The Great West Wing Rewatch: 1.9 "The Short List"

Joel:  I would like us to all take a look at this quote from Sam Seaborn in this episode. "It's not just about abortion, it's about the next twenty years. The twenties and thirties it was the role of government, the fifties and sixties it was civil rights, the next two decades are going to be privacy. I'm talking about the internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records and who's gay and who's not. Moreover, in a country born on the will to the free, what could be more fundamental than this?" As we approach the twenty year mark of this quote, you can pretty much see that Aaron Sorkin predicted the future perfectly here. What was already a powerful quote has only gotten more powerful as the years have gone on. When this episode aired, Google was barely a year old. Facebook and youtube weren’t even close to existing yet, and Sam Seaborn could already accurately see what the biggest issue of the future would be. It’s risky to do something like this on a show. Sorkin could have decided that a different issue would be the biggest discussion top of the next twenty years and then we would all be laughing at how silly the worries of the 90s were. But that risk taken by the writers of this show are the same risks and gambles that the characters are taking. They have to decide how to steer the country, not just in the handful of years that they are in charge but how their actions will determine the ongoing future of the nation. Appointing a Supreme Court Justice can have repercussions long after the president has left office, so decisions must be carefully made. Now, twenty years later, it looks like they made the right gamble.

Alexa: Joel is absolutely spot-on about Sam’s quote. When I re-watch The West Wing it’s apparent that many of the issues that were hotly debated when the show aired are still relevant today, like the gun control legislation in “Five Votes Down” a few episodes ago. But Sam’s projection is eerily accurate, even, as Joel points out, before the inception of most of the pillars of today’s Internet culture. The central theme of this episode is fighting the good fight, and the Bartlet administration needs a Supreme Court nominee willing to do just that, someone with the intelligence, fortitude and legal acumen to address the very issues Sam highlights when they inevitably reach the nation’s highest court – and Mendoza seems prepared for the challenge. The notion of fighting the good fight also extends to Leo, when he and Josh realize that a congressman’s accusation of drug use in the White House refers to Leo’s own stint in rehab for prescription drug addiction years earlier. This episode is just the tip of the iceberg for the storyline, and sets the stage for a masterfully nuanced performance from John Spencer. Elsewhere, we see some of the relationships between the characters evolving. C.J. and Danny’s flirtation is intensifying, and he gives her a goldfish as a grand romantic gesture (Josh tells him C.J. likes goldfish, as in the cheesy and delicious snack food, but Danny misunderstands and gifts her an actual goldfish named Gail – aka the TV fish with the longest lifespan maybe ever). The writers also seem to be pulling away from the Josh/Mandy relationship at this point, and for the better. Josh and Mandy were originally intended to be the show’s primary love interests, but particularly when he has a scene with Mandy back-to-back with a scene with Donna, the discrepancy in chemistry is obvious. That’s not a slight against Bradley Whitford’s or Moira Kelly’s performances – some actors have magnetic chemistry and some don’t, and fortunately for the audience, the Josh/Donna dynamic prevails.

Chris: The importance of vetting cannot be stressed hard enough. We see so many instances of political candidates that are thrust into public eye because of the momentum and support that swells behind them and all of this is long before their dirty secrets and accusations ever come out and thus creating the wrong kind of media attention. Also, in the case of this episode, a thorough vetting process might reveal that your top choice isn’t as much of your favorite as you thought. And Joel absolutely nailed it when he talked about Sam’s quote about privacy being a huge issue 20 or so years later. Here we are 16 years after the airing of this episode and privacy on the internet is a major issue, one that doesn’t get talked about too much for whatever reason that’s so. With so much information readily available because of the internet, information access affects just about every other major government issue you can think of.

A good president nominates Mendoza to the bench.