” is mentioned, but not described or debated.
S2E14, The War at Home
Bartlet sends troops into an unnamed South American country to rescue DEA agents held hostage. They walk into an ambush, requiring him to deal with drug kingpins. Privately, he acknowledges that the War on Drugs is unwinnable, but does not do anything to change that.
S2E15, Ellie
Bartlet tries to fire his Surgeon-General for saying that marijuana is harmless.
S2E17, The Stackhouse Filibuster
A “Family Wellness Act” is debated. Bartlet allows a right-wing provision requiring health care staff to “give pregnant women information on adoption.” The bill fails because of a lone Senator’s filibuster.
S2E18, 17 People
Bartlet’s cover-up of his MS begins to fail.
S2E19, Bad Moon Rising
A financial crisis in Mexico is mentioned, but no solution is described beyond Josh waving a textbook in Donna’s face.
S2E20, The Fall’s Gonna Kill Ya
A lawsuit against tobacco companies is mentioned but dropped. A proposal to give a $300 tax rebate to working Americans is derided, and Sam Seaborn kills an attempt to raise taxes on the wealthiest 1%.
S2E21, 18th and Potomac
During a coup in Haiti, Bartlet allows the President to find sanctuary in the US Embassy.
S2E22, Two Cathedrals
A Presidential Statement on the tobacco lawsuit is made less confrontatory.
(When I wrote up this episode, I summed up Bartlet’s accomplishments so far: “Well, Bartlett got shot, so there’s that. That Stackhouse guy leveraged them into scuttling a major funding bill before it got passed. They pushed on campaign finance reform, a topic known to mobilize massive and enthusiastic grass-roots support. They almost ran a racist guy for Congress, and almost nominated a blue-blood elitist with strange ideas about privacy to the Supreme Court. They didn’t come down hard on the racist group that tried to shoot Charley (and I bet Charley loves working next to these people all day long). They almost leveraged some undefined deal over AIDS in Africa, but their favorite African President was killed in a coup, so whaddya gonna do? They fucked up a drug-war hostage situation. Their one foreign policy success, averting war between Pakistan and India, was performed by John Marbury waving his magic wand. They lost their Surgeon-General when she urged marijuana legalization. They alienated environmental groups with a drop-in comment in the State of the Union address…. Wile E. Coyote had better follow-through.”)
S3E2,3, Manchester
Bartlet seemingly puts down a coup in Haiti (not resolved). Revelations about Bartlet’s MS put his entire staff at risk for legal prosecution.
S3E4, Ways and Means
Bartlet threatens to veto a reduction in the Estate Tax. (Which was actually lower than the one enacted by the Bush Administration.)
S3E5, On the Day Before
The Republicans override Bartlet’s estate-tax veto from last week, but the Bartlet people buy them off with other concessions. Toby claims that Bartlet has created “3.5 million jobs.”
S3E6, War Crimes
Bartlet expresses support for a UN War Crimes resolution. This support may have evaporated over Leo McGarry’s participation in Operation Rolling Thunder.
S3E7, Gone Quiet
Republican attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts prompt Bartlet to get rid of his NEA chair.
S3E8, The Indians in the Lobby
Toby and Sam attempt to disguise the OMB’s estimates of poverty to avoid having Bartlet look bad.
S3E9, The Women of Qumar
Faced with a possible Mad Cow crisis, the Bartlet people have a lower-level functionary take the heat.
Concerns over women in Qumar are ignored in favor of continuing arms sales.
Bartlet shuts down Sam’s call for a national seat belt law, partly because two states that’d oppose it are needed for re-election.
S3E10, Bartlet for America
Presented with right-wing threats to burn down black churches on Christmas, Bartlet is stymied by a governor’s invocation of states’ rights. Only by the luck of finding an actual threat is Bartlet enabled to send in federal protection.
S3E12, 100,000 Airplanes
A dinner conversation prompts Bartlet to promise to cure cancer with a massive, moonshot-scale federal effort. He and Sam later talk themselves out of it. He is censured by the Senate over the MS thing.
S3E13, The Two Bartlets
Bartlet refuses to defend Affirmative Action in the face of Republican attacks.
S3E15, Hartsfield’s Landing
Bartlet provokes China into threatening war games near Taiwan, in order to negotiate a delay in weapons sales that Bartlet didn’t want to do in the first place.
S3E17, The U.S. Poet Laureate
Not precisely Bartlet, but Toby shuts down the Poet Laureate’s attempt to talk to Bartlet about a Land Mine ban– partly by threatening her with government surveillance.
S3E18, Stirred
Toby shuts down a HUD pilot program for low-income housing.
S3E19, Enemies Foreign and Domestic
Bartlet refuses to bail out a major microchip manufacturer– mainly because they were ‘huge contributors’ to his campaign and he didn’t want to look unethical.
Bartlet considers a military strike on an Iran nuclear reactor because of “weapons of mass destruction in the Middle east.”
S3E20, The Black Vera Wang
Toby blackmails the TV networks into covering the Democratic Party convention by threatening an anti-trust lawsuit.
S3E21, We Killed Yamamoto
S3E22, Posse Comitatus
In these two episodes, Bartlet authorizes the assassination of Qumar’s Abdul Shareef, in violation of international law. Josh pushes a Welfare Reform Bill through.
S4E1,2, 20 Hours in America
The plight of farmers is mentioned: Josh says they gave up on helping farmers because the help would go to big agribusiness. Qumar re-opens its investigation into Shareef’s murder, and Bartlet’s advisors recommend missiles and bombing.
S4E3, College Kids
Toby and Sam propose a tax break for college tuition. The Shareef assassination prompts scary reactions in the Middle East. Bartlet is assured that he won’t be prosecuted for a war crime. An attempt to include third parties in Presidential debates is shut down. A pipe bombing of a high school prompts Bartlet to deliver a bizarre speech, where we can’t do anything about violence and evil but we can do something about mayhem in the culture.
“There’s evil in the world. There’ll always be, and we can’t do anything about that. But there’s violence in our schools, too much mayhem in our culture and we can do something about that. There’s not enough character, discipline, and depth in our classrooms. There aren’t enough teachers in our classrooms. [applause] There isn’t nearly enough, not nearly enough, not nearly enough money in our classrooms, and we can do something about that. We’re not doing nearly enough, not nearly enough to teach our children well. And we can do better, and we must do better, and we will do better. And we will start this moment today! They weren’t born wanting to do this.”
S4E4, The Red Mass
As a result of Bartlet’s assassinating Shareef, an Israeli Ambassador is murdered.
Bartlet sends cops armed with flashbangs and C4 into an Iowa family’s house.
S4E5, Debate Camp
We learn Bartlet’s first choice for Attorney General was a black man who supported racial profiling. We also learn that Bartlet thinks it’s reasonable.
By assassinating Shareef, Bartlet may have triggered a war in the Middle East.
S4E6, Game On
More fallout from the Shareef assassination: Israel starts bombing Qumar.
During a Presidential debate, Bartlet rebuts the Republican with vague musings, and tells the Left they can go vote for someone else.
S4E8, Process Stories
A US-approved coup in Venezuela results in the death of a Hugo Chavez-like figure. Leo uses the occasion to tell the woman he’s wooing, “The process matters more than the outcome and that’s what we wanted. And therein endeth the lesson.”
S4E9, Swiss Diplomacy
When asked about his agenda, Bartlet replies:
BARTLET: Patients’ Bill of Rights, prescription drugs, keeping the economy growing, find a surplus again, keep the surplus growing, use the surplus to build schools worthy of defending the military that Fitz and Hutchinson are gonna build to fight urban wars then pay the teachers some money.
Bartlet allows an Ayatollah’s son to enter the US for surgery that only three surgeons in the world can perform. Bartlet lines up the one surgeon whose family was tortured in the Iranian Revolution.
It’s mentioned that the Bartlet Administration enacted a gasoline tax hike in the past, and damaged a young congresswoman’s career.
S4E10, Arctic Radar
Bartlet, to his Cabinet:
BARTLET: Good morning, Mr. Secretary, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the final Cabinet meeting of Bartlet One. I don’t know if this is true, but a Presidential historian told me that this was the most stable cabinet since Hoover’s. Which is nice, but you got to think, how many other jobs were really available? But here are facts. You created over nine million new jobs, and the highest home-ownership rate on record. More than 150 new trade agreements. You created the largest expansion of college aid since the GI Bill. Cleaned up over 500 toxic waste dumps. And you did it all while eliminating 16,000 pages of federal regulations. Not bad for government work. Thank you.
S4E11, Holy Night
Will Bailey learns why reform of campaign finance shouldn’t be in Presidential speeches.
S4E12, Guns Not Butter
“Foreign Aid” bill. Bartlet announces that “This should be a century of hope and prosperity everywhere. And America is going to lead the world and not just bully it.” They send Donna to Georgia to bully a Senator, safe in knowing that if they lose Georgia they make it back in New England. They lose anyway. Bartlet also endorses healing by prayer, and decides that poverty among military personnel is too complicated to solve.
S4E14, Inauguration: Part I
News comes of Rwanda-style violence in Kundu, so Bartlet allows a speechwriter consultant with family ties to NATO to craft a new interventionist foreign policy.
We also learn that Bartlet supported death squads in El Salvador during his term in the House.
S4E15, Inauguration: Over There
CJ distorts the UN’s Genocide Convention. Bartlet is inspired to send troops into Kundu on the basis of watching Laurel and Hardy’s Babes in Toyland. We learn that Bartlet rescinded two Executive Orders so that he could kill Shareef.
S4E16, The California 47th
Bartlet regards the French as “poncy” because they won’t support his Kundu invasion.
Charley claims that “The White House wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest one percent of the population by one percent, in order to pay for college tuition to be fully tax deductible for anyone making under $80,000 a year, and incrementally tax deductible after that.”
S4E17, Red Haven’s on Fire
The Kundu invasion results in US soldiers being held hostage. The soldiers are rescued, but suicide bombers murder even more.
S4E18, Privateers
Kundu is forgotten. The White House reprimands a “hydroclimatologist” for saying that climate change has started to kill people.
S4E19, Angel Maintenance
Leo kills a clean-up-the-Chesapeake bill because he wants to sabotage the Republican supporting it. (To be fair, Sorkin portrays this as a bad thing.)
A black Congressman suggests reinstating the draft to alleviate racial disparities. Leo denounces this as a “stunt.”
Bartlet reaffirms Colombia as an ally in the drug war despite massive corruption, because it’s just easier that way.
S4E21, Life on Mars
Bartlet’s Vice-President is revealed to have had an affair. This will lead to a crisis of government where there is no VP to take over when Bartlet temporarily resigns.
S4E22, Commencement
The White House instructs a New York Times reporter to stop investigating the Shareef murder. The reporter happily complies.
S4E23, Twenty Five
Distraught over his daughter’s kidnapping, Bartlet signs the Presidency over to a right wing lunatic.
S5E1, 7A WF 83429
Walken, the man Bartlet placed as President, begins bombing targets in the Middle East.
I wrote, “Can you easily recall anything that the Bartlet Administration wanted to do? I’ve been steeped in this show for a year, and all I can think of was “attacking Kundu to stop a genocide,” and “enable tax deductions for middle-class families to offset college tuitions.” We still haven’t heard if either of these succeeded or not– and that second one required raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, so we can guess how it all came out. “
S5E2, The Dogs of War
Walken continues to bomb targets. Bartlet returns to the Presidency.
S5E3, Jefferson Lives
From my writeup: “Jed Bartlet risked the destabilization of the Middle East by having a man murdered, even though alternatives were easily available. When his daughter is kidnapped in retaliation, he abdicated the Presidency, claiming emotional turmoil and deep moral conflict… and turned the country over to a man who was expected to bomb Qumar. “
Republicans take the opportunity to force Bartlet to choose a weak Vice-President, Bob Russell.
S5E4, Han
Bartlet denies sanctuary to a North Korean defector.
S5E5, Constituency of One
The White House censors language in an EPA report because it doesn’t mention “clean coal.”
Will claims that Bartlet has created nine million jobs. Toby tells him that politicians don’t create jobs. Later, Toby says to Leo,
“We created nine million jobs. Now they’re disappearing. Outsourcing, downsizing, buyouts. They build T.V.’s in Mexico for a dollar a day, on dirt floors with cardboard walls…It’s on our watch, Leo. Where’s our hundred days? Where’s our Great Society? Where’s our New Frontier? Somebody’s got to do what we came here to do. Those jobs aren’t coming back. We lose or cave every battle we have with Congress, and we have a calendar, not a plan.”
They lose a Joe Manchin-like Idaho Democrat to the Republicans, but I don’t know if that’s a bad thing or not.
Republicans double the HHS budget, hoping the Democrats will cut it in order to fund CDC bioterror and infectious diseases stuff. Turns out Amy Gardner lobbied for it without getting permission. Bartlet berates her and she resigns.
S5E6, Disaster Relief
Bartlet insists on visiting a disaster site. Despite his trip interfering with rescue logistics, he says “I feel as if I did more good in the last 24 hours than in the last six months.”
They appear to be trying to cut capital gains taxes on behalf of “small businesses.”
S5E7, Separation of Powers
Bartlet allows a shutdown of the federal government. To fix this, they lose the college-tuition-tax-credit they’ve been pushing all season.
The retiring Chief Justice recommends several replacements who would be good, magisterial jurists. None of whom are considered.
S5E8, Shutdown
Bartlet says, “This administration has created the greatest amount of wealth in history.” That’s been true of every American administration since 1960, and even longer.
S5E10, The Stormy Present
Faced with an Arab Spring-like uprising for free speech, Bartlet’s people fret that the protestors are anti-American and that “Arabs don’t make rational decisions, only fundamentalist ones.” Bartlet almost cuts off aid to the Saudis.
S5E11, The Benign Prerogative
Bartlet actually opposes stricter mandatory sentencing in this episode, and decides to use pardons as a way to register opposition. A rare occasion of this show doing something halfway right.
S5E12, Slow News Day
Toby works out a way to “save Social Security,” by using a scheme from show consultant and Clinton stooge Gene Sperling. He goes to the Republicans and says “everything is on the table.” He avoids letting any interested parties (such as the AARP) into the negotiations.
GAINES: So, you’re saying that you’ll ask the Democrats to trim benefits over the next 20 years, raise the retirement age over the next 60 years and give up on this issue forever.
TURNER: If I can tell them that you’ll settle for small, optional private accounts on top of Social Security, and raise the income limit on Social Security taxes.
TOBY: We’d protect FDR’s legacy and admit changes have to be made to save it.
So… fewer benefits, people have to work longer, but their money gets privatized, and rich people pay slightly higher taxes. But hey, we “protect FDR’s legacy,” somehow.
S5E13, The Warfare of Genghis Khan
An open-air atom bomb test– in violation of international treaty– prompts Bartlet to send bombers to attack Iran. When it turns out that Israel did it, this matter is quietly dropped.
S5E14, An Khe
A Republican wants to give tax cuts to stay-at-home moms, but the Bartlet people favor a means-tested approach where only working moms get tax cuts. It takes a low-level intern to suggest “doing both” to resolve this.
S5E15, Full Disclosure
In a script written by school voucher enthusiast Lawrence O’Donnell, Bartlet is persuaded to support school vouchers by Official Black People. Toby blames the AFL-CIO for destroying the steel industry because of Chinese brassieres.
S5E16, Eppur Si Muove
The White House fails to get their judges onto the courts. Josh wants to fix this– even finds a Republican who might go along. Leo dismisses this, saying “I’m surrounded by lunatics.” The death of a Supreme Court justice puts this on the back burner, where it is forgotten.
S5E17, The Supremes
The death of a Supreme Court Justice enables Bartlet to appoint both a somewhat liberal Chief Justice and a very intelligent, extremely right-wing Justice, resulting in a net rightward shift to the Court.
S5E19, Talking Points
Josh is crushed to learn that the trade deal he’s just negotiated will make thousands of Americans lose their jobs, even people whose jobs he promised to protect. Leo and Bartlet explain to him that things are very complicated and not to worry about it.
Josh confesses, “Ten years ago, I worked for this Senate candidate. He had this idea that health care, pensions, even vacation time ought to be portable, that it should follow you from job to job, ’cause everyone was gonna work 15 jobs in a lifetime. Might as well fly in the teeth of it. And we talked him out of it. We told him he was scaring the bejeesus out of people. Who wants to know about 15 jobs?”
CJ tries to call attention to media consolidation, but Leo orders her to drop it.
S5E21, Gaza
Bartlet sends Donna and Fitzwallace to Gaza, where they are blown up. Bartlet’s staff considers “regime change” on Palestine.
S5E21,22, Gaza and Memorial Day
Bartlet considers missile strikes on Gaza.
S6E1,2, NSF Thurmond/The Birnam Wood
Bartlet solves the Israel-Palestine situation by sending US troops to occupy Jerusalem.
S6E4, Liftoff
We meet Matt Santos, who champions limiting punitive damages against HMOs.
S6E5, The Hubbert Peak
The staff frets about the Republicans overturning everything they’ve accomplished.
Josh has to explain why the Bartlet Administration has done nothing about fuel efficiency or CAFE standards. Congresspeople accuse them of having rolled over and failing to lead. He organizes a toothless summit for alternative energy that leads to empty bickering. Bartlet throws up his hands.
S6E6, The Dover Test
The Bartlet Administration refuses to allow news reporters to photograph the returning coffins from the Jerusalem occupation.
Meanwhile, Matt Santos endorses a Republican’s health care bill that caps liabilities and limits patients’ standing in court, to “keep the parties talking.” We learn that he coordinated this with HMOs.
We learn Leo is close friends with an official at a chemical company responsible for a Bhopal-scale disaster.
S6E7, A Change Is Gonna Come: S6E8, In the Room: S6E9, Impact Winter
Bartlet’s MS attack turns the China negotiations into a major struggle. We eventually learn that his main issue isn’t trade or imports, but the behavior of North Korea.
S6E10, Faith Based Initiative
An attempt to attach an anti-gay-marriage amendment to a budget bill forces Bartlet to buy off votes to get the amendment cut. Not known if they succeeded. We later learn that the amendment was prompted, behind the scenes, by Bartlet’s former VP John Hoynes.
S6E11, Opposition Research
Matt Santos’s education plan involves reducing the power of teachers’ unions, and eliminating teacher tenure.
S6E12, 365 Days
The Bartlet Administration decides that “poor tax” is a good nickname for the Earned Income Tax Credit. “Contractors” are taken hostage in Bolivia, and much denunciation of the Evo Morales-like “socialist” follows.
Leo and Bartlet go over their record:
LEO: Four years ago, we announced a commission on entitlements. Why wasn’t it mentioned? Two years ago you announced a commitment to stem-cell research.
BARTLET: The legislation died in Congress. Leo, you held the wake.
LEO: And the drug-treatment policy?
BARTLET: We had to narrow our focus.
LEO: Now’s the time to widen, not narrow focus. Why save your political capital?
BARTLET: I have a responsibility to the party.
LEO: You have a responsibility to the country, sir. The American people sent you here for two terms. Eight years. So the last one’s gonna be harder. I’ve never known you to shy away from a fight.
BARTLET: And I’ve never had to make a speech based on the maximum amount of time I could stand up.
Later, Leo sounds the staff out on their wish items for their final year:
CJ: We should finally get serious about health care whether it calls attention to the president’s MS or not.
KATE: New approach to Latin America.
TOBY: A real commitment to drug treatment.
LEO: What else?
WILL: The VP and I want to talk about race.
?: He’s right.
CHARLEY: I’ve got ideas about the working poor.
SQUEAKY: We both do.
CJ: That’s repackaging the EITC.
SQUEAKY: Poor Tax.
WILL: Catchy.
TOBY: Comprehensive plan.
CHARLEY: Includes training, urban development.
KATE: Weapons ban.
CJ: Affordable housing.
WILL: H. R. 190’s gonna shift the debate back to segregation.
SQUEAKY: Ain’t that what you wanted?
WILL: A resurgence in civil rights activism couldn’t hurt anyone.
Having watched the remainder of the show, I can say that none of these items are even discussed.
S6E13, King Corn
At the Iowa Caucus, Santos wants to eliminate ethanol supports. He also wants to tell Iowans that it’s just make-work money that’ll hurt them in the long run because it’s not for honest labor. But he swallows his objections and endorses ethanol in Iowa.
S6E16, Drought Conditions
At Toby’s suggestion, a female Senator urges national health care, using material from a proposal that Bartlet’s staff had shut down years before. Toby immediately tells her to stop making that argument, and shuts down her Presidential aspirations.
A drought in California is simply denied, and also blamed on the EPA.
Because Cliff shut down an investigation into Leo’s substance abuse, Leo rewards him with Josh’s old job.
S6E17, A Good Day
Santos engineers the passage of “the President’s” stem cell bill. Bartlet expresses concern over deficits and foreign ownership of US debt.
S6E18, La Palabra
Santos refuses to denounce an anti-immigrant driving bill, but he symbolically stands nearby as the California Governor vetoes it.
S6E19, Ninety Miles Away
Leo attempts to negotiate with Fidel Castro. Nothing happens.
S6E20, In God We Trust
Debt ceiling stuff again. Bartlet considers attaching a raise in the minimum wage to the debt-ceiling extension. He withdraws this when Republican Arnold Vinick promises to raise it later on.
S6E21, Things Fall Apart
The International Space Station is losing air. Toby leaks the existence of a military space shuttle to a reporter.
S6E22, 2162 Votes
Bartlet can’t decide whether to use the military shuttle to rescue the ISS astronauts. Bartlet strongarms the head of the teachers’ unions to ensure that Matt Santos is the candidate.
S7E1, The Ticket
A mention of Bartlet “brokering peace” in Jakarta. Bartlet considers a Republican deal on education that does what Santos wants to do (class size reduction, a little infrastructure money, some version of performance incentives for teachers), but it’d sabotage Santos’s campaign.
S7E4, Mr. Frost
The Bartlet Administration fails to heed the warnings of Mr. Frost, a NatSec guy who predicted the assassinations of Chairman Farad, the Kazakh President, and an oil executive. This event, and their negligence, would plunge the US into a military conflict with Russia and China. (Much like Bush ignored the “Bin Laden Poised to Attack US” report.)
S7E5, Here Today
Bartlet tells Toby that he does not regard Toby’s leaking of the shuttle story as a moral act.
S7E6, The Al Smith Dinner
We learn that Matt Santos believes life begins at conception– a point that he does not disclose to the public.
S7E8, Undecideds
Matt Santos explains to black Los Angeleans the proper way to respond to a police shooting of a 14-year-old black kid.
S7E10, Running Mates
During debate prep, Otto sums up the Bartlet Record:
OTTO [as Sullivan]: Mr. McGarry keeps falling back on the same trick. If it’s something good that’s happened in the last eight years, he touts his service in the Bartlet White House. When it’s something he disapproves of, he lays the blame on the Republican Congress. Now, I submit that if the health care system is “broken,” it happened on his watch. If your repairman can’t fix something after trying, I think the American people realize it’s time to try someone else.
S7E11, Internal Displacement
CJ negotiates a complex deal to get a UN resolution to sanction Sudanese oil revenues, by enabling Germany and France to sell weapons to China– i.e., expanding the international arms trade. This deal is accomplished entirely without Bartlet’s input, indicating a loss of command over his staff.
S7E12, Duck and Cover
Bartlet decides to send 90,000 troops into Kazakhstan, right between encroaching Russian and Chinese armies. A no-fly-zone– technically, an act of war– is also put into place.
S7E13, The Cold
Bartlet informs Santos and Vinick that their pet Presidential initiatives– Vinick’s tax cut, Santos’s education reforms– will not be possible, due to the huge financial and logistical cost of his Kazakhstan adventure.
S7E19, Transition
We find Santos and Bartlet coordinating messages on Kazakhstan, indicating that Santos would not be terribly different from Bartlet on the matter.
S7E21, Institutional Memory
Bartlet dawdles on a pardon for Toby. CJ proposes a 50-cent gas tax in order to “reduce the federal deficit,” but mainly as a negotiating tactic.
S7E22, Tomorrow
Bartlet waits until the very last possible moment to pardon Toby. War in Kazakhstan draws nearer as Santos takes over.