Gone Quiet

In the Oval Office, Jed looks out the window and says, "The propellers aren't going." Charlie, getting POTUS ready for a trip, acknowledges this. Jed wonders whether they know he wants to leave now. Charlie says they do, and suggests maybe they're saving fuel. Jed replies, "That makes sense. Also, there's a chance I could get hit getting on or off." This tickles Charlie and he chuckles, "Yeah." Jed: "Sorry?" Charlie: "Sir?" Jed says, "You think I'm not tall enough to get hit in the neck by the propellers on Marine One?" Charlie replies, "I think Dikembe Mutombo isn't tall enough to get hit in the neck by the propellers on Marine One." I'll assume that's some giant basketball player. ["Yes. According to NBA.com, he's seven feet, two inches tall." -- Wing Chun] Charlie wisely refrains from adding, "I knew Dikembe Mutombo. Dikembe Mutombo was a friend of mine. And, Mr. President, you're no Dikembe Mutombo." But I would have. Jed says he ducks when he gets on, and so should Charlie, it being "just good safety sense" and all. Jed grabs his jacket, does an excellent Coat Flip, and announces, "Filing Day, Charlie. Last to get on the ballot in New Hampshire. And I'm going myself. Oh, I could send an aide..." Charlie, on cue: "But you're going yourself?" Jed says he is: "Always have, always will." Charlie points out, "There's nothing left to run for after this." What about Grand Poobah of the Royal Order of Water Buffaloes? Jed revises: "Fair enough. Always have, never will." I guess Fred Flintstone can rest easy. Jed reiterates that he's going himself, and asks, "You know why?" Of course Charlie does: "It's a statement about democracy?" Jed, tossing Charlie a book to pack: "It's a profound statement about democracy. Are you mocking me?" Charlie claims not to be. Jed: "The thing before wasn't a crack about my height?" As Charlie helps Jed on with his overcoat, he says, "No...yeah, it was."

Leo arrives and asks whether Jed's all set to leave. Jed says he is, and that he's going himself. Leo declares, "It's a profound statement about democracy." Perhaps we could have a lot less Seinfeldesque repetition of dialogue, which there's been more and more of in recent episodes, and which I find really irritating and bordering on lazy, and more advancement of plot and characterization. ["Eh, it's always been like that, if you ask me. And it's always been lazy, in my view." -- Wing Chun] Some explanation of exactly why this is such a "profound" statement about democracy would be dandy, too. Jed insists it's not a problem, and that he'll be back in two hours. Leo claims to think it's great, and sets him up by acknowledging how much he loves doing it, to which Jed begins to say it's his all-time favourite...something, when Leo announces."Yeah, you can't go." Jed wants to know why not. Leo explains, "This is one of those things we've talked about that sounds worse than it is because of your inexperience with the military." Jed asks what it is. Leo tells him about the sub, which he describes as a "nuclear class, or big submarine" -- how dense is Jed supposed to be about the military? Cripes, even I know that. Anyway, after giving Jed the Submarines for Dummies version of things, he explains that they don't have the sub at the moment. POTUS asks what that means. Leo replies, "Well, as you know, with our ships, our boats, and our submarines, we keep in pretty close touch with radar, sonar, satellites, radio, encrypted messages...and we don't have the Portland right now." Jed repeats, "We don't have it?" Leo explains that the sub was in North Korea last they knew, and they're setting up meetings about what to do. "Plus if anything happens, I don't like people knowing you were running for election while the boat was out there." Jed removes his overcoat, saying, "No, I think I'll go ahead and cancel that trip, Leo, if only to stick around and see how this sounds worse than it really is." Leo says he'll stick around, too. Jed: "I think you will." As the music swells, we see an odd shot (through the French door by which he was standing) of the door closing, and Jed looking out the window as if toward the helicopter, but his face is bisected by a window mullion. Credits.

We're in C.J.'s office, although for a moment I think I've stumbled into an episode of Queer as Folk or something because the music is (get this): Right Said Fred's "I'm Too Sexy." She seems to be listening to the radio as she types away on her laptop. ["Sars and I were hoping that was her Windows start-up sound." -- Wing Chun] She's gotten her hair cut recently, and there are more bangs in front; I like it this way best of all. "I'm too sexy for my love, too sexy for my love. Love's going to leave me. I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt. So sexy it hurts." Carol announces her arrival, and C.J. says she's glad and asks her what the song is about. Carol listens for a moment and tells her the title. C.J. takes the coffee and newspapers Carol's brought her and says, "Yeah, for his shirt, he's too sexy." Yeah, well, it sorta rhymes with "hurts." No one ever accused RSF of being Ogden Nash. Carol says, "Other things, too." C.J.: "He lists them." Well, it's essential that we know all the things for which he is, in fact, too sexy. Carol replies that she thinks he's feeling good and sexy. C.J., probing: "Too sexy." They finally agree that it's hyperbole. Carol starts to return to her desk and C.J. asks, "So it's not a problem? It's not a song about somebody having a problem?" Carol says no. Somehow I think this exchange would have worked a lot better between POTUS and some much younger person, than C.J., who's rather too hip for this. I mean, she knows "The Jackal." Does she really not get this song? She's really never heard it before? That strains credulity. ["That's why it would have been awesome if a couple of verses of it were her Windows start-up sound. And if her Windows shut-down sound was Cartman saying, 'Screw you guys, I'm going home.'" -- Wing Chun] On to business: Carol asks whether C.J.'s seen the wires yet; she hasn't. Carol says that the Majority Leader was doing local news in Cleveland last night and he was asked why he wants to be President. C.J. asks what he said; Carol responds, "I really don't know." She adds that it was a "train wreck," and before she can say much more, C.J. orders her to get the transcripts. Carol hasn't even had the chance to remove her coat, but dutifully zips off. We see C.J. standing by her desk, subtly shaking her booty to the rhythm of the music.

"'Ten-hut!" Leo and Jed arrive at the Situation Room. Jed comes in yelling, "Where's the damn submarine, Nancy? I don't want to hear 'I don't know.' I want to hear how many people are out there swimming around looking for it!" I want to hear Nancy tell him to settle down. Instead, she replies, "See, and I thought you were gonna panic, sir." Leo says, "Nancy, I happen to agree with the President -- who, on military matters, by the way, is a lot smarter..." Jed: "Shaddap." Leo: "Yeah." Jed asks how long the crew can survive down there; Nancy says they don't know what's going on. A dude in military uniform -- someone we've seen several times before but whose name I either can't remember or haven't been told -- asks whether POTUS wants the worst-case scenario. POTUS does. Military dude says, "If they're flooding, it could be a matter of hours." Jed looks concerned. He pauses and asks how close they are to landfall. Nancy explains they're about 4,000 yards off the southern coast of Kaesong in Haeju Bay. Jed incredulously asks, "Four thousand yards? They get that close?" Nancy says they set a wiretap on a cable in North Korea's coastal operations zone. Jed's still marvelling over the distance. He asks Leo, "Can they send a distress signal?" Leo says they can, but that they won't if they think there's the risk of detection. Jed inquires, "They would wait to send a distress signal and risk their lives?" Well, they're kinda screwed either way, aren't they? And a distress signal would probably bring the North Koreans faster than any Americans who could rescue them. Nancy says, "Mr. President, submariners understand that if they sink, it won't be a rescue, it'll be a recovery. They measure risk and rewards not just in terms of their own lives, but in terms of national interest." Jed sarcastically responds, "Well, that's great! I assess the national interest by the number of people alive, not dead! You have four hours before I order the Pacific Fleet into Haeju Bay."

Jed gets up and Leo follows him out, saying as they walk back upstairs, "We need to weigh in with somebody at State." Jed agrees, and asks whether Peter is still recovering. Leo says he is. Jed says they'll talk to somebody else, somebody they trust, anybody but... Leo: "Albie Duncan." "Albie"? Is that short for Albert? Jed agrees: "Right, anybody but him." Leo clarifies: "No, I'm saying it's gotta be Albie Duncan." Leo claims that Duncan knows what he's talking about. Jed says that Peter does, too. Leo reminds Jed that Peter's recovering from heart surgery. Jed can't remember whether it was serious heart surgery. Leo insists it has to be Albie. Jed complains, "He's gonna scold me. He's been at the State Department since Truman and he thinks I'm a kid and that he outranks me." Leo assures POTUS that he'll be fine. Jed mutters about having to tell him he lost a submarine. Somehow it doesn't seem to me that Bartlet has done anything wrong here. Nor has Nancy or anyone else involved. Stuff happens. Jed wonders, "Can I make something up? Like, 'What if a friend of mine, hypothetically...'" Leo says they'll meet with him as soon as he can get to the White House. Jed: "Bring a copy of the Constitution. I want to show him I'm not scared." As they near the Roosevelt Room they run into Bruno and Connie, who are arriving for a meeting. Jed asks Bruno, "Can you devise a campaign strategy that involves beating the crap out of Leo?" Bruno: "Why not?" Connie: "Yeah." Bruno and Connie go into the Roosevelt Room, where Sam is waiting.

Bruno says, "Let's get started. Where's Toby?" Sam replies, "He's in the--" "I don't care," Bruno interjects. He starts chucking flyers at Sam, saying they're direct-mail ads, and complaining about the slogans: "'Bartlet: Hopelessly liberal.' 'Bartlet: Super-liberal.' 'Bartlet: Liberal.' 'Liberal.' 'Liberal.'" Sam: "These aren't coming from our side, right?" Bruno assures him they're not. Sam asks whether Bruno wants to run an ad. Bruno announces, "The most dangerous time in an incumbent's campaign is before there's opposition." Connie adds that the hearings are around the corner. Bruno argues that there's a stealth war going on: "Leaflets, flyers, phone trees..." Sam wants to know what this is going to cost. Bruno says this will cost $1.5 million, but that in the three months, he will need $8 million for new ads and airtime. Sam replies, "Work up an ad for sixty bucks and a waffle and we'll talk." Connie says, "Sam..." He says they're going to need that money in Iowa in nine weeks. That's January 16, 2002, folks. Mark it on your calendars. Connie thinks that if they don't spend the money now, they're going to have problems in Iowa. Sam points out that they don't even know whether there's a challenger yet. As if in either the real or fictional world there wouldn't be. Connie says, "And if there is one, we'd like to scare him off." Sam asks, "And you don't think the best way to do that is to keep the war chest intact?" Bruno pipes up: "Aha! You're talking about hard money." Sam replies, "Yeah, I'm talking about hard money. What are you talking about?" I would think that would be obvious to Sam. ["See what I mean when I say these characters are dumber this year?" -- Wing Chun] Bruno gestures with a flyer but doesn't say anything. Suddenly, Toby comes in, and after saying "Excuse me," and greeting no one, he asks Sam, "What does $105 million mean to you?" Sam doesn't understand the question. Toby explains, "I just got tipped that the new budget will include an additional $105 million for the National Parks Service, and that number means something and I can't remember what!" Sam doesn't know. Nobody in the room knows. Toby takes off through a different door than the one he used to enter, and says he'll be back.

Out in the hall, Toby runs into Ginger, whose hair is super-straight and shoulder-length. It suddenly strikes me that I can't remember how she usually wears her hair -- curly? up? both? -- but this seems different. He asks her, "Does $105 million mean anything to you?" She replies, "I'm a simple girl, Toby." Mm hmm. She walks off. Toby says, "Yes, yes, you are." Yeesh. He charges into the Communications area and says, "Bonnie, $105 million?" She states, "My answer hasn't changed since the last time you asked me."

Suddenly C.J. appears at the door, slightly out of breath, calling, "Toby!" He stops and turns and she stands in the doorway and deliberately does a little dance as she walks toward him singing, "I'm too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my skirt, too sexy for the...other things." Toby truly seems uncertain about how to respond. Is it a come-on? A joke? Has she lost her mind? His face conveys both vague bemusement and discombobulation, not to mention what I perceive as a bit of excitement in his eyes. You can tell Allison Janney's really enjoying playing this scene with Richard Schiff. You go, girl. Toby asks her, "What in God's name is...?" She gleefully tells him, "He got the question!" Toby: "Who?" C.J.: "The Majority Leader!" Toby: "When?" C.J.: "Last night! Local news, Cleveland, Ohio, oh me-oh oh my-oh, Oh Cleveland, Ohio! He got the question!" She's practically squealing, if you can believe it. Bonnie asks what the question was; Toby supplies, "'Why do you want to be President?'" Bonnie asks about his response. C.J. reads: "'The reason I would run, were I to run, is I have great belief in this country as a country and in this people as a people that go into making this country a nation with the greatest natural resources and population of people...educated people.'" That is godawful. She simulates shooting a shotgun. Toby tells her he'll spread it around, and C.J. shimmies toward the camera to a little tune of "I'm too sexy for my shoes, too sexy for the blues, too sex-ay!" As she reaches the hallway, Toby remembers his mission and calls her back. He asks her about the $105 million. It means nothing to her. She starts to leave and then sticks her head back in, saying, "Except it's the same amount as the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts." She takes off. Wow, that is one sorry-ass budgetary amount. Toby says yeah as he heads into his office, then stops short and commands, "Get me..." Bonnie's on it: "I'll get her on the phone."

Oliver Babish arrives at his office where Dr. Abby Bartlet is waiting for him...in a wheelchair, with Stockard Channing's real broken ankle. He greets her: "Why, Dr. Bartlet." She tells him not to start with her. Huh? Oliver's as puzzled as I. She replies, "All right, you want to give me grief about my ankle, do it quickly, get it over with, so we can move on with this rectal probe." You know, I'm not crazy about Babish either, but what's with all the 'tude? I mean, unless Abby broke her ankle table-dancing or something, why would he give her a lot of grief about it? Or any at all? He asks whether she knows why he calls her "Dr. Bartlet." I hope it's because it's her damn title. Abby says, "Because I have a medical license?" He acknowledges that, and adds, "And because, when I look at you, I think about health. Goodness, what happened to your ankle, Dr. Bartlet?" She says she broke it. "Otherwise I'd be ramming it up your..." She says it was in the newspapers. Oliver pretentiously declares, "I read Le Monde. Was it in Le Monde?" She says, "I don't know. I don't read Le Monde." Oliver: "Pity:" Deborah: "How much more of this?" Abby says she was hiking and asks, "Are you really that much an enemy of nature?" Holy crap, where is all this hostility coming from? It just feels forced and generally unfunny. Oliver then launches into one of those tedious and inane comments that despite their frequency on this show never manage to be anything but oddly ridiculous: "Nature is to be protected from. Nature, like a woman, will seduce you with its sights and its scents and its touch...and then it breaks your ankle. Also like a woman." Abby asks, "What the hell kind of dates are you going on, Oliver?" Well, let's remember he's been divorced four times. Clearly the man's track record sucks and he's got a lot of baggage about it. He says, "I hear ya." Could we get on with this already? Apparently we can: "So here's what I want you to do, Dr. Bartlet, and I'm speaking to you as White House Counsel to First Lady. I want you to make a national address encouraging women not to go hiking, or at least, not ask me to go with them." Oy. Shouldn't be a problem, dude. Abby asks if they can get to work. He reads, "'Jonathan Hawkings, Nina Alva, Maurice Blustein, Jessica Nording...' Do these names mean anything to you?" Abby wants to know where he got those names; he got them from some Democrats on Oversight. They're on the witness list, and they are some of the patients involved in malpractice suits against Abby. There have been seven altogether: four were dismissed as nuisance suits, two went to court, and one was settled. She says, "It's the life of a doctor." It doesn't look like she believes that though. Her eyes reflect hurt. Oliver states, "From this witness list, it is becoming clear to me what the President's biggest liability is going to be." "What?" Abby asks sharply. Oliver: "You." Commercials. Thank God. I could have lived without about 90% of that scene.

When we return, Valerie Mahaffey (Hey! It's That Woman from Northern Exposure, the one who played Eve. I loved the characters of Adam and Eve on that show) is waiting for Toby in the Mural Room. He enters, saying, "Tawny!" I thought at first that he said "Toni," but the closed captioning claims "Tawny." Tawny? Whatever. The first words out of her are, "'Throne,' by Rain Billings, a photographer from North Dakota whose work consists of Polaroids™ of his dysfunctional family in the bathroom." I've seen worse. Toby says, "Yes." She continues, "'One Horse, Two Horse' by Mark Moloney. He calls himself an installation artist." Toby asks, "Did your committee..." She talks right over him, "What it is, is two big-screen TVs, side by side, one of them with footage of black stallions running in reverse. The other one is showing The Godfather." Toby tries to say something but she just barrels along, "'Slut' is a one-word poem by Jules Waltz. It's stamped in scarlet on a piece of 40" x 40" black canvas. Here's a woman who gets naked, covers herself completely in chocolate and sings. Does that appeal to you?" I bet Karen Finley will take that last one as a personal shout-out. Toby replies, totally deadpan, "By and large, I'm not wild about musicals." Bwa! And you can bet I will take that as a personal shout-out to me. Tawny states that they're all projects funded by Oakenwood during his chairmanship of the NEA. Toby asks, "You're dissolving the Endowment to give more money to National Parks?" And she's off again, "'Hold the Lettuce,' Lydia Benedict's two bacon cheeseburgers were constructed from pieces of burlap and Rottweiler dung. It's not me, it's the Committee I work for." Which is? Toby says, "Look..." Suddenly there's a knock on the door and Sam comes in. He says, "Hey, Tawny." She replies, "Sam, have you heard of Andrew Hawkins?" Hey, have you heard of "Hello"? Sam hasn't heard of Andrew Hawkins. She informs him, "You funded his performance piece recently, which involves him destroying all his belongings outside a Starbucks in Haight-Ashbury." Sam, also deadpan, "I've done that a couple of times, but I didn't know there was funding available." Hee! Tawny says, "Yeah." He asks whether he may speak to Toby outside.

Out in the hall, Sam asks what's going on; Toby explains, "Appropriations wants to eliminate the NEA." Sam says that Bruno wants to run ads with soft money. Toby looks annoyed and says he'll be in when he can, and returns to the Mural Room for more of Tawny's haranguing. Sam suddenly remembers, "Oh, hey, you know what? The NEA, that's $105 million." Toby makes a little "I could have had a V-8 gesture" and says, "Yeah." Somehow he manages to sound only mildly sarcastic. He leaves.

As Josh reaches a somewhat puzzled C.J. at the door, he quietly says, "We had a little problem earlier. What's up?" She shares her glee over the Majority Leader's chokage. Josh seems to know already, and reads from the document she hands him, "'We have the greatest technology of any people of any country in the world along with the greatest -- not the greatest, but very serious problems confronting our people and I want to be President in order to focus on these problems in a way that uses the energy of our people to move us forward, basically." C.J.'s thrilled with just how bad it is. Josh adds, "It's the 'basically' that makes it art." C.J. suggests that the best thing to do is take a step back: "We can't be seen to be gloating." Though clearly, there's nothing she'd rather do. Hey, she should call up Ann Stark and lord it over her. Isn't that who Ann Stark works for? That would be a fun way to spend the afternoon. Josh replies, "Sure, yeah, we do that when nobody's looking." He asks whether there's anything else. She says no. Josh puts his fingers wearily to his eye and says, "They poured Wheatena on her keyboard." As he turns to leave, C.J. grabs his arm and says, "Listen, how good is our answer?" He assures her that it's good. She asks, "Really? What is it?" He says nothing, but looks kind of concerned, and finally asks, "Do we have one?" C.J.'s dismayed: "Josh!" He says he's sure they have one. As he starts to move away, she pleads "Will you check? Will you check today?" He says he will. C.J. sighs. She's not singing or wiggling around anymore.

Mural Room. Tawny and Toby. She's arguing, "No, the problem is that Oakenwood thinks the mission of the NEA is to subsidize artists in this country." Toby impatiently says, "The mission of the NEA is to subsidize artists in this country!" Tawny says, "Oh, then that's the problem." Toby clarifies that the NEA's mission is to subsidize not artists, but art. Tawny says, "Go ahead and explain that distinction in Topeka." Toby replies, "Well, they're pretty bright in Topeka. None of the artists you mentioned ever received any direct money from the Endowment. Why? Because the last time the Republicans tried to lose the NEA -- not three times ago, but the last time -- we got rid of the individual grants!" Tawny: "And your friend Oakenwood found a back door by giving the money directly to the museums that put on...Toby, do you like this stuff?" Oh, lord. It's not about what any individual person likes or dislikes as art. What a weak gambit. He states, "Tawny, you'd need the Budweiser Clydesdales to drag my ass to Picasso and Monet!" Hmph. I don't care for Toby's anti-art attitude. "I'm not the guy you want deciding this! And you're not the guy I want deciding this! And I don't know where you get the idea that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for anything of which they disapprove! Lots of them don't like tanks. Even more of them don't like Congress." A mighty big 'word' to all of that. Someone knocks. It's Sam. Tawny's back in catalogue mode: "Lisa Mulberry, twenty-eight. Specializes in placing genitalia in anatomically incorrect..." Toby gestures with his hands and makes an inarticulate growly sound that's a mixture of frustration, irritation, and disgust. Actually, it reminds me a lot of a sound Frink is occasionally provoked to make when he's really annoyed with something. Sam says, "Excuse us." Tawny says, "Sure."