Lies, Damn Lies And Statistics

[Admin]

From NBC:
While President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his staff nervously await the results of a poll to determine his favorability rating, he begins a heady transfer of ambassadors and members of the Federal Election Commission designed to kickstart campaign finance reform and defuse an embarrassing incident overseas. Specifically, wheeler-dealer Bartlet recalls the married ambassador to Bulgaria, Ken Cochran (Lawrence Pressman) who is discovered to be romancing the daughter of the country's Prime Minister, but faces another crisis at home when Sam (Rob Lowe) is photographed by a newspaper giving a graduation gift to known call girl (Lisa Edelstein). Meanwhile, C.J. (Allison Janney) anxiously paces the White House corridors and wonders if she is being marginalized by Leo (John Spencer) for past mistakes. In addition, Josh (Bradley Whitford) clashes with opinionated pollster Joey (Marlee Matlin).

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion:
In a high-end telemarketing room, thirty pollsters are at their consoles with their headsets on. The room is silent, tension hangs in the air. They’re primed and ready to start the calls, but the staff is still debating the questions. Toby thinks one of them is “asymmetrical,” but C.J. doesn’t agree.

TOBY: Since when are you an expert on language?
C.J.: In polling models?
TOBY: Yeah.
C.J.: Nineteen ninety-three. Since when are you an uptight pain in the ass?
TOBY: Since long before that.

Leo asks for predictions on the poll results. Everyone agrees they’ll hold at 42% approval, give or take, but C.J. forecasts, “We’re gonna go up five points.”

The polling details will take forty-eight hours. Sam explains that thirty callers need that time to make the 6,000 calls it takes to garner 1,500 responses. Quietly, Toby tells Sam he can’t go see Laurie graduate from GW Law School tomorrow. Onorato knows about Sam’s controversial friendship, and while Sam wonders what business it is of anyone’s, he agrees not to go.

Leo had brought in Barry Haskel (Austin Pendleton) of the FEC and is putting on quite a show. As he walks a very nervous Haskel down the hallway, a dress marine appears to present arms. Amidst the entertainment in the corridors, Leo says he knows Barry favours banning soft money and reads him quotes he made anonymously on the subject: “You’ve been outed.” Haskel says he has always been outnumbered five to one on the FEC, so he never saw the sense in going public. Furthermore, Barry says his wife warned the White House would try to dazzle him. Nonsense, says Leo, leading him to the Oval Office, where the President, the attorney general, the treasury secretary, and the CIA director just happened to be having a drink.

Laurie is in GW’s law library the night before graduation. Her friend Janeane is trying to persuade her to call it quits for the evening and go out. Sam calls Laurie to explain to her that he can’t be at her graduation in the morning. With a sigh, Laurie tells him she understands.

Toby’s got something up his sleeve, and asks Bonnie to arrange a meeting with Ross Kassenbach. Toby wants the President’s next two minutes, explaining to Sam that he found the ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia, which Sam is not even sure is a real country.

Bartlet is frustrated that despite their best efforts at getting the message out about drug treatment, Steve Onorato’s spinning the story as if they want to legalize drugs. Bartlet thought he was secure at 42%. To brighten the mood, Toby mentions Micronesia and, needless to say, Bartlet has the statistics at hand. Sam details the plan. The ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia can be promoted to Paraguay, and Paraguay to Bulgaria. Ken Cochran, the Bulgarian ambassador, is having an affair with the prime minister’s daughter, so Bartlet had reason to fire him. Bartlet tells Charlie to fetch Cochran and get him to D.C. It seems to Bartlet that Charlie knows Ken Cochran, but he denies it.

With Kenny as the middle man, Joey is telling Josh there’s no chance the Republicans will put English as the national language on the table. The two get testy with one another.

JOEY: Don’t raise your voice to me.
JOSH: How the hell do you know if I’m raising my voice?
JOEY: I guessed.

C.J. is giving a press briefing on mandatory minimums. She says a federal judge is required to give anyone convicted of possessing five grams of crack for five years. However, it takes a hundred times as much powder and twenty times as much heroin to receive the same sentence. And the minimums are racist, because 70% of powder users are white; 80% of crack users are black. Danny asks if the White House is making a crusade out of defending the rights of drug users, but C.J. blows him off.

After the briefing, Danny says C.J. can’t stay pissed at him forever. C.J. replies that they’re still talking about Mandy’s memo they broke against her will. C.J.’s obviously feeling a little tender. She asks Leo why he told the President everyone thought their approval rating would hold level when she asserted they’ll go up five points. Leo says he meant in general and she shouldn’t read too much into it.

Everyone’s still pretty tightly wound at the phone banks. C.J.’s anxious they don’t miss the media window and Josh is still arguing with Joey about Republican tactics. C.J. confides to Joey that she’s worried about having to tell the President she was wrong. Not about the poll numbers, she says, but about the strategy they’ve been using. She doesn’t know how many more chances she’s going to get before her time as press secretary is up.

After her graduation celebration Laurie arrives at her friend Janeane’s house, where Sam’s waiting on the stoop with a shopping bag next to him. He worked out a surprise with Janeane. He says he bought her a gift. It’s a leather briefcase, a nice one. They hold each other and he whispers in her ear, “Way to go, Laurie.” As they share the close moment, a car across the street guns it’s engine and takes off. Sam knows right away he’s in trouble, and the next morning he has to face the music.

SAM: I’ve drafted a letter of resignation.
TOBY: Well, you’re not going to give it to him, Sam, ‘cause that would deny me the pleasure of throwing you out through a plate-glass window.

Leo’s furious C.J. didn’t tell him about Sam last night. All Sam told her was that there was a suspicious car. It took C.J. three hours to find out there was a picture and another hour to find out it was the Mirror. They paid Janeane $50,000 for the set-up. C.J. says they’ll run it today, and the U.S. press will have it tomorrow.

Sam’s seeing the President with Toby. Sam maintains he never paid Laurie for sex. Toby says Sam has always been above reproach in regard to his relationship with Laurie. Bartlet asks Toby if he’s sticking up for Sam.

TOBY: I know it’s strange, sir, but I’m feeling a certain big-brotherly connection right now. You know, obviously I’d like that to go away as soon as possible, but for the moment I think there’s no danger in the White House standing by Sam and aggressively going after the people who set him up.

The President tells Sam to make sure he broke no laws. Sam should tell Laurie the White House regrets the huge inconvenience she’s about to experience and say if she passes the bar exam, the attorney general will make sure she’s admitted. And congratulations to her on the degree. Sam is thunderstruck by Bartlet’s generosity.

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion (cont.):
The President has parked Ken Cochran (Lawrence Pressman) in the Mural Room. First, Bartlet arranges with a friend to put Cochran on the board of directors of a company he runs. Then he goes to the Mural Room and informs Cochran he has to resign. Charlie has been babysitting Cochran, whom he clearly does know from his past. Charlie was a waiter at the Gramercy Club, which is obviously an “exclusive” club. Cochran says he resigned, he finds places like that repugnant. Charlie notes that didn’t stop him from joining it. Cochran’s outraged at Charlie’s gall and demands to speak with his supervisor. Charlie says that would be the President, and he’s about to shove Cochran out the back door. Bartlet says he knew Charlie knew Cochran.

Continuing in the day’s tradition of pissing people off, the President meets with Senator Lobell (David Huddleston), who’s in the Roosevelt Room with fourteen staffers. Apart from campaign finance, they agree that they agree on absolutely nothing.

LOBELL: You know why?
BARTLET: ‘Cause I’m a lily-livered, bleeding heart, egghead communist.
LOBELL: Yes, sir, and I’m a gun toting, redneck son of a bitch.
BARTLET: Yes, you are.
LOBELL: So we agree on that.

Bartlet wants them to work together on soft money. Lobell says Bartlet doesn’t have the votes in the House to do what he wants to do. Bartlet says he doesn’t need ‘em. In 1978, the FEC opened the loophole to soft money, and now they can close it again with four of the six votes. He has the seats that just opened, plus Haskel, and Toby will take care of the fourth. Bartlet asks if he can count on Lobell’s support to confirm his candidates. Lobell asks what he gets for this, and the President says he gets his thanks.

In his office, Toby meets Ross Kassenbach. Toby says the President thanks him for his work on the FEC and offers his congratulations. Kassenbach asks on what. Toby replies on being named the next ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia.

C.J. is still feeling vulnerable. Josh tries to comfort her by explaining that Bartlet thinks of her like a daughter, but she’s unmoved. C.J.’s going to retrieve the poll numbers and bring them into the Oval Office. The staff sits around waiting nervously. As they bite their lips and twiddle their thumbs, Josh can’t give up his argument with Joey. He says making English the official language would safeguard against ethnic strife, wouldn’t it? Joey blows a raspberry at him. Joey states that 72% of Hispanics strongly oppose any law on English. The Republicans will never put it on the table for fear of alienating such a large block of voters. She says, “It’s ludicrous to think that laws need to be created to protect the language of Shakespeare.” It is what he wanted to hear. Now everyone just sits back to await the polling results.

C.J. comes in with an envelope. She tells everyone, “I was wrong.” Everyone prepares for the bad news when she says, “We went up nine points.”

“Okay,” says Bartlet, “what’s next?"