The Great West Wing Rewatch: 7.2 "The Mommy Problem"

Joel: There is so much hand wringing here about whether or not Santos should report for his National Guard training, with the argument against it will be that the timing of it will look like a political stunt. Now I understand that I am not a political consultant, and I get that there are people who are paid a whole lot more than me to understand the political landscape a whole lot better than me, but to me it seems like anything and everything that these two guys do from here to election day is going to seem like a political stunt on one level or another. When Vinick visits both the border patrol and the minutemen in the same trip, that comes off as politics and it should. When Santos speaks at a predominantly black church, how are we supposed to interpret that if not political at least on some level. When people pay for air time to air negative campaign ads they aren’t trying to warn us about something out of the goodness of their heart, they air because somebody is trying to be elected for something. Just because the thought behind an action is political to some degree, it doesn’t automatically negate that said action. If you’re going to disqualify someone because the motivations behind some of their actions may be political in nature, then you won’t get to vote for anybody anywhere on the card come November.

Chris: Political stunting feels dirty no matter the degree of how overt it is and it's reached the point where anytime a camera is pointed at a politician and they're depicted doing anything good or generous, it feels dirty. Once again, Santos' campaign staff is eager to jump on this as a stunt but the ever-virtuous Matt Santos is hesitant especially when he's put off his reserve duty several times for frivolous reasons. Ultimately, there is some merit to the idea behind the stunt to combat the idea that Democrats are anti-military, even Santos had decades serving in the military. Santos could've done like Bartlet a few episodes ago where the President visited injured soldiers but didn't allow press in the building. Santos could've still fulfilled his reserve duty, the press could've been notified but refused camera access to dampen the appearance of stunting. However, the visual of Santos in uniform, walking to the jet and taking off is way more dramatic and clearly has more effect of Santos' image.

A good president knows internal investigations are ridiculous.