OTH: The West Wing- "The Midterms" / "In This White House"
How do you recover from an assassination attempt?
Season 2, Episode 3
Aired October 18, 2000
Directed by Alex Graves
Written by Aaron Sorkin
Synopsis: Following the assassination attempt, President Bartlet’s approval ratings have jumped up from 51% to 81%, and even though the staff recognizes that this is only temporary, they’re inspired to take the opportunity to approve some seats during the midterms. One person Sam has in mind is Tom Jordan, a friend of his from law school, who’s currently a prosecutor, who he meets with and offers the President’s full support for his candidacy if he chooses to run. Toby, meanwhile, is thinking bigger and wants to target hate groups like the one responsible for shooting the President and leaving Josh bedridden, but what he keeps hearing is that this is too broad of a goal to reach for. Sam, meanwhile, discovers that Jordan has a history of racial bias in his records, from overwhelmingly voting for white prosecutors over Black and joining an all-white fraternity. No matter how you spin this, it’s a bad look, and Sam is asked to back off from his old college buddy. Moving up to Election Day, a despondent Toby comes into the President’s office and asks to take a leave of absence, still suffering from the aftermath of the assassination attempt. The President agrees to grant him 15 minutes off, which startles Toby, but he states his case, noting that the reason Toby, as well as everyone around, still feel so startled is that this wasn’t an assassination attempt, but a lynching. He also shares with Toby the whereabouts of a West Virginia hate group’s headquarters, which the President keeps tabs on with the Attorney General. But the President isn’t done, as he decides to head out to be a part of the radio broadcasters event the White House is hosting. When he heads over, he notices that one person doesn’t stand to attention- Dr. Jenna Jacobs, a reactionary who constantly shares her radical views on homosexuality. With this, President Bartlet takes the opportunity to lash out on her AND prove that he’s better-versed with the bible. We then see Charlie, who has been distant with Zoey after discovering he was the cause of the shooting, open up with his girlfriend at long last. The episode ends with Toby, Sam, C.J. and Donna meeting up with Josh on the stoop of his house, drinking beers as they keep tabs on their election results. Things don’t come out looking too great, with all of their hopeful incumbents falling flat, leaving the House with the same balance between Republicans and Democrats as before. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all.
When The West Wing is good, it proves why Aaron Sorkin is one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation and reaffirms itself as, if not one of the best television shows of all time, at least near the same conversation as such. “In the Shadow of Two Gunmen” comes as close to that as anything we’ve seen thus far. But sometimes, the show doesn’t always hit and it reads like a liberal’s wet dream, where anyone can be swayed to change their mind based on one good argument.
That does make the show hard to stomach sometimes in a post-Trump, post-insurrection world. Why should we try to reach across the hall to those who cheer on domestic terrorism on the daily, from the White House invasion in 2021 to the call to end the “groomer LGBT community”. A shockingly high percentage of people don’t want logic, but to hear what they want to hear, their own sheltered viewpoints.
I don’t have a place for that in my life, but to be fair, sometimes I don’t think Sorkin does, either. A lot of time is spent on “The Midterms” preparing us for a potential blue storm that peters out into nothing. The good will the White House received after President Jed Bartlet and Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman were shot by members of a hate group dedicated to killing President Bartlet’s daughter’s boyfriend, a Black man, faded away by election time. By this point, not enough people were interested in rocking the boat and changing the status quo to do what the staff wanted.
And it’s unfortunate, you can tell that the White House staff did everything they could to make their selected choices for the house appear appealing, but you can’t convince the determined. I like this bittersweet ending, where the American political power strife ends at yet another stalemate, as it feels closer to reality than the show more than occasionally feels when it has the White House go against their political enemies.
But to me, “The Midterms” is less important for how it handles midterm elections and more for how it shows the aftermath of survivors from a terrorist attack. Not even, as President Bartlet truthfully and firmly calls it what it is- a lynching.
With what seems like an ever-increasing attack on hate crimes, the attack on Charlie’s life feels all too precedent today, but despite how it may feel today, domestic terrorism was nothing unheard of in 2000. The first result for a quick search on hate crimes in 2000 shows a major and disturbing report. The problem with attempting to stop prejudice towards minorities, or really any group, is that we can’t change or read people’s minds. The best option is to start from the top, finding any recognized terrorist group and stopping from there. This won’t remove every single threat, but showing that blind hatred will no longer be tolerated is as good of a first step as any. But remember, the first movie ever screened at the White House was Birth of a Nation. It may not totally be in the government’s best interest to resolve racism. Doesn’t that make you mad?
It makes Toby and the other senior staff mad, and that’s good enough, right? Maybe The West Wing is an echo chamber for the left, one that wants to remind liberals and maybe even some leftists that their views are valid and others feel the same way. Sometimes the show, like too many of the Democratic party, is too weak-willed for me. And I’ll admit that parts of “The Midterms” feels the same way to me, but I like seeing how the crew is trying to get back to normal. Josh is bedridden, but tries to work as much as he can from home. Toby is horrified at the notion that white nationalists can attack again at any given time. Charlie is uncomfortable with seeing Zoey after their relationship caused her father, his boss, to get shot. And everyone else is too startled to talk about what happened.
Now that can make for some good TV. And ending with the gang sitting on a stoop, drinking beers as they listen to the radio can also do the trick.
Season 2, Episode 4
Aired October 25, 2000
Directed by Ken Olin
Story by Peter Parnell & Allison Abner, Teleplay by Aaron Sorkin
Synopsis: Sam is going on a political talk show to discuss a bill aimed for school boards that the President has vetoed, and he’s up against Ainsley Hayes, a young, pretty little thing who hasn’t appeared on television before. Sam and the host, Mark Gottfried, think he has it in the bag, but Ainsley quickly annihilates him and proves that she’s worth keeping an eye on. And so President Bartlet does, in between meeting President Nimbala of Equatorial Kundu, who is in D.C. to speak with the heads of the pharmaceutical company who has a medication that can possibly cure AIDS, but are overcharging its transportation. After their initial encounter, the President suggests to Leo that they hire Miss Hayes for a position in the White House, a move Leo tries to ignore, thinking it’s one that he’ll forget about by lunch, but Bartlet sounds firm on this. Supposedly', he’s kept a tab on Ainsley for a while and has read some of her articles, and states that he admires her sense of civic duty. When Leo breaks the news to a furious pair of Sam and C.J., Toby and a newly-rejuvenated Josh are mediating negotiations with President Nimbala and big pharmaceutical, which is going nowhere.
The next day, Leo meets with Ainsley, who thinks she was invited to the White House to be reprimanded, so she starts another vocal storm like the one she assassinated Sam with the other night. When Leo edges in that he’s offering her a job, however, she’s speechless… briefly, but her conservative mindset won’t allow her to take a position with a Democrat sleazeball like President Bartlet’s White House. Still, she agrees to take a tour of the White House with Margaret before making up her mind. As she gets to see some of the legendary building and its staff, including a memorable encounter with C.J., Josh and Toby note that their negotiations with President Nimbala and the pharmaceutical companies still haven’t hit a sweet spot, which is when the two senior staff members take Nimbala out to speak directly with him. Josh and Toby believe that they can get the medications they need reduced in price if they’re able to crack down on counterfeit drugs sold from the black market. While President Nimbala balks at the suggestion, stating that he’s too busy to search for fake drugs, but Josh suggests that not only will this get the African countries in question what they want, but this may also allow Congress to forgive some of the debt they’re accrued over the years. When Nimbala eventually gives in, Josh makes his way over to Leo’s office, where he walks in on Ainsley, who came in to decline the job, and Sam continuing their debate from the other night. Things get especially heated when Ainsley brings up gun control, which Sam has to remind her of someone who recently suffered from gun violence in the room. The conversation stops, though, when Sam and Josh receive a not and reconvene into the Oval Office, where Ainsley eavesdrops and hears President Bartlet argue with Nimbala about it being unwise for him to return home, as a coup has occurred in his country. President Nimbala insists, but Bartlet worries that he’ll die if he returns now. This conversation appears to have done the trick, as we next see Ainsley meet with her Democrat-hating friends who call the White House staff worthless, a claim she resents as she’s become their new lawyer.
The episode ends on a Saturday, with Jed regaling Toby and Josh in the latter’s office with more of his random, encyclopedic knowledge, when Charlie comes in with a note. It appears that President Nimbala was shot when he returned to his country’s parking lot.
It’s not unheard of to see a President try to reach across the aisle. Biden tries this all the time to his detriment, and even Trump would occasionally feign to work with the left. So it’s kind of weird that his crew seem so surprised that President Bartlet would hire a Republican for his staff.
To be fair, it’s probably the Republican he hired in question, as Ainsley Hayes did make a name for herself by owning Sam on national television. To be fair, it’s less that she was right, but more that Ainsley was able to word herself succinctly enough and not give Sam any leeway that he had no choice but to take the L. That still counts, but maybe as a technicality.
I had forgotten where the title came from and assumed that “In This White House” came from some kind of speech Jed or Leo came up with to stir their staff and/or opponents, but it comes from the White House’s new lawyer, who is shocked to discover that she was offered a job in this particular presidency. While she and others have noted that Bartlet is more of a moderate than a radical leftist, anything further left than Ted fucking Cruz is too far left for most Republicans. Of course she’s going to object.
But right away, it’s evident why the President would want someone like Ainsley on his crew. She’s deceitfully intelligent, a southern young blonde bombshell who is able to surprise many with her curt, matter-of-fact distillation of the facts. And the fact that she’s able to shush one of the White House’s most assured staffers like Sam is definitely a plus.
Ainsley won’t become a major player, but we’re not quite done with her just yet. Luckily Emily Procter is game for the role, playing the character as tacitly clever as she’s meant to be, but also doesn’t allow herself to be smarter than the room… most of the time. She’s good at matching the White House, but it’s clear who’s in charge of her friends group. As she should be.
I almost called the material with President Nimbala the subplot, but both stories have an equal amount of attention. While I’m a little less happy with this material’s finger-pointing, making sure that we all feel bad for how many people, drug manufacturers in particular, view “third-world countries”, it’s at least well-meaning, and worth reminding audiences that AIDS continues to be a deadly issue in Africa, for everyone, not just the “gays”. If anything works for me with this material, it’s the ending, where Bartlet tries to protect President Nimbala from what he expects to be a deadly homecoming, which results in an unfortunate, if expected outcome. This White House’s President survived the assassination attempt he was a part of, while the President of Kundu couldn’t survive his. Not to say that Bartlet deserved to die, but life is seldom fair.
I don’t have much else to say about “In This White House”, a well-written hour of television. We’re moving on from the assassination, even if it still looms around. The effects are still lingering, but we have other things to keep in check with. Like if this conservative Barbie will live up to the President’s expectations.
Presidential Records:
Every so often, we hit a moment that I need to share with my audience. This week, it’s Bartlet’s epic recital of bible verses.
I knew right away what Leo meant when he asked Charlie if he was taking protection and didn’t even think of the implication. Does that mean I’m an adult now?
Emily Procter, who plays Ainsley Hayes, is from Raleigh, North Carolina. Not that I’m surprised, it’s kind of hard to hide that accent. She’s probably best known for work in CSI Miami, but we’ll see her again whenever we cover Friends on here.
For those curious, President Nimbala was speaking Setswana, one of the national languages in South Africa and Botswana.
Next Week: Ainsley eases into her new job at the White House, and nuclear tension occurs during a poignant point for the President.