The Great West Wing Rewatch: 5.5 Constituency of One

Joel: There is so much to deal with in this episode that’s incredibly frustrating. We said at the beginning of this rewatch that we wanted to watch The West Wing during an election cycle because the real world election would be easier to get through if we were able to watch a fictionalized government made up of people who would strive for the moral high ground, who wouldn’t waste the taxpayer's time or money, and who would get things done. But now we have an episode where even our beloved West Wing characters can’t meet those standards. First we have CJ and Leo’s storyline where the end result is pretty much CJ getting in trouble for doing what she felt was morally the right thing to do. And we have Toby’s storyline, which can be boiled down to two of the politically smartest men and two of the most gifted writers in the country spending there time trying to make a calendar. Think of all the beneficial things that these two men could have been doing with their time, all the good that could have been done for Americans, that was instead used to make the calendar.

But the worst offender of all has to be the storyline with Josh and the senator from Idaho. It’s almost painful to think of all the money the government spends on projects or technology that are deemed ineffective or outdated before work even begins. But the money is spent and the worthless project moves forward because the contract has already been signed or an agreement between congressmen needs to be honored. Sometimes even the show that you watch to feel better about the potential of your government can’t help but frustrate you.

Chris: There's parts of this episode where it's easy to blame Josh for pushing the Idaho senator too hard, leading to everything crumbling by the end of the episodes. If you just look at how the episode begins with a newspaper article singing Josh's praises, it's easy to assume Josh's ego is out of control and his confidence turns into arrogance but I really would argue that isn't true at all. Josh is pretty much fighting everything in this episode. He doesn't want his birthday to be made in a big deal, he doesn't like getting press that puts him above the president (who Josh feels should always be at the forefront of what they do) and he's facing off against a democrat in name-only who wants the president to fulfill a promise made by a different president. The odds were kind of stacked against Josh and, honestly, the senator switching to republican is merely a formality but it still the switch doesn't play well in the news especially on the same day as the puff piece came out. And I'm okay with Amy leaving too, the west wing (the physical location, not the show) never did feel like it suited her well as she's a more hands-on lobbyist rather than a policy-maker, especially when her boss is absent so much.

A good president pretends the First Lady and her chief of staff is the same person but he isn't happy about it.