The way John delivers the line "So my friend, if you want to start using American military strength as the arm of the lord" is powerful as hell, holy shit.
MrJamberee actually it does-just on someone else. A point about that Roman Empire that Jeb Bartlett mentions is that’s dry time they went into an enemy nation with the intent of total annihilation-they ended up on the border of yet another, a d ended up with yet another conflict on their hands for it. In the end, they stretched themselves too far, fighting too many enemies in too many places all at once.
So, easily one of the best West Wing scenes ever. It has everything I want: deep, philosophical ponderings on presidential powers, incredibly nuanced performances from both Sheen & Spencer, and a great friendship conquering all arguments.
It's such a nice touch how Sorkin juxtaposes the gravity and seriousness of the proportional response dialouge with them joking about Bertram Coles (something that Toby was so worked up about earlier in the episode). A great little way to illustrate what is REALLY important vs what is just isn't as much.
2:00 - 2:16 Despite how angry and frustrated Jed was, by all the situation, I'm sure he also did feel relieved with what Leo was saying here. Every good man in a position of power wants to know that someone is going to be there, to stop him, if he ever cross the line
"The people in Bert's district are so patriot that if the President of the United States himself were to show up, they'd kill him." Lmfao that's an incredibly apt quote for both the current administration and the previous one.
Don't we don't have to worry about the current Administration if the president was to visit some place he didn't know and he didn't have a map and a teleprompter they would have to worry about killing him he'd never find his way out
I just realized why I can't stop watching these videos. I really miss this show! No one has come close since it went off the air! Thanks so much for posting!
One of the funniest lines in all of The West Wing comes just before this. President Bartlet asks for the "Battle Damage Assesment" (basically the report detailing what the bombs hit) and he is told its been delayed. He asks why and they say "Normally we would confirm it with the Syrian Intelligence Agency." Bartlet asks "So what's the problem?" His aide responds, "Sir, we just blew up the Syrian Intelligence Agency." Bartlet yells, "Oh for crying out loud, will someone call CNN and find out if we hit anything?!"
What I love most about this scene is that it isn't the President and his Chief of Staff having an argument, ibut instead a best friend talking his best friend out of making a terrible mistake.
Jed makes militarism sound so good, even to liberals. No wonder if you consider the show was made before Iraq. BTW Leo, advising restraint and prudence, is the one who actually served in a military. Go figure.
@@MrJamberee just because it’s a tv show doesn’t mean everything in it is false. People like you just don’t understand the point of art. Art is meant to strike an emotional chord, it’s meant to provoke discussion and debate. “Artists use lies to tell the truth” You don’t realise how small minded you sound when you reduce it by saying it’s a fictional tv show, and how stupid you sound when you say it as if people are unaware of it.
I came looking for this scene because of the postings I saw on FB in regards to Stephen Sotloff's beheading. The writers for The West Wing have a way of expressing these arguments better than I can.
Sigh. I don't know whether to feel sorrier for the Trump supporters who will one day have to face the realization of what he is, or those who never will.
@@danieldickson8591 Sigh. I don't know whether to feel sorrier for the Q deniers who will one day face the realization of how right Q is, or those who never will. Qanon.pub.. Free yourselves from the Democrats' lies.
@@blackjack7654 Lol. All mainstream media: Trump will NEVER get elected. Trump gets elected. Media outlets for years talked about how Meuller will get Trump for sure. No obstruction/no collusion. Media guaranteed us that Trump would be Impeached out of office. Wrong again. Q predicts the moment of John McCain's death to the minute a month ahead of time. Knows all the important Senate votes everytime months ahead of time. Routinely predicts things to the day 1 to even 2 years in advance. But yeah, tell me more about how Q isn't real. For anyone interested in the truth feel free to see it for yourself at Qmap.pub.
No. He's talking about knowing that you have the power to punish, kill and conquer (and even having the desire to in the most heated moments,) but also having the mercy, discipline, humanity and self-control not to. The true strength of a man doesn't lie in his ability to crush, kill and destroy. It lies in his ability to not do those things, despite the fact that he knows he can.
I love the way Leo talked to Bartlet whenever he started getting out over his skis. Every leader needs at least one person with the stones to be a 'no' man.
Normally I find conflict in drama too hard to watch because of the cringe - but this? Two old masters at the top of their game is an absolute pleasure.
Yet another exchange that probably is not happening in the real WH these days. This is what real loyalty looks and sounds like, by the way. The best friend is the one who will, out of love, call BS on your worst thoughts and behavior, and force you to confront the ugliest parts of your character.
Then that Roman citizen Crassus went to Parthia and ate too much molten gold. It's like his battle of Agincourt bit, Sorkin has a really romantic view of the past.
This is what it's like to be Superman. To face the temptation of having the power to destroy anyone who opposes you, to hand out what you believe to be justice, but to refrain only because it's the right thing to do.
mitch thompson. Directly before watching this clip I watched a similar one from season 6. It is really weird seeing Bartlet display the exact attitude I just watched him arguing against
Leo kinda exists to temper Bartlet's idealism and keep him grounded in reality. He's a realist in that he knows that he knows fury and hellfire won't solve ideological and national differences. He's a realist in that he though the Israel/Palestine negotiations weren't likely to succeed and could cause bigger issues for the US. It doesn't mean he's right those pessimistic viewpoints, but he sticks around the administration because someone needs to temper Bartlet's frequent overeager optimism. Leo's the person who asks what the worst case scenario is.
@@DoomedLich I agree on your assessment of Leo my biggest problem with the Israel/Palestine story arc was Leo's insubordination, he was downright disrespectful towards the president. Leo is Jed's best friend, but fact is there is a line he never crossed as chief of staff even if he didn't agree with the President. Jed put his foot down several times during that story arc warning Leo that he was being unreasonable and Leo Shouted at the President Shouted Aaron Sorkin Leo would never shout at the president to prove a point, he would accept that the president has made his decision and fall in line.
@@maragathm To be fair. This show was amazing. For 4 seasons. After that they didn't know what to do with the characters. The writers, even though talented, seemingly didn't understand the characters they wrote for. They stopped being real, as in the first four seasons the characters tried to do what they felt was good, but they didn't always make it. Very often they failed at what they set out to do. From season 5 and on, that changed. It is like the writers wanted to "be heroes" and they did that through the characters. And the Israel/Palestine arc is a great proof of that. Something noone has been able to find a solution to for a very long time, Bartlet finds a way right away. My point is. Don't try and look for the same character in the later seasons, because they are not there.
It’s all about when, where, and why. In the case of this episode, it was a situation where restraint was needed because going all out would not solve anything.
The bit about Bertram Coles at the end is based off of a real incident from November 1994 when Senator Jesse Helms said President Clinton visitedmilitary bases in North Carolina, he better have a bodyguard with him because he believed he was that unpopular with the military at the time.
2:55 “It’s what our fathers taught us.” Learning later that neither of them had good fathers makes this scene incredibly poignant. Leo isn’t saying they should be like their fathers, he’s saying that all that they learned from their fathers was to *NOT* be like them.
This one's still tough for me. They both seem extreme. If it's something the enemy is willing to give up, it hasn't hurt them that bad. Using power means that THEY have to worry about escalation. Otherwise, you might as well do nothing.
Great scene, but during the era of the Roman Republic and Empire very few people (if any) outside Europe, the Near East and north Africa knew what a Roman was and probably didn’t give a damn about anyone being a civis Romanus....
I remember watching an old movie, talking about Saint Paul. At some point, he was about to be arrested in the middle east for spreading the teachings of Jesus. The moment the authorities were about to take him, he said they will need to talk to a higher authority, since he was a roman citizen. The people just back out and let him go away.
I disliked how Leo completely goes against his own argument here later during the Gaza incident at the end of season 5. That and Toby's leak were my least favorite parts of WW since it seemed so out of character.
TheNBAFANaddict yeah, they made a complete balls up after Sorkin left. What they did to Leo and Toby (in particular) was criminal. The only reason I carried on watching was because the actors transcended the writers-still watchable in spite of everything.
I thought Tobys leak was in character. Like when he organised the funeral for the homeless vet in season 1. Also Bartlet was right that Toby had shown glimpses of his feelings of moral superiority to Bartlet - on MS, hollywood, relection strategy and other things.
Would Preibus be strong enough to tell the President this, to calm him down and prevent calamity? Would Trump be humble enough to listen to Preibus if he were to tell him this? What an immature man-child world we live in!!!
Pointing out that symbolism, along with juxtaposing the words "Jed" and "in," has led me to now and perhaps forever think of Jed Bartlett as a Jedi master. Thank you. The drawback of course being I might also now think of Leo as a misunderstood Sith lord. Is the US the Empire? Is Big Oil the Trade Federation? I'm so confused! This changes everything.
I like how both arguments make sense, to a degree. I wish more people would be willing to hear both sides of an argument, instead of hiding in their echo chambers and listening to their propaganda outlets.
Comrade Pumpkinfuhrer von Clownstick isn't intelligent enough to get the nuances of this show, and none of the fascist conservitards in his administration are intelligent enough to explain it to him.
The problem with that argument is that it's complete nonsense. there was no point two thousand years ago where 'civis romanus' would protect you all across the known world. it was simply a plea invented by Cicero that the speaker be extended the rights of a Roman, which would often be respected by major tribes and foreign nations for fear of Romes legions. this seems like it supports his speech, but throughout the republican era many of the Greeks, Macedonians and other conquered peoples would happily butcher a roman, the key is that the right roman (e.g. those of rank) might be protected from state actors and so on. banditry, rebels and hostile groups were a fact of life even for the Romans, even into the imperial era. This scene always annoyed me because it feels like Sheen's character is someone who would know that although state actors would likely be too terrified of the military might of America, that does nothing to protect from non state actors, and is in reality the exact same problem faced by Rome ie. history repeats...
That's the thing about a lot of things Bartlet references and I think it says something about his character: He cares more for the sentiments of such stories than he for their historical reliability. He's idealist who's bad at grounding himself in the limitations of reality, and Leo is how he compensates for that inability. This scene is a perfect example of /why/ Bartlet shares stories despite knowing they're apocryphal. This isn't an overinterpretation of lazy writers; in the later seasons it's shown that the writers quite clearly are aware of it when Ellie challenges him on a story about Galileo and insists he does that all the time. It makes sense she's one of the only ones who would challenge him. Most people wouldn't have the nerve to correct him, and everyone who does realizes he's doing it very conscious of the story's apocryphal nature. Ellie is a character who /enjoys/ being difficult and forcing hands, so she's the rare sort who'd do that.
Touché. I like your thoughts, though personally I always found Leo to be more of a leash than an aid, a living symbol of establishment intractability in the weekly script (though that is of course an oversimplification).
Admiral Fitzwallace's ridiculous, ahistorical description of the Battle of Agincourt (he describes it as a polo match) in a later sseason is another example of Sorkin getting his history wrong.
TheWaveofbabies yeah that one was rough. Using medieval warfare as an example of military restraint lmao! The French sliced off the fingers of English bowmen, and the English burned Joan of Arc alive. If they had modern day weaponry in the Hundred Years War, Europe would be an irradiated wasteland.
I just watched another clip of this exact conversation with their opinions reversed. Leo wanted to blow something up in the middle east and Jeb was asking where it would end.
I think the President had a point regarding the purpose of a proportional response! I would argue you need a step above proportional response, not overwhelming or brutal, but above and beyond what is inflicted as a demonstration of dominance. eg, the surgical destruction of the opposing forces entire airforce. Military targets that handicap a countries capability. It both weakens the enemy, capitulates them, weakens the strength of the regime in the eyes of its own people etc.
