President Bartlet’s a good man. He’s got a good heart. He doesn’t hold a grudge.

That’s what he pays me for.

#WEST WING AU: JOSH LYMAN IS THE PRESIDENT’S PERSONAL HITMAN

tobyziegler:

“I spent the last fourteen hours being snickered at by United States senators, being ostracized on the World Wide Web, having my own colleagues question my ability to do my job, and I let it get to me. So I don’t think it really matters whether I’m gay or straight, or just the best damn women’s basketball player in Ohio Valley history. No one should be treated this way.”

30 Days of The West Wing - Day Three - Favorite Female Character:
CJ Cregg

“You know on May 13, the day before Israeli Independence Day, the TV stations screen the name of every soldier who has fallen for the country. A name flashes on the screen for a second or two, then the next name appears. You go to bed, you get up, the names are still flashing. It takes 24 hours. That’s how they observe Memorial Day.”

Mrs. Landingham: I miss my boys.
Charlie: I never knew you had kids.
Mrs. Landingham: Twins. Andrew and Simon. I tried not to- you know, I dressed them differently, but they still did everything together. They went off to medical school together, and then they finished their second year, and of course their lottery number came up at the same time.
Charlie: For the draft?
Mrs. Landingham: Yeah.
Charlie: Well, I would have thought they could get a deferment to finish med school.
Mrs. Landingham: They didn’t want one. Their father and I begged them, but they wanted to go where people needed doctors. Their father and I begged them, but you can’t tell kids anything. So they joined up as medics, and four months later they were pinned down during a fight in Da Nang and were killed by enemy fire. That was Christmas Eve, 1970. You know, they were so young, Charlie. They were your age. It’s hard when that happens so far away, you know, because with the noises and the shooting, they had to be so scared. It’s hard not to think that right then, they needed their mother. Anyway, I miss my boys.

God speed, Delores.

“How did you live with Josh Lyman? How did you live with him? He beat Max out of the 12 million earmarked for vaccine education. And when I said I wanted the 12 million, he said, “So did I”. And, “At the end of the prize fight, you look at the guy who’s dancing around and that’s who won.” So I want to know how did you live with him?”

notabadday:

The West Wing characters: Joey Lucas (and Kenny!)
“You say that these numbers mean dial it down. I say they mean dial it up. You haven’t gotten through. There are people you haven’t persuaded yet. These numbers mean dial it up. Otherwise you’re like the French radical, watching the crowd run by and saying, ‘There go my people. I must find out where they’re going so I can lead them.’”

From Take This Sabbath Day, Joey was feisty and funny and brilliant - most of which was recognised immediately by Josh (despite his sensitive system) and the President. When we were reunited with the character in 20 Hours in LA, I found myself willing Josh and Joey together despite Donna, which says a lot for the chemistry and talents of Marlee and Brad, to be honest. I think I could have quite happily settled in to the JL/JL pairing (that would have meant neither needed their towels re-sewn). I admire Joey a lot as a character; she’s fearless. I wish she had been a regular, because every time she came back, those were great episodes.

My favourite performance and scene featuring Joey is in The Fall’s Gonna Kill You, when Josh signs ‘MS’ to her and asks her to come up with a way to poll the reaction to the President’s MS without having anyone realize the questions they’re answering. There’s a complexity to the way Marlee acts, and given that she is stripped of a huge part of the communication process, it’s unbelievable the fluidity of the scenes she’s in. Credit also must be given to Kenny. As well as intense emotional moments, Joey also has a hilarious banter with Josh (and some of the other characters too) as seen in episodes like The War at Home, 100,000 Airplanes and The Benign Prerogative (one of my favourite moments is the pregnancy reveal). There is also the tenderness of Mandatory Minimums, in which Josh reveals the story of his Joey Lucas suit (not his regular Tuesday suit).

She’s just a fantastic character, with a great rapport with the ensemble. You can tell that every time she returns, they’re like ‘YAY JOEY’. And damn, the girl’s got sass! I mean, the women on this show are like a congregation of the biggest HBICs in all the land!

My favourite Josh + Donna moments (in no particular order)
Josh was hit, In The Shadow of Two Gunmen Part I

"Harold & Kumar star Kal Penn braved similar disillusionment when he took a break from acting to work in the White House Office of Public Engagement. As he told The New York Times last year, “I was there my first night until 11 P.M. and I was like, ‘Sweet, let’s order Chinese food.’ And everybody was like, ‘You can’t actually order delivery to the White House.’ I was like, ‘But they do it on West Wing!’"  - Juli Weiner on the Sorkinization of Politics