A Decade Without the West Wing

---

---

Bartlet (Martin Sheen): How's the speech?

Santos (Jimmy Smits): It's OK. A couple of good lines. There's no 'Ask not what your country can do for you ...'

Bartlet: JFK really screwed us with that one, didn't he?

---

There are some milestones that seem to be about right, and some milestones that don't seem right.

Tonight is the 10th anniversary of the final episode of the West Wing. In my mind, that event ranks as one of the latter. I can't believe it has been a decade since that show went off the air.

For a long time, it was the only TV show that I watched regularly — and I do mean regularly. I almost never missed it.

And the episode that aired on this night in 2006 was a lot like the ones that preceded it. It told what would have been a linear story — if it was telling an actual story. It was the last chapter in the story of the Bartlet administration, the perfect way to finish the series.

As I mentioned last week, I would have liked for there to have been one more season, kind of a postscript to the story that told the viewers what each of the characters had been doing.

That was not done, but there were a few surprises in store for viewers. Toby (Richard Schiff) received a presidential pardon — I think most West Wing viewers suspected that would happen, but the outgoing president (Martin Sheen) dragged out his decision.

And the incoming president picked a one–time rival for the party nomination to be his vice president since his running mate in the series (John Spencer) died of a heart attack on Election Day.

Before the curtain fell on the series, though, the West Wing audience was treated to one last round of the show's snappy dialogue.

One of my favorite exchanges came about midway through when the president–elect (Jimmy Smits) and his wife (Teri Polo) were on their way to the inaugural festivities.

"Nine inaugural balls," the soon–to–be first lady said. "You think I'm supposed to wear nine gowns?"

"Do you have nine gowns?" the soon–to–be president asked.

"No," she replied.

"Well, then, probably not," he said.

(Actually, it seems to me that Inaugural Day is a little late to be sweating that kind of detail.)

---

---

I always liked the snappy dialogue, but, I must admit, I wondered something when I heard Mr. and Mrs. Santos speaking in the West Wing manner. Had they really morphed into President and Mrs. Bartlet?

I mean, I always thought that one of the benefits of democracy was getting different personalities with a change of administrations.

Still, I would recommend watching this episode before the next president takes the oath of office in January. The West Wing did an excellent job of showing viewers what happens on Inaugural Day — the behind–the–scenes stuff. While the new president is taking the oath and delivering the Inaugural Address — and then watching the Inaugural Parade — an army of workers descends upon the White House and moves the first family's belongings out and the new first family's belongings in.

I've heard that their work is so thorough that, when the new first family returns to the White House later on Inaugural Day, it is as if all their possessions had been magically transported to precisely where they were expected to be in the residence portion of the White House. That is especially important if the new president has children, who will want to easily find their favorite toys when they return to their new residence.

I guess the thinking is that a new first family's lives will be disrupted enough by their new positions in American life. Their private lives should offer some continuity and sanctuary from the outside world.

The two people between whom Americans will likely have to select the next president have no young children who would be moving in to the White House with them. They do have grandchildren — those grandchildren most likely would not be moving in with them, but they could be expected to be visitors from time to time.

How frequently they would visit might determine whether those workers would need to prepare special rooms for them.

A gentle reminder that, when Americans elect a president, they get that president's family in the bargain.

An Administrative Change of Life

---

---

On this night 10 years ago, the West Wing was winding down its seven–year run. A new president was about to take over, and Martin Sheen's crew was making post–administration plans, both personal and professional.

I was in the midst of my own transition, as most West Wing fans were, I suppose. I was wondering what I would do with myself after the series went off the air. What I saw on this night in 2006 made me wish there was going to be another season so I could see what happened with those characters after they finished what C.J. Cregg (Allison Janney) called "the first line of my obituary."

We sort of got a peek into that in the final episode — but I will write about that next Saturday on the 10th anniversary of the West Wing's series finale.

The viewers were getting set up for that with the episode that aired 10 years ago tonight, "Institutional Memory." As I say, everyone in Martin Sheen's administration was preparing to vacate for Jimmy Smits' incoming administration.

But not entirely. Some folks from the Bartlet (Sheen) administration were being asked to stay on — chief among them being C.J., who started the series as press secretary and ended it as chief of staff. Now the Santos (Smits) administration wanted to make use of her experience.

The trouble was so did a wealthy mogul — a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates sort of character — who wanted to use his wealth to benefit people and offered to give C.J. $10 billion to "fix" whatever she thought was the greatest problem of her time.

That was the offer that appealed to her, but Smits had given her the "your president needs you" speech — OK, it was a Reader's Digest condensed version, but that took away none of its impact — especially on the relationship between C.J. and Danny the reporter (Timothy Busfield), whose intriguing interaction through the run of the series was finally beginning to blossom in the final episodes.

Understandably, though, C.J. was conflicted by her professional life, and Danny had to make her understand that he would be supportive of whatever she wanted to do. He just wanted to be part of the conversation.

---

---

Of course, as a presidential administration winds down, there are many conversations going on, not the least of which concerns the subject of presidential pardons.

Being the history buff that I am, one of the things I always liked about the West Wing was the way it educated its viewers while entertaining them. Sometimes the education was rather blunt, but it was subtle in this episode of the West Wing. Outgoing presidents routinely issue pardons, and the subject of a pardon for former White House speechwriter Toby (Richard Schiff), who was fired after he leaked classified information to save the lives of some astronauts, was the subject of conversation. Toby's ex–wife Andie (Kathleen York) was one of those who lobbied C.J. for a pardon.

When he discussed the subject of pardons with C.J. — and after confirming that Toby's name did not appear on the list of applicants for presidential pardons — Charlie (Dule Hill) casually remarked that the president "could do whatever he wants to in this area," including adding his own names to the list of pardons.

Sometimes in our modern political climate it is hard to remember just how prescient the West Wing often was. Toby's national defense leak was only one example. More than one writer has observed how closely the election that put Barack Obama in the White House mirrored the election of Jed Bartlet's successor in the series' final season.

C.J. went to visit Toby, who confirmed in a rather awkward exchange that he had not applied for a pardon, and then they had the kind of conversation that flows easily between friends — and, as Andie pointed out to C.J., they had been friends for a long time, long before the leak.

C.J. and Danny were friends before they were lovers. The challenge they faced in the episode that aired a decade ago tonight suggested, as the final credits began to roll, that they taking tentative steps toward being a mutually supportive couple.

Maybe one day the West Wing will have a reunion show, and we can find out more about what became of those characters after the next week's season finale.

In Pursuit of 2162 Votes

---

---

Ten years ago tonight, the season–ending episode of the West Wing gave viewers something of a glimpse of what would take place in just a few short years.

If viewers could have climbed aboard Marty McFly's DeLorean and traveled ahead a few years, they would have witnessed a scene that had a lot in common with that episode — when Barack Obama would become the first black nominee of a major party for president. But my guess is that, at the time, most viewers wouldn't have believed it if they had been told that it was a prophetic episode.

There were some differences, though, between fiction and the eventual fact.

---

---

In the episode that aired on this night in 2005, the Democrats nominated their first Latino candidate for president, played by Jimmy Smits. The title of the episode referred to the number of delegates that were required for nomination, but, unlike it has been in most postwar conventions, no candidate came into the convention with the nomination secured.

Smits' character was locked in a tight race for the nomination with the vice president (played by Gary Cole); the other candidate, the ex–vice president (Tim Matheson) who resigned in disgrace and then launched his quixotic campaign for the Oval Office, was a distant third, but he held enough delegates to prevent either of the others from claiming the nomination.

That is more dramatic than what really took place three years later. Obama cruised to his nomination, clinching it two or three months before the convention. In reality, it made for pretty dramatic television. But it wouldn't have been dramatic enough for a TV show.

---

---

The result was that viewers got a lot of inside–baseball kind of stuff — maneuverings and negotiations, behind the scenes things that a political junkie like myself can get into but can quickly become boring for viewers at home.

I could appreciate the subtleties of the writers' flights of fancy over what might happen in such a scenario. After all, a brokered convention is a relic from the past. Few, if any, living Americans have witnessed a genuine brokered convention so the episode might be considered more theory than fiction.

There was nothing fictional about Leo's (John Spencer) instructions to the leaders of the now–growing list of contenders for the nomination — the governor of Pennsylvania (Ed O'Neill) had rejected an overture from the vice president to be the running mate and was, instead, the subject of a supposedly spontaneous draft movement. I thought Leo probably spoke for the majority of viewers when he told them to unite behind a candidate before the president arrived to make his customary farewell speech to his party's convention. "One night of this is entertaining," Leo said. "Two nights, we look like idiots."

Anyway, after all the maneuverings, Smits' character emerged as the nominee, but before that, Leo stopped to speak to Josh (Bradley Whitford).

---

---

Leo had long felt that Santos should step aside for the good of the party, but Josh had resisted. In the end, Josh's man prevailed, and Leo accepted that. Then Josh dropped a bombshell on him — Leo was Santos' choice for running mate. Viewers had to wait until the start of the seventh and final season to find out if he would accept. I doubt if anyone thought he wouldn't.

Yes, it made for dramatic television, but it wasn't really true.

It was like in "Absence of Malice" when Sally Field's character was asked to describe her relationship with Paul Newman. "Just say we were involved," she replied.

"That's true, isn't it?" the reporter asked.

"No," Field responded, "but it's accurate."

The political developments in the West Wing weren't true, but they were accurate — at least within the context of what was known to be true.

And they did make for dramatic television.

When Things Fall Apart

---

---

Leo (John Spencer): You can't take it personally.

President Bartlet (Martin Sheen): That's what I keep telling myself. Problem is, once you're telling yourself that, it's too damned late. You're already taking it personally.

---

On this night in 2005, the West Wing gave its viewers a taste of what they could expect in a few years — the nomination by a major party of a presidential candidate from a minority demographic. They weren't on the verge of nominating a black candidate, but they were on the verge of nominating a Latino candidate (Jimmy Smits).

(Apparently, even in 2005, a year after Barack Obama's keynote address to the 2004 Democratic convention and three years before Obama emerged from virtual obscurity to win the nomination, the writers for West Wing, as liberal as they were, simply couldn't imagine a plausible scenario in which a black candidate won the nomination.)

Clearly, it wasn't entirely prophetic. In the West Wing universe, the nomination wasn't a slam dunk. In fact, the battle for the nomination between the vice president (Gary Cole), who was the front–runner, and the Latino congressman from Texas (Jimmy Smits) was a virtual stalemate, and the episode began with a deal offer. The vice president was willing to name the congressman as his choice for the vice–presidential nomination in exchange for releasing his delegates from their commitments to support him.

I always felt it was a realistic depiction of the kind of political convention wheeling and dealing that was normal in American political parties until about midway through the 20th century. It has almost never been that close by the time that a real convention was about to begin, though. Something always seems to happen, and someone always surges at the last minute — and, in spite of occasions when observers have speculated about the chances for another "brokered" convention to occur, it really hasn't come close to happening in nearly 40 years.

So, in that sense, I suppose the episode was neither realistic nor prophetic. Just dramatic.

Adding to the drama were two facts — the Republicans were holding their own nominating convention (just as in real life, the out–of–power party was holding its convention first), and the crew of the space station was dealing with a life–threatening oxygen leak. The president (Martin Sheen) was trying to resolve the latter while ignoring the former.

That was hardly a new position in which he found himself. The unpredictability of the world often forces a president to deal with matters that stray far from his comfort zone, and the West Wing certainly was faithful in presenting that aspect of the job. The character of Jed Bartlet had expertise in economics, but he had to deal with all kinds of crises in the seven seasons the series was on the air.

And, with all that on the president's mind, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee was imploring him to intervene in the party squabbles between the leading candidates in the race to succeed Bartlet as the party's standard bearer.

---

---

The president wasn't too keen on that so he turned it over to Leo (John Spencer), his chief of staff, who really wasn't able to make much headway.

Then the congressman decided to meet with the vice president to discuss his proposal — but, when it came down to it, he just couldn't agree to be the running mate.

Meanwhile, the Republican nominee (Alan Alda) was seen giving his acceptance speech — and the president and Leo were seen watching the speech on TV. He made some complimentary remarks about the president, prompting Leo to look at the president and observe, "Nice what he said about you."

"Yeah. Bastard," the president replied. "He just picked up five million Democratic votes."

OK, it was fiction. Few observers of the real political atmosphere in America expect next year's Republican nominee to say much, if anything, nice about Barack Obama — any more than Obama had anything nice to say about George W. Bush in 2008 or than Bush had to say about Bill Clinton in 2000. In fact, I can't recall a time in my life when the nominee of the opposing party had anything nice to say about the incumbent. (That has probably been influenced by the fact that most of the time the nominee of the opposing party has been running against the incumbent, not his successor as party standard bearer.)

But the Republican nominee in this case was much more centrist than anyone who is likely to be nominated by the Republicans next year. He also hailed from California, even though California hasn't had a potential national nominee in more than a quarter of a century and hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate in nearly as long — but, in this scenario, he was a beloved senator from California, and that turned the Electoral College math inside out — as did the fact that one of the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination was from Texas.

Things were set for a dramatic season finale a week later.