Take Out The Trash Day

[Admin]

From NBC:
While President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) and his staff debate the appropriate response to a controversial new sex education study, there are fears that the parents of a murdered gay teenager should be excused from attending the signing of a hate crimes bill because of the father's embarrassment about his son's homosexuality. Josh (Bradley Whitford) and Sam (Rob Lowe) meet with an appropriations subcommittee which is investigating Josh's lack of cooperation in the White House staff drug probe -- all of which is designed to expose Leo's (John Spencer) former substance-abuse problem. Toby (Richard Schiff) relishes his verbal duel with some congressmen who have held up the newest appointments for the Public Broadcasting Corporation. C.J. (Allison Janney) is advised to save a few embarrassing stories for release on Friday to blunt the effect on the media over the weekend, but she also finds time to continue her frisky flirtation with a White House reporter, Danny (Timothy Busfield).

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion:
C.J. is briefing the press about a Rose Garden ceremony where the President is going to sign hate crimes legislation into law. Always a fountain of quirky information, C.J. mentions that he will use fifteen pens. Danny points out that Bartlet’s name has only thirteen letters, and wonder how he’s going to use fifteen pens. C.J.’s saved by her briefing notes – he will literally dot the i and cross the t’s. C.J. continues that Jonathon and Jennifer Lydell, parents of Lowell Lydell, whose death sparked the debate on hate crimes, are attending the signing and will be available to answer questions. Gossip flies through the press corps, however, that the Lydell’s are not big Bartlet fans.

After the briefing, Mandy offers her expert PR advice and admonishes C.J. for guaranteeing the Lydells for the bill signing. Mandy’s not sure she wants anti-Bartlet propaganda flying around the Rose Garden. Josh asks C.J. to read a report on sex education in public schools. It says that standard “abstinence only” theories aren’t proving effective in today’s schools, and recommends a new curriculum entitled “Abstinence Plus,” or what Sam calls “everything but.” Congress has offered to fund the 100,000 teachers the White House wants on the condition that sex education classes continue to teach abstinence only. For C.J., it’s just something else that’ll keep her on the office past midnight.

Danny wanders in to see C.J. He insists they go out on a date – she can’t just keep grabbing him and kissing him in her moments of passion. Danny actually has come with a purpose: he’s hearing about an advance man for the Hoynes who took a navy helicopter to Pebble Beach to play a round of golf. He won’t reveal a source but C.J. grabs him and kisses him anyway.

Donna’s caught wind of some political jargon, and she’s at a loss for what “Take Out the Trash Day” could possibly be. Josh explains that the administration gives all the bad stories they want to bury to the press at once on a Friday. Strategically, if a paper chooses to report all of them, each story will get less attention than if they were announced separately. And the conventional wisdom is that fewer people read papers on Saturday.

As with any other day in the White House, events of varying degrees of seriousness crop up and demand attention. Sam reports there’s a story in the Georgetown Hoya about a sociology professor espousing what sound like racist viewpoints in school. It’s their problem because Zoey’s in the class.

A group of assistants are having a quiet huddle, but Mrs. Landingham reminds them that they are federal employees and this is no place for gossip. Donna tracks down Sam and Josh, because she has no intention of extinguishing this gossip: the assistants know who leaked the story about Chad Magrudian, the vice president’s advance man: a woman named Karen Larsen, who was rumoured to have a slight crush on Hoynes.

When it doesn’t seem like the events of the day can sink much lower, Bartlet learns he’s in trouble with the banana lobby. The Europeans favour bananas from their former Latin American colonies, and U.S. companies lose out. Switching gears, Bartlet asks Toby to concentrate on freeing up five appointments to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that the House is sitting on. After a moment, the President admits he doesn’t think it has anything to do with bananas.

TOBY: I was raised on Sesame Street, I was raised on Julia Child, I was raised on Brideshead Revisited. Their legacies are safe in my hands.
C.J.’s unsuccessfully stifling a laugh.
TOBY: (to C.J.) You got a problem?
C.J.: You watched cooking shows?
TOBY: I watched Miss Julia Child.

Much to his disappointment, C.J. tells Danny there won’t be any more kissing. Distracted by other issues swirling around in the West Wing, C.J. asks Danny if it’s possible a father could be embarrassed that his son was gay even after the son was murdered. C.J. can’t conceive of the Lydell’s reluctance to support a bill which would imposes stricter penalties on the perpetrators of hate crimes. Exhausted, C.J. promises they’ll have information on Hoynes’s advance man on Friday. It’s going out with the trash.

Josh and Sam arrange to meet Congressman Bruno from an Appropriations subcommittee, who demands to know why Josh withheld information gathered during the drug “investigation.” He threatens to hold hearings about the possible White House cover-up of Leo McGarry’s drug and alcohol problems. Bartlet warned Josh and Sam to avoid a hearing at all costs, and Bruno seems like a reasonable guy, right up to the point when he asks, in a casually non-confrontational way, “What happened?”

At the same time, Washington elder statesman Simon Blye (Dakin Matthews) has come to see Leo about the imminent crisis of Leo’s drug charges. Leo assures Bartlet that Blye is an old friend but the President doesn’t trust him. Blye gives Leo the bottom line: there’s no chance of Josh and Sam avoiding a hearing. Furthermore, the administration needs to consider that the President has a budget to pass, he has to get Mendoza confirmed and a Democratic Congress elected in nine months. Leo asks if he’s come to ask him to resign, because he’s already offered and the President turned him down. Blye sneers that Bartlet is blinded by friendship and is putting his own Presidency at risk. Leo realizes Blye is making capital out of Leo. He has an op-ed published in the morning’s Post and he’ll be doing the rounds of morning talk shows on Sunday. Bartlet was right and Leo throws Blye out.

Blye was mistaken about the unavoidability of the hearings, because Bruno is armed with a deal for the White House. If they put the sex education in a drawer until after the midterm elections, he’ll guarantee that there will be no hearings. Bruno admits no one wants to debate the report: no one wants to be the one to oppose or support a sex education bill. Sam doesn’t think the President will go for it and Josh jumps to Leo’s defense, claiming their administration has nothing to hide. Bruno has to spell it out: no one wants a hearing on drug use in the White House. He’s throwing them a rope.

BRUNO: This is what happens when you put teenagers in the White House. You guys screwed this up from the beginning. You shoulda been there first on McGarry, you shoulda had the White House Counsel’s Office run the internal investigation, you came remarkably close to perjury in the Claypool deposition. . . . I’d like to hold hearings into the two of you being stupid. (beat) But I don’t have that kind of time. There’s the phone. I’m sure the President’s waiting for your call.

When C.J. and Mandy meet with the Lydells, they find they’ve been reading it all wrong. Mr. Lydell (Ray Baker) is not embarrassed about his son’s sexuality, he’s furious about Bartlet’s politics.

MR. LYDELL: I don’t understand how this President, who I voted for, I don’t understand how he can take such a completely weak-ass position on gay rights. . . . Gays in the military, same sex marriages, gay adoption, where the hell is he?! (beat) I want to know what quality necessary to being a parent the President feels my son lacked. I want to know from this President – who has not served one day in uniform. I had two tours in Vietnam – I want to know what quality necessary to being a soldier this President feels my son lacked. Lady, I’m not embarrassed that my son was gay, my government is. (beat) I want my vote back.

Although C.J.’s first thought is to let the Lydells speak their minds about complaints which are quite reasonable and poignant, Mandy insists they’ll have to go home.

Sam smouldering with rage, unabashedly reproaches Karen Larsen (Liza Weil). He tells her he doesn’t care about her giving up the advance man. But he thinks it was Karen who released Leo’s personnel file to Lillienfield and Claypool. She starts to say Mr. Claypool’s a family friend but Sam cuts her off. She has fifteen minutes to clear out of her office.

As Bartlet asked, Toby is defending PBS before a group of congressional aides. They say it’s TV for rich people. With some personal integrity at stake, Toby argues that PBS viewership is reflective of the nation. He doesn’t care about their complaints; they will, by God, protect Julia Child.

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion (cont.):
The President informs C.J. they’re sitting on the sex education report until further notice. C.J. believes it contains timely and consequential information about safe sex for teenagers, but they’ve made the deal and she understands. When C.J. asks what to tell the press, Bartlet says tell them only that we’re looking at it – throw it out with the trash.

The press briefing room awaits, but C.J. can’t shake the image of the Lydells. She wants to confide her inner chaos to Danny, but he stops he before she can leak him a story. In twenty minutes’ time she’ll remember she’s the press secretary and she won’t like Danny, the reporter, anymore. He’s not too concerned – if there’s a story, he’ll find it. C.J.’s not too sure – they’ve gotten very good at burying the trash.

Leo stops Karen Larsen on her way out of the White House for the final time. Leo asks what went through her mind when she flipped through his file. Evading the question, she admits her father drank a lot. Leo says his did too. One night his father came home drunk and he and Leo’s mother argued. Leo’s father went to the garage and shot himself.

KAREN: Is that why you drank and took drugs?
LEO: I drank and took drugs because I’m a drug addict and an alcoholic.
KAREN: (pause) How long did it take you to get cured?
LEO: I’m not cured. You don’t get cured. I haven’t had a drink or a pill in six and a half years. Which isn’t to say I won’t have one tomorrow.
KAREN: (pause) What would happen if you did?
LEO: I don’t know. But probably a nightmare the likes of which both our fathers experienced. And me too.

Clearly, Karen believed when she handed over the file that she was saving the White House from utter destruction at the hands of an alcoholic. But Leo’s not like she thought, not like her father, perhaps. The wheels in her mind are turning. She murmurs that Leo has such an important job. Important decisions. People’s lives. Leo says he’s not sure what she did “wasn’t a little bit brave” and offers her a second chance at her job.

At her briefing C.J. says there are just a couple of quick things she needs to go over. In rapid succession, she reports that Chad Magrudian has resigned. The President’s appointees to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be confirmed, and the Lydells have family business in St. Paul to attend to that will keep them away from the signing of the hate crimes bill. She’s taking out the trash.