Guns Not Butter

Shout-outs to Alexandria and FLuFFy_slayer.

Josh is led into a room by two women, one blonde, one brunette. I'm calling the blonde one Priscilla and the brunette Zenobia. Just because. He comments that it's the first time he's ever been in the "Republican cloakroom." Priscilla asks what he thinks; Josh replies, "Well, you guys use the same decorator we do." Well, the decorator needs a poke, then, because every single piece of seating in the room is identical: there must be about eight club chairs and several sofas, all in the same button-tufted rich brown leather. Bor-ing. I could have done that in my sleep. Priscilla says, with an odd mixture of annoyance, pride, and flirtatiousness, "Damn it, Josh, I decorated the room." Josh asks if Benjamin Harrison was banned from there. Priscilla says he was, by Senate resolution, for excessive lobbying. She announces in a pleased way, "And Warren Harding's mistress was impregnated here." Josh: "Prompting another resolution?" Apparently not. Down to business: Josh wants to know if there's any chance Nearing is soft. Priscilla says no. Josh asks, "What about Herman Morton?" Zenobia says they'd have to rewrite the education bill. Josh: "It's fifty-fifty, Jane. Hoynes has a sleeping bag in there." Jane? Nope, sorry. I'm going with Zenobia. Even though that's a totally annoying choice for me because my Z key is acting up. Come on, Zenobia's funnier than Jane. Anyway, Zenobia asserts the Senator's voting no. Josh asks, "Which Senator?" Zenobia and Priscilla exchange glances, and Zenobia says, "The one we work for." Josh: "What the hell?" Priscilla explains that a Liberty Foundation poll is about to come out showing that 68 percent of those polled think the U.S. spends too much on foreign aid, and 59 percent want foreign aid cut. Josh: "What the hell do I care? These people are responding to" Zenobia interjects, "Come on, they're responding to being overtaxed and then having that money sent to Burundi instead of the school their kid goes to." Yeah, Burundi, where they just blow it on junk like low-rise jeans and tooth-whitening strips. Josh: "Now you're for more education funding?" Burn. Zenobia: "That's not the point." Josh: "Of course foreign aid polls badly! The people it's helping aren't the ones who are answering the phones." Zenobia: "Or paying taxes. Or voting." Josh wants to know if the Senator just reached this conclusion as a result of the Liberty Foundation poll. Zenobia says he never liked and Josh knows it, and furthermore: "The poll gives him cover with The New York Times people." Josh clarifies that by "The New York Times people" she means "people who can read." Priscilla stands up and says it's a quorum call. Josh makes for the door, saying he understands. Priscilla: "Come on, Josh." He turns and says, "I think this is crap. I think your boss has known about this poll for a while, and he's embarrassing the President at the eleventh hour because he spent too much time with his arm around the other guy." Zenobia points at Josh and takes a tougher tone: "We begged you to keep the President out of Colorado." Josh: "On the first vote out of the box!" Zenobia says Bartlet had Colorado from the convention and went there five times anyway. Josh reprimands her: "President Bartlet." Zenobia states the obvious for him: "You're one vote down on foreign aid." Josh goes out the door, and the music swells. I feel like we're having too many door openings/closings as the segue to the credits lately. It's probably just me. It nearly always is.

POTUS and his entourage are walking down a set of stairs in some huge building as he complains to Charlie that boyfriends are the curse of every daughter's father: "I don't like 'em. I don't like 'em at all." Charlie knows. Jed wants to know what the hell happened with Charlie and Zoey. Hey, take a number. Some of us have been wondering for about two years. Jed continues: "It was perfect! I just kept you in the office all the time." Charlie explains, "Well, she was unhappy that I was at the office all the time." Hey, if Warren Harding can manage to get his mistress pregnant in the Republican cloakroom, then I think you're just not trying hard enough there. Jed: "That was the point. If I was trying to make her happy, I'd buy her a Cabriolet." Hey, make me happy. Buy me a Cabriolet. We're already a VW household, it'd fit right in. I promise to feed it and walk it and everything. C.J. interrupts: "Sir?" Jed calls her "C-Jean" and says "Stable economies with free-flowing uranium don't make for a stable world community. Did I make that point?" She says he did. He then asks if there's a cow in his schedule today. C.J. says, "It's called Heifer International. Don't worry about it." Jed gripes to Charlie about meeting with a cow. C.J. says it's a photo op, not a sit-down. Jed: "I like your sass." C.J.: "You've got a very nice sass yourselfsir." Jed glances at her and asks, "What are you, touring?" C.J.: "I could." Somebody's very secure in her job. Jed emerges from the building to cheers and applause and begins working a rope line. He shakes hands, greets people, and accepts gifts, smoothly handing them off to Charlie. One woman has a large blue envelope that she tries to hand to Charlie. He tells her she can hand that directly to the President if she likes. She says she's not looking for an autograph. She seems slightly desperate, so Charlie accepts the envelope. C.J.'s cell phone rings; it's Josh, calling to say they're a vote down. She asks what happened; he mentions Colorado. She says they're coming back.

Josh hangs up and wanders over to where Donna's reading something. She says, "This is a push poll." Josh recites the Liberty Foundation poll statistics. Donna repeats herself; Josh keeps rabbiting on about the poll, saying that respondents think that foreign is 15 percent of the federal budget, whereas it's actually only 1 percent, or was, a half hour ago. Josh and Donna walk as she reads a question aloud: "'The money that goes into foreign could be used to reduce the tax burden here at home. Do you support such a shift of funds?' That's not a push poll?" Josh gestures for Donna to come a little closer and says quietly: "I lose this voteI'm resigning." Donna looks as if she thinks he might be serious.

Roosevelt Room, lots of staffers milling about and buzzing. When Josh enters, Larry asks if they'll postpone again. Josh says they won't, not after two continuing resolutions. He says this expires at midnight. Ed asks if that's their problem. Josh says it "massively is." Leo comes in and asks, "What about Grace Hardin?" Josh says he thought of her, and wonders if she can say no to POTUS. Larry says she will; she's publicly against it. Ed mutters about "foreign aid in Georgia." Josh: "I say she's a Democrat, she owes the President, and there's nothing wrong with Georgia that New England can't fix." I bet Georgians might have something to say about that. Leo says, "If it's 'no' it's gotta be a fast 'no.'" Josh says it won't be no. Leo leaves. Josh tells them to put the senior Senator from Colorado in the nay column and move Hardin to undecided. "And start the clock." Larry starts the clock. Josh stares at it and says to himself, "I hate that clock."

Out in the hall, Will catches up to Josh. Josh: "Yeah, you're Bill Bailey, right?" Will corrects him and comments, "You get a pretty good aerobic workout talking to someone in this building." Josh says he's heard the jokes, and asks what he needs. Will starts to explain he's working on the Inauguration speech; Josh cuts him off saying, "Bill, I know who you are. What do you need?" Will states his name again, and indicates that he's working on a legislative section of the speech to do with bipartisan cooperation, and Toby wanted Josh involved. Josh: "Boy, did you pick the wrong day to write about bipartisan cooperation." He launches into the Liberty poll statistics again; Will wonders if Josh was talking to him or not. Josh asks Will to read him what he's got. Will obliges: "'The people, in their enduring wisdom, have put in office a Chief Executive of one party and a Congress of another. It's our duty to respect and enact'" Josh tells him, "Strike 'in their enduring wisdom.' You think electing a reactionary Congress and a progressive President was wise? The people, in a fog of uncertainty, unsure of the difference, split tickets across the country." Will agrees, but thinks Toby would say that lacks poetry. Josh recites the poll results again, in case you missed them the first twenty-six times, and Will decides he's not going to get any help from Josh in this state and decides to do some other work in the meantime.

As Will passes Donna outside Josh's office, she greets him: "Hey, Ted." He corrects her. Donna: "Okay." She goes into Josh's office, where he tells her they need Senator Hardin. She says they're already on it -- Leo's office called. I bet that was Margaret. Remember Margaret? Hey, you know what I want to see? I want to see a whole episode just about the assistants and minor characters. Maybe all the senior staff could take a three-hour boat tour and get marooned or something, or maybe they could just be forced to go to one of those touchy-feely personal development seminars Human Resources departments are always making people go to, or maybe they can go to a lecture to find out who moved their big block of cheese and then some mini-crisis could come up requiring the assistants to run the White House just for a couple of hours. Nothing major, just a couple of hours. Carol could do the press briefings; Donna can run interference with politicians; Bonnie and Ginger can decide to punch up one of Toby's speeches; Ed and Larry can be the non-political subplot, exploring the whatever it is between them that dare not speak its name. And Margaret can kibitz with Fitz in the Sit Room. Yeah, now you're scared. (New spinoff: Kibitzin' with Fitz.) Maybe Kenny could drop in, sans Joey, to finally ask Katie out. Maybe Alexander Haig could do a cameo, playing the politician Donna's got to deal with. Wouldn't that be funny? Wait, is he still alive? I have no idea. ["I believe he is -- and if he died, we'd know about it, given the continuing kerfuffle over whether he's Deep Throat. No, the other Deep Throat." -- Sars] Maybe Gail could fit in here somehow, too. Anyway, I think this would be amusing. Oh, where the hell was I? Donna asks Josh if he's going to try Cantina. Josh says he's going to try everybody, but Cantina's never voted in favour of sending any money anywhere: "I think he's against air mail stamps." Heh. Donna asks about McKenna. Josh says McKenna needs Republican votes on broadband access. Donna's skeptical about Hardin. Josh says she's a freshman Democrat and she can't say no to POTUS. Donna wonders if Josh has seen how foreign aid polls in Georgia. Josh has, and says that Hardin might be difficult to get on the phone today. Donna: "We've been here before." Josh: "Tell me about it." She says he had two different strategies that were shouted down, and he can't take the fall for this. Josh: "My job is to execute the plays Leo calls. The rest" Donna wonders if he was serious about resigning. He doesn't answer, but instead hollers to the staff outside his office, "We looking for Hardin?" Donna assures him they're on it.

Charlie is at his desk, sorting the mail and handing things to another assistant. We see Zoey's drippy French boyfriend, Pierre EscargoAway (tm FLuFFy_slayer), standing in the doorway. A long lock of his hair is hanging annoyingly in his face, making me want to grab some scissors and snip it right off. He says, "So, Charlie. What it is you do is, you sort the mail for Zoey's father." Charlie guesses so. Le Vicomte Eurotrash (tm Alexandria) adds, "And you don't like me very much because I'm with Zoey now." Actually, you're the sort Charlie wouldn't like no matter whom you were dating. Charlie: "Jean Paul, I'm kind of working here." His Royal AssClownness says he understands. Yeah, I bet you understand "work." Perhaps Charlie could explain it to you using small words and visual aids. Frenchie (tm Omar) adds that Charlie has a lot of mail to sort. Charlie: "Also classified intelligence cables to prioritize and a meeting to break up between a President and a king." He asks the other assistant, Stacy, who's about to leave, where the big blue envelope (the one he was handed in the rope line) is going. She says it's going to General Correspondence. Didn't he retire? (Oh, I kill me.) Stacy says it's a servicewoman writing about food stamps. Charlie asks her to leave that letter here. She does, and leaves. Le Boyfriend makes a dismissive little "huh" sound and when Charlie glances at him, turns the other way, rolling his eyes. What, exactly, is he even doing here? Other serving as an excuse to irritate Charlie and annoy the hell out of me? I mean, Zoey's nowhere around, and she's probably not in the Oval Office meeting with her father and the King of Siam, or whoever. I'm not sure I've ever disliked any character on this show, much less one so trivial, as much I loathe this French-fried drip. I really hope Charlie gets an excuse to deliver him a pound of knuckle pudding.

Briefing Room. A reporter asks C.J. if the White House will try to delay the vote. C.J. says it expires at midnight; if Congress doesn't act, there's no foreign aid budget. Katie wants to know the President's reaction to Mosely saying "we're throwing money at problems halfway around the world." C.J. replies, "The President wishes the Republican Leader would throw some money at problems right here, but doesn't wish to help the United States retreat from its role as a world leader. Foreign aid's been cut 50 percent in the last decade. As a percentage of GNP spent, we rank not toward the bottom; we are the bottom. Dead last." Mark asks whether it was a good idea to make the first bill out of the second term such a controversial one. C.J. replies that the President doesn't believe that for something so important, something like that should be taken into consideration. She calls on Steve, who starts asking about something a "Democratic Senator" said; C.J. indicates they're not responding to blind quotations: "We just assume you made it up." There's some tittering. C.J.: "I'm not kidding." She leaves the podium, calling Danny back to her office as she goes. Hey, did you know Danny and Will are brothers-in-law? Well, not Danny and Will. Because, you know, neither of them is married. I mean Timothy Busfield and Josh Malina.

In the hallway, Danny asks her, off the record, about POTUS's response to Mosely's comment. C.J. says he said, "Lord God, what a tool." Word. She tells him that he can say that several senior White House officials said that the administration will have a good memory when the transportation bill comes up year. Danny: "You don't mind blind quotes so much when they're from you." C.J., sharply: "No." He follows her into her office, saying he'll walk her threat around for her, but"the pilot." My God, but the lighting is dark and orangey here. It must be the middle of the morning, for heaven's sake (based on the clock in the Roosevelt Room). C.J. wonders what he thinks she's going to say. Danny says the pilot of Shareef's plane was named Jamil Bari, and he looked into whether this guy had any history of pilot error. He says his new assistant, Maisy, found out that Bari got a certificate of qualification on the Gulfstream (Shareef's plane) in 1994. That's all he's been able to discover so far. He says they've been checking aviation schools, and they've been unable to find him: "There are a lot of aviation schools, but we're going to check 'em all." C.J.: "And sooner or later, you'll find him." Danny: "Sure." C.J.: "You know, I gotta tell you, your tie goes with your shirt, and your jacketyou' re dating a college graduate, aren't you?" Danny's unamused. And also, undistracted: "Maisy ain't never gonna find him, C.J. Jamil Bari is an invented identity for someone. It has to be. For this thing to have worked, the pilot had to be one of our guys." C.J. "Yeah, I just meant it was a nice tie." He says he'll be around all day for the vote, and leaves. C.J. sits down and looks at her fish bowl, asking, "What's up there, Gail?"

After the commercial, Donna's talking to other staff members who've been chasing Hardin all over God's green earth. Or at least the part between D.C. and Atlanta. They keep getting sent all over the place trying to find her. Allegedly she's on her way back to D.C. from Atlanta for the vote. Donna asks them to find out if it's a commercial flight. Josh appears to complain that it's been an hour and a half and they can't find her. Donna says she doesn't want the call. Josh: "No kidding." Josh hands her a cell phone and says, "Donna, your job is to take this, find her, and stick it in her hand. Make big plays today." He walks off as a staffer tells Donna her flight lands in thirty-five minutes. Donna grabs her coat and runs.

POTUS is giving a speech somewhere. "We live in an interdependent world and we should act like it. We live in a global community and we should sustain it. We should cross borders. We should cross borders to build sustainable democracies that can banish privation and fear. And we should cross borders to bring food and medicine and roads and schools and teachers to parts of the world forgotten by all but the warlords. We're gonna pass this Foreign Ops bill." All of this has been said to constant and increasing applause and whistling. Now, the audience is actually getting to its feet, and they're so loud you can hardly hear Jed. "This should be a century of hope and prosperity everywhere. And America is going to lead the world and not just bully it." "Not just bully it," eh? Well, that's welcome news. Jed thanks them and leaves. I love how pretty well every speech this season has been resoundingly well-received. This one gets a deafening ovation.

Jed comes backstage to where Leo, Toby, Zoey, and Punky Le Pew are waiting, and gripes to Leo, "What the hell is going on?" Zoey interjects: "That was great, Dad!" Jed: "Hey, thanks, Peach Patch." Peach Patch? He asks Leo again what the hell is going on. Leo whispers as they walk away together, followed by everyone else, "Hardin's a yes if we can get her on the phone." Jed: "Which is why we can't get her on the phone?" Leo says she's been a little slippery: "But this is where Josh eats." Jed, angrily: "We have many, many backup plans in the works? Josh has broken people into teams and they're developing and executing rapid-response backup plans?" Leo: "Yeah, okay." He turns and tells Toby they should probably have a backup plan. Jed: "Oh, my God!" Leo: "A split second of humour injected in the middle of a stressful day, sir. Sounds to me like we're talking about the act of a friend." Jed: "Please, my daughter's dating a kid who's better-looking than my wife." The kid's right behind Jed as he says this, by the way. He certainly is taken with Frenchie's looks. That makeshim and Zoey. He carries on: "I have only so much RAM to give over toC.J.!" She comes up on his left, and he says, "I'm sorry, but once againthere's a cow?" She explains that it's connected to an organization called Heifer International, which provides milking cows (and many other types of livestock, from llamas to bees) to poor families in developing nations in order to help them develop self-sufficiency. Jed wonders if she's okay with a picture of him with a cow. What, it's somehow more foolish than pardoning a turkey? C.J. says she has her concerns. Jed's ire seems way out of proportion to the situation as he rags on her about why she agreed to it in the first place. Wasn't he just out there stumping for foreign aid? What the hell does he think Heifer International is trying to do? I would think he'd be excited to support them. Anyway, he figures out it was Abby's idea. C.J. says she'll think of a way to make the picture work. He wishes her luck with that, and says, "Now turn around casually and tell me if Le Vicomte de Valvert has got his hands anywhere near anyone who's related to me." C.J. turns and glances, and then says, "That is a good-looking young man." Jed bellows, "Zoey!" She says, "I don't respond when you shout." Jed: "Yeah, I think you'd respond if I stopped feeding you!" Seriously: What crawled up his ass and exploded? Zoey says to Frenchie, "Ignore him." Frenchie, blithely: "Oh, yes, I do." He turns his attention to Charlie and asks, "This envelope that interests you, it was what?" Shut. Up. Pierre. Zoey: "What envelope?" Charlie explains that the woman on the rope line is a private in the Army and her family is on food stamps. Pierre: "An American soldier on food stamps?" Charlie: "It's a big family." Le Vicomte Eurotrash: "And you read this letter as if it was special?" Charlie says she handed it right to him. Le Vicomte asks whether after he reads it, he just throws it on the pile with the others. Honestly. Shut. Up! As if you care. As if you even know what food stamps are. Charlie says yes. Eurotrash Boy says this woman sees Charlie standing to POTUS, but doesn't realize he's powerless to help. Charlie, very conscious of Zoey watching all this: "I'm not powerless. I called the DoD and asked them to give special notice to the letter." He walks off as Bartlet calls him. As he walks toward Jed, he instructs Stacy to get that envelope back: "I gotta call the DoD."

Danny and C.J. are eating Chinese food together. Danny: "You havin' that?" C.J.: "Yes." Danny: "All of it?" C.J.: "Yes!" Danny: "What about this?" C.J.: "Yes!" Danny: "I'm pointing at twenty-three packets of soy sauce!" C.J. insists, "I give 'em to the homeless." Danny remarks, "That's helpful." She asks if he's going to talk through the whole vote. He says they're going to lose this one 60-40. C.J.: "Danny" Danny: "Did I ruin the end?' C.J. gestures with her chopsticks, making a tiny space between them, and asks, "Could you even have this much sensitivity?" Danny: "No." C.J.: "Why?" Danny says they blew it. C.J. says the Senate blew it: "We did everything but pass a hat!" Danny: "Nobody wants to put money in a hat in Botswana when you got hats that need filling here. You can't make this about charity. It's about self-interest." There's such a thing as enlightened self-interest. A world with less poverty, disease, and ignorance is a world with less terrorism, violence, and suffering. Danny: "We cut farm assistance in Colombia. Every single crop we developed was replaced with cocaine. We cut aid for primary education in northwest Pakistan and Egypt; the kids went to madrassahs. Why weren't you making a case that Republican senators are bad on drugs, and bad on national security? Why are Democrats always so bumfuzzled?" Hee. Excellent word. He adds, "By the way, sixty-five more flight schools today. Maisy hasn't found your guy. Don't worry. There are thousands more." C.J.: "You know something there, General Cho? If you had a story, you'd write it. If you don't have one, shut up." She shoves an egg roll in his mouth. "We just lost a vote. We're not bumfuzzled. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to cancel a photo op with a goat." She takes a swig of beer before leaving.

Jed wanders into the Mural Room where Toby, Will, Josh, Leo, and other staffers are watching the vote. Jed says to the room, "Tough beat, everybody. Thanks for the work. time we let Josh do it the way he wants." Josh asks Jed if he's met Will; Jed says, "Bill Haley." Will: "Will Bailey." C.J. and Carol come in, and Jed asks, "When's this thing with the cow?" C.J.: "It's a goat, now." Jed's really calmed down, because he's all smiles about that. C.J. says they'll cancel it. Jed, hesitant: "You think?" C.J.: "A milking goat?" She's worried that it could seem like a parody of foreign aid. He doesn't know. He tells the room C.J. wants to cancel the goat picture. Jed says, "Half the world's people live on less than two dollars a day. One hundred and thirty million will never step inside a schoolhouse. Ingredients for bombs can be purchased at hardware stores and we've just given the Third World what the doctor ordered: rollbacks." He asks C.J.: "Heifer International: they give free cows and goats to people who need milk?" C.J. says yes. It's not just that, though. Having animals allows them to breed and raise more animals, and to sell the milk and meat and offspring and other products to create greater self-sufficiency. These programs, along with the innovative microloan programs offered by other charities, are very successful and provide a meaningful alternative to handouts, which only encourage cycles of poverty and dependence. If you are looking for a worthy charity to support, these organizations deserve your consideration. ["Right on. My parents sponsor a number of pigs through Heifer International every year as holiday gifts. No, not me and my brother." -- Sars] Jed states, "Well, I don't think we're in any position to be snotty. Let's do it. Let's do it right now." He goes off to get his jacket. Carol brings the goat in; it's right outside. C.J. tells Leo, Josh, Will, and Toby that she thinks it will work, that it says, "Well, you're impoverished, and while we don't care, we don't want you to go away empty-handed, so we offer you this goat, Ron, to give you milk." Will, who I guess has had the opportunity to get to know Ron a little better than everyone else -- or perhaps he's just going by the name -- wonders if male goats give milk. C.J. says that of course they don't. Okay, maybe Ron's just the poster goat. C.J. "So we offer you this thing that will just gnaw on your stuff." Jed returns, announcing, "I'm not standing in this picture alone. This was a total team failure. Stand where you want, but I want my Chief of Staff and my chief political advisor standing near the goat." They get into position, and Toby says, "Hang on a second," and takes the ID badge off an anonymous staffer. He walks over to the goat and puts it around his neck, saying, "Now, we're ready." Jed puts his arm around Josh, saying, "Let's go. Set that clock for ninety days." The camera flashes. Awww.