War Crimes

Previously on The West Wing: Donna confessed to Josh that she and Cliff went on a date; C.J. thought the White House needs to pick a fight over the MS investigation; Hoynes tipped his hand and forced Jed's.

It's Sunday. You'd never know it, because there are pretty well as many people at work as there are on weekdays. There's a game on TV; it seems to be football. Lots of reporters are filing into the Briefing Room. Things have a more relaxed feel than usual. C.J.'s wearing grey trousers and a gorgeous red shirt. Allison Janney looks so wonderful in strong colours, especially red and royal blue. She's typically in greys, pale blues, white, and neutral shades on this show, except in evening wear. But she should wear lots more red. She looks so damn great in it. As people settle into their seats, one reporter asks C.J. whether it's known "what kind of gun it was." C.J. asks which one; the reporter means the first one. C.J. says it was a .38 pistol. C.J. tells them that a shooting took place approximately fifteen minutes into a 9:00 AM service at United Baptist Church in Abilene, Texas. I'm wondering why this is something the Press Secretary is addressing. It's not as if people shooting places up isn't a frighteningly common occurrence in the United States. C.J. suddenly stops, noticing someone in the audience and asks, "Will Sawyer, is that you?" The guy, played by Michael O'Keefe, says yes. She seems mildly amused, and asks, "You're back in the country?" He says he is. She inquires, "You working for the San Francisco Chronicle now?" Will: "No." C.J.: "Then you wanna get your ass out of their chair?" The other reporters giggle amongst themselves as he gets up. He's very tall. Taller than C.J. Hmm. Dude was unaware that there was assigned seating. C.J. says, "You see the little brass plaques with the names of media outlets on the front of the seats?" Will: "I thought that meant they made a generous contribution." Bwa! She advises him to find a seat in the back. He complies. C.J. continues telling reporters that a Darryl Bechtell walked into the church sanctuary; he is believed to have been looking for his estranged wife. "He fired off a round -- that was from the .38 -- missing his wife and hitting Harold Winter in the left shoulder. Mr. Winter is sixty-five and currently undergoing surgery at Abilene Regional Medical Center. Mr. Bechtell fired off anywhere between two and four more rounds at that point -- reports differ -- as the crowd began to scatter. That's when Ron Carl pulled a 9 mm Glock from under his suitcoat and fired off three rounds in the direction of Mr. Bechtell. It's unclear which of those rounds stuck Melissa Markey." Who, as it turns out, is a little girl whose ninth birthday is tomorrow. Anyone think she's going to survive this opening? Show of hands? Yeah. One reporter asks whether C.J. knows what charges might be brought against either shooter. She says the Abilene Sheriff's office will have to address that, but she knows that Bechtell's gun was registered and Carl had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Another reporter asks, "Doesn't Texas law prohibit carrying a weapon in a church or synagogue?" C.J. says the Sheriff should also address that, but that it's only prohibited if the church or synagogue visibly posts a sign to that effect. Carol steps onto the platform and hands C.J. a note. C.J. reads it, looks sad, and says, "Well...Melissa Markey died." Credits.

By a doorway, Sam is giving a grave-looking Donna some last-minute advice about her deposition before the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee. He tells her not to be afraid to ask them to repeat a question if she doesn't understand it, and that there's nothing wrong with saying she doesn't remember. He wonders whether she wouldn't rather go over this with Josh. Hasn't Babish prepared her, or Ainsley, or somebody? ["Like her own lawyer?" -- Wing Chun] Donna says that Josh is pissed at her. Sam says he isn't. Donna insists that he is. Sam seems sincerely puzzled: "He didn't say anything." Donna: "He doesn't say anything." She looks down, and says she appreciates Sam's help. Charlie wanders by and Sam asks him to wait a second; he tells Donna that she's going to be sitting in a room. "It's going to feel like you did something wrong. But guess what?" She bites: "What?" Sam: "You didn't, so...." Well, maybe. We'll see. She didn't do the wrong things Sam's thinking of, anyway. Donna exhales, and smiles, and promises to come back when it's over.

Sam walks over to Charlie, who asks whether Sam's made a pick. Sam says, "Oakland over Dallas." Oh, God help me...more sports talk. Between how little I care and how little I know...I could really do with a lot less sports chatter...and sports analogies, sports homilies, sports metaphors, etc. However, I'm no doubt in the minority on that one, and this is some sort of quasi-democracy we're living in, so... Sam says it's a lock, and that everyone's staying away because they want to keep Oakland down the road. Charlie's agreeably indifferent, if there is such a thing, and I am...trying to pay attention. Sam blathers about pre-season this and the Raiders that. Charlie's taking notes. Sam asks whether he should have picked Tennessee over Detroit. I think I would rather have a scene with Danny and Mandy and Ainsley in it than hear more about sports. Charlie says he didn't say that. Sam: "You said it with your eyes." Charlie: "Okay." Sam changes his pick to Tennessee over Detroit; Charlie says he's writing it down. Sam changes his mind to Oakland over Dallas. Just pick something, dude. He changes it again, and Charlie tells him that the first game is about to start. Sam settles on something, which I don't care enough about to record, and Charlie says he's writing it down.

Sam leaves as the First Couple breezes in from church. They're both in fine fettle. Charlie asks, "How was church?" At the same time, Jed says, "It sucked," and Abby says, "It was fine." They pedebicker through the hallway toward the Oval Office, with Jed reiterating the suckage as Abby tells Jed to stop it: "You're talking about church!" Well, for gosh sakes, sometimes religious services do suck. It must be said. Jed: "Oh, like I'm not already going to Hell!" Hee. Maybe he feels that speech in "Two Cathedrals" probably didn't help his case. Charlie asks what the problem was; Abby explains, "He feels the homily lacked panache." Jed insists that it did lack panache. Most homilies do, in my experience. Most of them have about as much panache as a bowl of farina. Abby insists that it was a "perfectly lovely homily on Ephesians 5:21: 'Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her.'" Jed gripes, "Yeah, she's skipping over the part that says, 'Wives, be subject to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church.'" Abby admits that she does skip over that part; Charlie asks why. "Because it's stupid," she replies. Charlie says okay.

Charlie, Jed, and Abby have arrived at the Oval Office now. Abby carries on, "'Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in...' something." I'm guessing she's more or less paraphrasing throughout this scene, because I just checked more than six versions of Ephesians 5 and can't find this exact combination of words. Jed supplies, "'In splendour.' And I have no problem with Ephesians. And any time you want me to cleanse you with the washing of water, you know I'm up for it." I take it these two have patched things up sufficiently. Abby asks, "Then what is your problem?" Jed bursts out, "Hackery! This guy was a hack! He had a captive audience and the way I know that is that I tried to tunnel out of there several times. He had an audience and he didn't know what to do with it."

Jed and Abby walk out onto the portico. Charlie follows. Abby asks, "You want him to sing 'Volare'?" Jed says it couldn't have hurt: "Words! Words, when spoken out loud for the sake of performance, are music." I feel a lecture about oratory coming on. "They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music, and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't. Do you see?" Yup, there it is. Abby accuses him, "You are an oratorical snob." Jed: "Yes, I am, and God loves me for it." Abby says, "You said He was sending you to hell." Jed replies: "For other stuff. Not for this. You can't just trot out Ephesians -- which he blew, by the way. It has nothing to do with husbands and wives. It's all of us. St. Paul begins the passage, 'Be subject to one another out of reverence to Christ.' Be subject to one another. In this day and age of twenty-four-hour cable crap devoted to feeding the voyeuristic gluttony of the American public hooked on a bad soap opera that's passing itself off as important...don't you think you might be able to find some relevance in Verse 21?" Is his gripe with Abby or the priest? "How do we end the cycle? 'Be subject to one another.'" Abby: "So. This is about you." Jed's all, "No, it's not about me. Well, yes, it is about me, but tomorrow it'll be about somebody else. We'll watch Larry King and see who. All hacks off the stage right now! That's a national security order." Frankly, while I like some of the gist of Ephesians 5, and I do believe I understand the chapter, I don't see its particular relevance to Jed's situation, or to the problem of the American public's voyeuristic gluttony. Abby announces that she's going to go take a bath and "turn on Sinatra." George Bur-- I mean, "Jed" says, "How does Mrs. Sinatra feel about that?" Well, since she's a widow, she probably isn't too concerned. Gracie says, "Peace be with you." Jed starts singing. I kid you not. "You make me egg foo yung...You make me feel there are songs to be sung..."

It's evening. It's stopped raining. Josh and Donna are sitting on a park bench by a large fountain. They seem extremely tense and uncomfortable with each other, and also look as though they're waiting for someone. And here comes Cliff from around the other side of the fountain. Josh gets up and walks over to him. Donna glances after Josh for a moment, and then looks away again. Without any chit-chat or how-do-you-dos, Josh says, "There's a coffee shop across the street. You can read it there. You've got an hour. I haven't read it, but if anything bothers you, you'll issue a subpoena in the morning. You'll have it back before the end of the day. If not, that's that." Cliff says, "Yeah." Josh warns him, "If I read any of this in the newspaper, or anything happens I don't like, I've got the entries for October 4th and 5th." Donna's first date with Cliff was on October 3rd; therefore the second time she saw him was October 4th. Obviously, those two entries discuss what occurred on the days. I assume Donna photocopied them. Cliff asks -- somewhat cluelessly, if you ask me, given that it's not that long ago -- "What's October 4th and 5th?" Josh points at him and says, "You." Cliff nods and says, "That's fair." Gee, I'm glad you think so. We get a shot of Donna trying not to look as humiliated as she obviously feels. This whole thing is becoming icky in more ways than I care to contemplate. Cliff says, "Thank you." Josh hands Cliff the diary. He takes it and walks away without a word. I would sooner burn my diary and be excoriated about it by a lawyer than submit to this sort of hideous humiliation. Josh stands there for a moment before turning and walking back to sit on the bench to Donna. He says, "It's starting to get cold already." She doesn't say anything. She looks at him, downcast. He puts his arm behind her -- not exactly around her, but in an attempt at a gesture of consolation. She's not sitting close enough for him to really put his arm around her. He says it's going to be fine. She looks at him like she really wishes that could be true. Josh doesn't look entirely convinced himself. They sit in silence, while somewhere across the street, Cliff holds the fate of many people in his hands.