The Great West Wing Rewatch: 5.6 "Disaster Relief"

Joel: The scene that really stays with me from this episode is toward the end, where CJ confronts the President after he’s stayed in Oklahoma about a day longer than he should. There’s a lot to unpack in that one scene. First of all, I very much get where The President is coming from here. The glacial pace of government progress can be incredibly frustrating. I’m constantly frustrated by it in real life, and for the most part, I’m just an outside observer. I’ve even gotten frustrated with it on the show. It seems like each episode has an episode long issue that should really be taken care of in ten minutes if everyone would just shut up and listen to the smart people. I get how it feels like he’s finally doing something really helpful instead of sitting in the Oval, signing papers and talking about places a million miles away.

At the same time I get where CJ is coming from. It’s easy to call her crass because she’s looking at the political angle on the disaster, but It’s her job to look at the situation politically so that the President doesn’t have to. Like it or not, natural disasters become political firepower, every time someone can paint their opponent as not responding properly. And it’s easy to do. “That guy ignored the situation when Americans were in trouble.” “That guy only stayed for half an hour. He was only there to show he went there.” And then on the other side, as CJ pointed out, “That guy took up resources that should have gone to those in need.”

CJ’s the punching bag a lot in the show. Usually that’s because they need to explain a complex issue in simple words to the viewers and it’s easy to put in a scene where CJ gets it explained to her right before briefing the press. But it’s important every now and again just how impossible the job is that CJ gets asked to do every day.

Chris: Clearly it's frustrating being president, obviously your involvement in any issue is on a big picture level and rarely do you have any involvement on a personal ground level and get to see immediate results and I believe Bartlett got emotionally drunk with the idea of doing immediate good with the relief efforts. Back in the White House are all these massive decisions that effect the world with no guarantee that any good will come of it but he sees that just a conversation or helping clean dishes might get an individual through this one moment. So there's definitely a chance that Bartlett may have subconsciously used this disaster as a way to hide out from these global issues for a day. It's understandable to want to do it but it's a luxury a president is not afforded.

A good president puts the entire world on hold for a day to talk to some folks.