Recap / The West Wing S 02 E 06 The Lame Duck Congress

Directed by Jeremy Kagan

Written by Aaron Sorkin & Lawrence O'Donnell

When a newly-elected senator pledges to block a nuclear test ban treaty from being ratified in the Senate, Josh, Sam and Toby think they should see if they have enough votes in the existing Congress to get the treaty ratified. Toby and Sam (with Ainsley in tow) take meetings on the subject, but they hit a snag; Toby finds out one of the votes they thought they had may have been lost. Over Leo's objections, Toby goes to see Senator Tony Marino (Mike Starr), one of the authors of the bill (who has also just been voted out of office), to see who the person was. Turns out Marino is the vote Toby's lost; he'll do everything he can behind the scenes to get votes in favor, and he'll also do his best to make sure the newly-elected senator isn't in a position to block the treaty, but since he was voted out for being in favor of the treaty, he doesn't feel he can in good conscience go against the will of the voters. This makes Toby upset, as he fears the consequences of the treaty not being ratified, but President Bartlet says they'll get it passed eventually.

Vassily Kononov, a Ukrainian politician, is coming to town, but as far as the White House is concerned, he can only meet with President Bartlet's advisers. Unfortunately, Kononov shows up drunk outside the White House and says he won't leave until he speaks to President Bartlet. Josh has to babysit Kononov and his assistant while Leo figures out what to do. Eventually, Leo gets the idea of having Kononov meet with a low-level official (Josh picks Donna), and have President Bartlet just happen to walk by. President Bartlet tells Kononov he appreciates him wanting a meeting, and looks forward to working with him, but next time, he'll have to go through normal channels.

When Josh, Sam and Toby are trying to convince the President to call Congress back to ratify the test ban treaty, over C.J.'s objections, all four of them end up talking over each other. Leo decides to impose discipline and says the next time they want to see the President, they need to give Leo a two-page summary of what they want (or a two-minute verbal summary) before they get a meeting. Sam gives Ainsley the assignment of summarizing his position on dealing with small business fraud (she'll only do it if she can attend the meetings on the test ban treaty with Sam). She ends up reversing his position, and while he argues with her about it at first, he ends up taking it to Leo, and to Ainsley's astonishment, it gets approved.

Elsewhere, Donna bugs both Josh and Leo about having the White House deal better with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (though it backfires on her), and C.J. and Danny confront the reality of their relationship.

This episode contains examples of:

• Analogy Backfire: Toby tries to condemn Senator Marino's decision to abstain from a lame-duck session vote on the Test Ban Treaty because his constituents voted him out in objection to it. He brings up Edmund Burke's famous quote about the responsibility an elected official has to follow their judgement rather than being swayed by the will of the voters ("Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.") Bartlet undercuts the point, however, by noting the lesser-known fact that Burke was voted out of office five years later by the people of his constituency; while Toby protests that this is irrelevant to his point, the fact remains that voters tend not to like it when their elected representatives disregard their opinions.
• Big Eater: Once again, Ainsley, who's not only had her lunch, but wants Sam's as well. She ends the meeting with the Republicans by asking if she can have one of their muffins.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes": Charlie and Leo are discussing Kononov.
  Charlie: The guy's a little crazy, Leo.
  Leo: No, he's just... Yeah, he's crazy, but he's our kind of crazy, so...
• Continuity Nod: Toby knows from experience it's not a good idea for Pakistan to get nervous about nuclear weapons.
  • Also, when Josh says Konanov is outside with a woman whom he suspects to be a prostitute, Sam is worried it might be Laurie.
• Ear Ache:
  Donna: Do you know how many people acquire Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?
  Josh: It shouldn't surprise you to learn that I do not.
  Donna: 600,000 Americans a year. Do you have any idea how painful it is?
  Josh: Donna, in the scheme of things, who really cares- (Donna grabs his ear and pulls it back, hard)
  Donna: Do you have any idea how painful it is?
  Josh: Yes, yes, yes, yes. (Donna lets go of his ear)
• Exact Words:
  • When Donna tries to get Leo to take seriously OSHA's recommendations on how to deal with repetitive stress injuries, Leo says it costs too much money to implement their recommendations, and she should just "type slower". Later, when Leo discovers Margaret is typing two-fingered, Margaret reminds him of what he told Donna, and informs him Donna has organized most of the assistants/secretaries to "type slower". However, Donna didn't account for Leo's Death Glare.
  Leo: Margaret.
  Margaret: Yeah?
  Leo: Look at my face, right now. (Margaret takes one look and goes back to typing properly)
  • The White House uses this to get around the possible geopolitical implications of the President meeting Kononov, a reformist opponent of the Ukrainian government whom the US wants to support but can't openly do so without offending and antagonising the current government. However, Leo rationalises that while Kononov wants to meet with the President, it doesn't necessarily mean he has to officially meet with the President:
  Leo: All this guy wants to be able to say he met the President while he was here. He can meet the President accidentally.
  Josh: How do you meet the President 'accidentally'?
  Leo: When I was Labor secretary we did it with the Dalai Lama. Obviously Beijing doesn't want the President to have any diplomatic contact, so they arrange a low level meeting, keep the door open, the President wanders by: 'Hey, how ya doing, Dalai Lama.'
  • Sure enough, thanks to her rabble-rousing Donna gets a perfunctory meeting with a much-confused Kononov which the President crashes:
  Bartlet: Vasily, you're a reformer and you're going to do good things in Eastern Europe and I'm looking forward to the day when you're President. But until that time comes, my State Department deals with the government of the Ukraine. Now you can go home and so exactly what you wanted to do: to say you met with the President of the United States... You just did.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Sam feels this way about Ainsley taking a muffin right after she told the Republicans off. Of course, when he did something similar to Jenna Jacobs, he didn't think anything was wrong.
• Get Out!:
  Sam: I'm going to take Ainsley to the Hill with me for the meetings.
  Leo: Good.
  Sam: She wants me to teach her a couple of things.
  Leo: Good.
  Sam: She called me the master.
  Leo: Get out.
  Sam: Okay.
• Gilligan Cut: Again, within the same scene:
  Bonnie: (while giving a tour of the White House) Ordinarily I'd be allowed to show you more but the President's in the West Wing right now and when he's in his office we like to the area as quiet as possible.
  Toby: The whole damn world's flying apart at the equator, did you know that, Bonnie?
• Honour Before Reason: Despite his strong support for the Test Ban Treaty, Senator Marino refuses to vote for it in a lame-duck session of Congress because he feels that his constituents voted him out of office based on his support for the treaty and he chooses to respect their views.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Margaret enthusiastically joins Donna's Bothering by the Book initiative to get the assistants of the senior staff to "type slower", per Leo's recommendation, in protest over the lack of OSHA regulations in the White House... until she gets one look at Leo's Death Glare after she confronts him about this, and folds like a paper napkin.
• Moving the Goalposts: A subtle example. In his final conversation with Bartlet, Toby condemns Senator Marino for abstaining from a lame-duck vote to respect the will of his constituents despite his personal support for the Treaty, and brings up Edmund Burke's quotation about a representative's duty to follow his informed judgement over the will of the voters. When Bartlet points out that the opponents of the treaty are also going against the will of the voters and must at least be respected for sticking to their principles in the face of popular opinion, Toby somewhat self-righteously replies "I have to respect senators for defying the will of 82% of the American people?"... which is, of course, the exact thing he was criticising Marino for not doing on a smaller scale.
• Overcomplicated Menu Order: Fowler and Fox, to Toby's irritation ("You've never seen grown men order lunch like this"), are prone to this, especially when ordering lunch.
  Fowler: I'll take the risotto, but I'd like it cooked with chicken broth instead of oil, is that possible?
  Waitress: Sure.
  Fowler: And I'd like to substitute snow peas for the asparagus.
  Fox: I'll have the same, but I don't want the squash pureed with either cream or butter. In fact, it doesn't even have to be pureed.
  Toby: Fellas!
• Quality by Popular Vote: The political version of this is discussed throughout the episode. Marino feels that his constituents voting him out of office due to his support for the Test Ban Treaty means he cannot in good conscience vote for it if a lame-duck session is called. When discussing it later with the President, Toby expresses frustration and points out that 82% of the American people support the Treaty. Bartlet then notes that, given the sheer complexity of the issues and diplomacy surrounding the Treaty, it's unrealistic to expect 82% of the general public to come to an informed, comprehensive understanding and opinion on it, and that that the opponents are if nothing else to be respected for going against overwhelming public support and sticking to their principles on it.
• Shaped Like Itself: Josh and Donna are watching C.J. when she denies that President Bartlet is considering calling Congress back into session to pass the test ban treaty:
  Josh: She walked into it. She knows it too.
  Donna: Walked into what?
  Josh: She can't confirm that the President hasn't considered it unless she asks the President if he's considered it, at which point, he'll have considered it.
  Donna: That sounds pretty stupid.
  Josh: It was a better organized thought in my head.
• Shout-Out: Josh calls Donna Norma Rae, and he calls Kononov The Man Who Came to Dinner.
• Smart People Play Chess: President Bartlet challenges Toby to a game to help take his mind off things. It works.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Ainsley and Sam:
  Sam: (after Ainsley pretends to call her father when Sam asks for her help) That must have rolled them in the aisles back in Georgia.
  Ainsley: I'm from North Carolina.
  Sam: Wherever it was you studied baton twirling.
  Ainsley: That'll be Harvard Law School.
• Sorkin Relationship Moment: President Bartlet notices the UST between C.J. and Danny.
  President Bartlet: He's a great reporter, and you're a great Press Secretary. And that's why it was never going to work while the two of you had those jobs.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: Kononov.
  Josh: I'm *begging* the Ukrainian embassy for help. If I don't get some soon I'm going to apply for a job at the Ukrainian embassy.
• Yiddish as a Second Language: Ainsley calls one of the Republicans she and Sam meet with a schmuck.