The Great West Wing Rewatch: 3.16 "The U.S. Poet Laureate"

Joel: You know it occurs to me that pretty much every character on this show is single. Josh, Donna, Sam and CJ are all single. Toby and Leo are divorced. Even characters that only appear from time to time, like Ainsley, are more than likely going to be single. The only characters that constantly appear on the show who are married are the President and the First Lady. There’s no real comment or criticism there, I just wonder if that is accurate at all to the average West Wing staff.  I know they are a group that tends to work long hours, both on the show and in real life so I guess it’s possible. It means very little in the way of scenes where main characters have to explain to significant others why they have to be late again.

We should also note in this episode Bartlet going “old school” as CJ liked to put it. We will see it a bit more as we get into the election, but I like the little reminder than in addition to being a good President and an ideal speaker, Bartlet is also a fantastic politician. He knows what needs to be said, what information people need to know, and when it’s the best time for them to get that information. For the most part we’re going to get the staff trying to figure out how to get Bartlet reelected, while the President himself still has a country to run, but it’s nice to see an example that Bartlet still knows how to play the game.

Chris: You know that whole thing where someone is so smart but can completely miss the little things around them? President Bartlet doesn't have that, there's no way the most perceptive man in TV history missed a blinking red light and misspoke, especially a week after he was playing two different chess games in 2 different rooms against two different opponents while also strategically dealing with a potential international crisis. There's a huge reason Bartlet has won every single election he's ever entered and it's because he can use his mass intellect to play the evil game of politics and this particular play fits right into the strategy Toby brought up during his chess game in the previous episode. Now, the national conversation is focused on if Bartlet's potential opponent has the experience or the intellect to run the country as compared to the president. This "slip-up" is Leonardo DeCaprio spinning his wife's totem in her dollhouse and creating an idea everyone thought was their own. President Bartlet may not have won the election before it got started but it put his potential opponent that much further behind him to begin with.

A good president BWAAAAAAAAM.