War Crimes:
Okay, to be honest I missed the first 2 minutes of the episode but I don't imagine I missed to much. So I come in where CJ is giving a boring but important briefing on a shooting that took place in Texas at a church. When I say boring it is because everyone is asking dumb annoying press quesitons that make you want to eat drywall instead of listen to their stupidity. She finishes the scene when her assistant passes along a note. CJ announces to the press that Mellissa Markey, the 9 year old who was shot, died.

Next scene after the credits roll, is a cute scene between Donna and Sam. Sam is coaching Donna on how to answer and not answer questions when she is addressed by the prosecuter. She says she appreciates his help and mentions how Josh is mad at her, Sam -being cute Sam- says Josh isn't mad.

Donna walks away and Charlie joins Sam, they discuss the football pool going around the office as Charlie walks to the North Entrance to greet Jed and Abbey when they arrive home from mass. A cute semi-amusing scene comes from this:

Charlie: "Good Afternoon"

Abbey: "Hey Charlie"

Charlie: "How was Church?"

Abbey: "It was fine." Same time Jed: "It sucked."

Abbey: "Stop it."

Jed: "It sucked."

Abbey: "Your talking about church."
Jed: "Oh, like I'm not going to hell already."

Charlie: "What was the problem?"

Abbey: "He feels the homile lacked panache."


This cute scene continues as the walk throught the halls towards the Oval and out to the portico towards the residence. Abbey rattles on about how good the homile was, (for those of you who don't know what that is, it's when the priest reads a passage then makes reference to it in a little speech thing). It's about how men should love women like Christ loved the church. Jed states he has no problem with the passage but the the priest was a hack, and Jed tried severals times to tunnel out of there.

So now we have Jed rambling on about how much this guy was a hack and didn't know how to talk. Jed, being annoying geeking Jed, continues on how to talk to an audience and how this guy couldn't do it. He finishes and asked:

Jed: "Do you see?" refering to does she understand the boring, pook your eyes out, speech he just said.

Abbey: "You are an oratorical snob."

Jed: "Yes, but God loves me for it."

Abbey: "You said he was sending you to hell."

Jed: "For other things not for this."

At this point they are outside on the portico, you know, where they turn the corner walk a few feet and go into those white doors towards the residence. They have stopped to argue here and Charlie is still standing quietly in the back.

Jed: "St. Paul beings the passage: 'Be subject to one another in revernce to Christ.' Be subject to one another." I loved the hand gestures on the last sentence. We all know MS is big on the hand movements and this one is great. He moves hand back and forth between them like a biker would do to a hot chick when saying 'you and me baby'.

Jed: "In this day in age of 24hr cable crap devoted to feeding the voyeuristic gluttony of the American public hooked on a bad soap opera passing itself off as important. Don't you think you might be able to find some relavence in Verse 21? How do we end the cycle? 'Be subject to one another.'"

Abbey: "So.....This is about you."

Jed: "Noooo, it's not about me. Well, yes it's about me. But tommorow it will be about someone else. We'll watch Larry King and see who. All hacks off the stage right now! That's a national security order."

Abbey: "I'm going to the residence. I'm taking a bath. I'm turning on Sinatra."

Jed: "How does Mrs. Sinatra feel about that?"

Abbey: "Peace be with you."

Jed: singing sinatra "You make me egg foo yung...."

CJ: "Good morning Mr. President" walking in on the scene.

Jed: Turning and pointing at CJ "You make me think there are songs to be sung."

Abbey: "He's fiesty. Please, don't ask him about church."

CJ: "No, I won't. I'm sorry Mr. President Mellisa Markey died."

Jed:an amazing transition from happy to depressed. Great acting Sheen!!!! "Yeah, okay." Turning to his wife. "Oh, Damn."

PAUSE! Martin Sheen singing! Is that humanly possible! Well, yes it is. I have to say he is much better than I though he would be, he even did this little foot shuffle thing. Oh man! Have I mention how good MS is at acting that last bit where he goes from happiest man alive to total upset is amazing. The smile literally vanished from his face as it sunk in. Abbey comes over and explains to him there was nothing that could've been done. That she has probably lost too much blood at the scene. He walks back to the Oval very slowly and respectfully as CJ follows close behind. He had Charlie get Leo for him so it is just CJ and Jed, as serious as the scene was I had to kinda giggle about how much taller CJ is than Jed or AJ is than MS.

Leo meets Jed at the Oval door into the office. CJ tells the president to wait awhile, I imagine it is too call the parents or do a press briefing. CJ leaves. Once again we see sorkins unmistakable writing style, incorporate all the nonsense before into this scene.

Jed: "Be subject to one another Leo. What can I do to be of subject to you?"
Leo: "I'm fine."

Jed: "Yeah?"

Leo: "I've got Margaret."

Jed: "Okay"


Bartlet and Leo go into the Oval, Jed sits down at his desk and Leo follows him sitting in the chair next to him. Leo wants to send Hoynes to Texas. Jed says Hoynes won't like it, but asks Leo to send Hoynes over. Now, watching this scene I was sure they were talking about sending Hoynes to Texas to talk about gun control, and I'm still pretty sure, however not positive.

Next we go to Donna who is testifying to the grand jury or whoever she is being prosecuted by. She is being asked a few simple questions, things like: Do you have a photo album? Is she there volunteraly? Were you asked to prepair documents for this trial?

Then there is a question: Do you have a dairy? Not, of much importance now but it will be later, keep reading and find out.

Cliff, her friend/boyfriend whoever you want to call him from the last ep, is the guy asking someone these questions because he is on the councel that is investigating. He asked that the last question pertaining to the diary be repeated, as in have the lady who rights everything down repeat the question and her answer of 'no', then he continued.

When we come back to commercial CJ walks into her office. Now first before I continue I forgot to mention during the shooting briefing there was a reporter in the press room who was some what new, he was a reporter for the WH then he left and came back until he gets another job. CJ tells him he is in someone else's chair, that that is what the names are for on the chair. So back to the scene, CJ walks in "You're sitting on my chair." He replys "I don't see a plaque on it." And he goes on joking with CJ that the country he was in put a bounty on his head and the military was out to kill him, so that was why he was back "Until they find me a reporting job," obviously refering to the fact WH reporters aren't reporters. He says he has a quote from Toby Zielger, not directly from him, but from a staffer who heard him say this: "If the President wins reelection it will be on the President's coat tails." She requests a little time to check it out.

And now we are with Sam and a guy who is trying to convince Sam to get rid of the penny as in halt it from being produced in the country. This guy wants a good reason for why the government, or rather why Bartlet, won't pass the bill.

The Guy: "The penny is worthless."

Sam: "Actually it is worth one cent."

I'm not skipping anything in this scene, so don't think I hate Sam because this is a short summary of his scene, but the scene is actually very short.

Charlie enters the Oval.

Jed: "Charlie!?!"

Charlie: "Yes, sir."

Jed: "You took Indianapolis?"

Charlie: "Yes, sir."

Jed: "You didn't want to take Kansas City over Arizona?"
Charlie: "No, sir."
Jed: "Kanasas City has got three players out of Nortre Dame."

Charlie: "Yes, sir."

At this point the camera leaves Jed and Charlie and pans toward the reception area where Nancy is helping the VP out of his coat.

Jed: "You always go with the team that's got more players from Nortre Dame."

Charlie: "That is a heck of a system sir."

Jed: "What's your system?"

Charlie: "I compare the teams record to the record of its opponet."

Jed: "That's a little simplisti, isn't it?"

Charlie: "yes, sir."

Nancy: "Excuse me Mr. President?"

Jed: "Yes?"

Nancy: "The Vice President."
Jed: "Thank you."

Charlie leaves. Hoynes on his way in, "Hey Charlie."
Charlie: "Sir."
Jed: "Hey John."

No here comes a heated discussion. The president orders a beer and asks if John wants one too. HOLD UP!!! Jed doesn't know that Hoynes is a recovering alcoholic because he just asked if he wanted a beer, wow, never say that coming. John says he will have a water. And they start a discussion on the Texas thing. The President wants Hoynes to speak at a Gun Control meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

We are brought to the North Entrance and there is a rather tall man, in a millitary unifrom - a blue uniform - and I'm assuming Air Force. Leo walks up to him:
Leo: "Alan?"

Alan: "Ah..." He gives Leo a pat on the shoulder.

Leo: "Come on back." Leo has one huge smile on his face. Gives you reason to believe these guys are good friends.

They talk about, or rather Alan talks about a trip to Kuwait while on the way to Leo's office.


CJ finds Toby in his office:

CJ: "Hey"

Toby: On his couch reading a news paper "I'm - i'm - not here."

CJ: "I called you at home. I had you paged."

Toby: "Yeah?"

CJ: "I didn't know you where here."

Toby: Hidding behing the paper "I'm not."

CJ: "I think the jig is up."

Toby: "Clearly I'm here but I'm not open for business. I heard the President was meeting with Hoynes, so I - I - I wanted to see how it goes."

CJ: "Listen......"

Toby: "I see you picked Chicago over Cincinati so let me explain to you why you money is going to be in my pocket."

CJ: "If the President wins reelection it is going to be the the Vice President's coat tails."

Toby: "You want to know what's weird? I - I - I said....... that exact thing a couple of days ago."

Aw the reporter has a name, Will Sawyer, CJ explains how he found out and told her about it. Toby explains how he said it. She leaves and Toby has Ginger page every junior staffer and senior assistant assemble in the Mess.

Outside somewhere, I think infront of Donna's apartment, Cliff is standing under an umbrellla. Donna comes by and he explains he knows about the diary and that she lied in the investigation under oath and all the conseqeunces that come with that lie. She is rather pissed at him, when he says he can help her walk this back that it was an innocent mistake she says:

Donna: "Just out of curiousity what would you say? That you thought you say a diary while you where hunting around for your boxer shorts?" She goes back in, to what I think is her house.

I don't know where we are in the white house, possibly outside Josh's office, or somewhere in the communications area. Josh is standing in a doorway looking at Sam who is writing on a desk. They are having a conversation, a little bit about Josh being pissed at Donna for dating Cliff, Josh says he isn't pissed. So they go on to talking about the penny thing.

Sam: "The majority of pennies don't circulate. They go in jars, sock draws. Two-thirds of the pennies produced in the last thiry years have dropped out of circulation."
Josh: "You've been reading about this?"

Sam: "It's interesting."
Josh: "No, it's not."

CJ walks up to Will in the press room. She says Toby is looking into it. CJ asks if he is a king, he says no he is a God.

Will: "I'm a God. I'm the only white man to ever witness the sacrificial rites of the Bau Tribe of Fiji. I was almost a victim myself until they made me the supporter of the World. "

CJ: "How'd you swing that?"
Will: "Using my palm pilot I convinced the Bau I had the power to make the god's of writing appear at will, and more significantly predict next weeks weather."

CJ: "So you're a God?"
Will: "I'm the God of good harvest and the land of the dead."

CJ: "I've got to go there and bring my laptop."

Will said she would be killed for being to tall.

Oh and we are back to an increadable boring debate between Hoynes and Bartlet. I'm not gettin to indepth into this because it would take forever to transcripe, and it is boring. Hoynes makes a good point that they can't ban axes because a guy hacks his family into bits, Hoynes says he is playing devils advocate. Bartlet is pissed off that the girl was only 9 years old and he goes off on a facts rampage, and then he say "I'm just playing devils advocate."

Leo and Alan are at it again. Leo thinks they should subject themselves to some treaty. Sam walks in:

Sam: "Excuse me. Excuse me General"

Alan: "Hey Sam."

Sam to Leo: "Margaret wasn't out there."

Leo: "What do you need?"

Sam: "If you're in the middle of something I can come back."

Alan: "We're eliminating genocide. What are you doing?"

Sam: "Eliminating the penny. So I'll come back."

Leo: "Yeah"

Alan: "See you later."

As Sam walks out he comes across Donna who just walked in. He asked her how it goes and she says fine. Then he goes on about that damn penny already, they should just eliminate it so Sam will shut up.

Donna finds Josh and gets him into his office. She explains to him she was asked if she kept a diary and she said no only she does keep a diary and she doesn't know why she said no. She explains Cliff saw it and that nothing important was in it. Josh blows up that she doesn't decided that and that she screwed up.

Donna: "What should I do?"

Josh: "Do nothing.........Do absoultely nothing."
She leaves.

Toby is on his way down to the mess where the assembled staffers are that he asked for.

Toby: "There's an old saying: Those who speak don't know, Those who know don't speak." He talks about the meeting and what he said and that someone relayed it to a reporter. Somewhere in this Sam walks in behind Toby. "We're a group. We're a team. From the President and Leo on though, we're a team. We win together, we lose together. We celebrate and mourn together. The defeates are softern and the victories sweeter because we did them together. And if you don't like this team.......then there's the door. It's great to be in the know, it's great to have the scoop, to have the skinny. To be able to go to a reporter and say I know something you don't know. So the press becomes your constituents and you sell out the team. So, an item will appear in the paper tommorow and it'll be to embarrasing me, and embarrasing to the president. I'm not going to have a witch hunt, I'm not going to huff and puff, I'm not going to take anyone's head off., I'm simply going to say this: You're my guys........and I'm yours.......and there is nothing I wouldn't do for you." He gets up and leaves.

Sam: Out in the hallway with Toby walking towards the West Wing up the stairs "That was unexpected."

Toby: "Yeah...........you're a good deputy Sam."

Sam: "What do you mean?"

Toby: "That."

Sam: "You won money on football today didn't you?'
Toby: "Yeah, but I mean it anyway. How can I help you out?"

NOOOOOOOO! Toby did you have to ask that question. Sam goes on about that stupid penny again. Toby gives him a good reason. The speaker is from Illinois which is the only state that uses the penny in toll boths and because Lincoln is from Illinois. Now everyone who is on the back on the penny, I know, I know LINCOLN!

Sam: "Thank you."

Toby: "yeah."

Sam: "And thanks for the other thing." refering to the good deputy thing.

Toby: "Yeah."

CJ walks into her office where Will is. She says Toby will go on the record with him but he says he doesn't want to talk to Toby because he isn't going to write the story. When asked why not, he says it isn't new. Oh my, someone with friggin' common sense. Every reporter overlooks that when writing a story. They contiue this conversation out into the hall. CJ asks him why he thinks being a white house reporter is a bad beat, he says he doesn't like writing gossip:

Will: "Can you imagine how much I don't give a damn what Toby said to a staffer?"

CJ: "yeah, all right." She contiues alone towards her press enterance and turns a before entering a door. "You can sit anywhere you want?" Because in the first briefing she told him to get out of someon else's seat.

Leo and Alan are at it again. BORING, Boring, boring. I don't get much of this conversation, at least not enough to explain it to you, and it would take a year to transcrip this. Alan asks if he remembers a mission where he had to distroy a bridge.

Alan: "It was a civilian target. It was a dam there were 11 civillian causaulties."

Leo looks on the verge of tears. "Why did you tell me that?"

Alan: "Becasue you could'be been charged with a war crime."

Leo is more pissed an upset: "Why Did You Tell Me THAT!?!?" you can just imagine what Leo feels right now, this is the kind of crap that drove him to the bottle before, after finally forgetting it he is hit with something horrible.

Alan: "All wars are crimes."

Leo ends there meeting and gets Alan to leave. When he does leave Leo just quietly turns and looks out the window. It is a powerful scene, I loved it. I don't know who gets the emmy for this ep, Jed or Leo. Not Sam, although good acting, annoying dialouge.

Jed and John are at it again. John says he agress with Jed but he can't say it because they are running the MS defense.

Jed: "Which we wouldn't have been doing if..........."

John: "If what sir?"

Jed: "Nothing."

John: "Sir..........."

Jed: "You outted me John. With that trip to Nashsua and the Oil Companies. You wanted people to start asking questions"

John: "I needed to start running because no one told me that I wasn't! And you announced it. And I found out on television!" John is getting right up in Jed's face yelling, tsk tsk tsk don't raise your voice to the president.

Jed: "So did my wife."

John: "This whole thing was mismanaged sir!"

Jed: "Look....."

John: "It was Blown!"

Jed: "Yes It Was!"

John: "Yes It Was!" And silence, a stunning defening silence.

Jed: "It's not easy being my vice president is it."

John: "No sir."

Jed: "I wouldn't think so. The only way you are going to get the nomination, you know that right? If I win."

John: "Yeah. And the only way you are going to win is if I'm on the ticket, you know that don't you sir?"

Jed: "Yeah. You'll go to Texas?"
John: "I want a seat at the table." Refering to the meeting in Texas.

Charlie informs the president they are ready for the briefing and Hoynes leaves.

Josh and Donna on a park bench near a fountain at night. Cliff approaches and Josh goes to talk to him.
Josh: "There's a coffee shop across the street. You'll read it there, you've got an hour. I haven't read it. If anything bothers you you'll issue a supeona in the morningand you'll have it back before the end of the day, if not, then that's that. "

Cliff: "Yeah"

Josh: "If I read any of this in the newspaper, or anything happens I don't like I have the entries for October 4th and 5th. "

Cliff: "What's October 4th and 5th?"

Josh: "You."

Cliff: "That's Fair. Thank you."
Josh hands him the diary, cliff leaves, and Josh goes and sits with Donna.

Josh: "It's starting to get cold already......................It's going to be fine."

END



Built by Text2Html