The State Dinner

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From NBC:
As a night's stylish state dinner honoring the Indonesian president looms in the background, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) keeps his eye on a spate of potentially explosive problems: an FBI hostage standoff with dozens of militant survivalists, a Class-4 hurricane bearing down on a carrier group at sea and an impending national trucker's strike. Behind the scenes, the gracious First Lady (Stockard Channing) prepares to host the dinner, a pushy reporter (Timothy Busfield) flirts with C.J. (Allison Janney), Josh (Bradley Whitford) and Toby (Richard Schiff) corner an Indonesian government official (Peter Kors) to ask a favor, and a surprised Sam (Rob Lowe) spies his call girl friend Laurie (Lisa Edelstein) at the event.

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion:

As the White House prepares to play host to the president of Indonesia at a state dinner, multiple crises are brewing. Hurricane Sara, a class-four storm system, is heading for Georgia and the Carolinas. Teamsters have voted to strike, and once the Taft-Hartley Act expires that evening, they will stage a walkout, (The act, officially the Labour-Management Relations Act, dates from1947. The union or the employer must, before terminating a collective bargaining agreement, serve notice on the other party and on a government mediation service. The government was empowered to obtain an eighty-day injunction against any strike that it deemed a peril to national health or safety. The act takes its name from its sponsors, Senator Robert Taft and Representative Fred Hartley). And in McClane, Idaho, law enforcement has surrounded a farmhouse containing anywhere from eighteen to forty survivalists. They’re armed, kids are inside, and the FBI has decided it’s a hostage situation. Crises aside, the press is most interested in asking C.J. about the fabulous world of fashion in showcase at the dinner.

The West Wing staff works frantically, Josh needs Donna to find an interpreter for a meeting with an Indonesian deputy, Rahmadi Sumahidji Bambang. Leo summons the truckers and management and gives them until midnight to resolve their conflict over hiring practices. Sam is concentrating on creating the dinner toast with Toby, and Mandy will monitor the Idaho standoff. Josh doesn’t think it’s a job for a political consultant, but Leo doesn’t have time for games tonight: she’s to keep her eye on the hostage situation.

The President sits through an excruciating photo session with his Indonesian counterpart, President Siguto. As they face dozens of photographers, surrounded by aides and Secret Service looking on, Bartlet tries to engage his guest in chitchat. They’re serving salmon. President Siguto doesn’t like salmon. Yo-Yo Ma is going to play. Siguto is unmoved. Bartlet shares his concerns and frustrations with Leo.

BARTLET: I can’t decide whether that man is boring or rude, but he’s one or the other.
LEO: I’m sorry to hear that.
BARTLET: I mean, I’m in there trying to picture how this guy could possibly campaign for something and win. Then I remembered, we usually rig the election.

It might be that President Siguto’s ears are burning as Toby proposes his toast to Sam. Dispensing with the usual platitudes, he asserts, “I don’t think we should remind people how friendly we were with dictators who oppressed their people while stealing their money.” Toby tells Sam to toughen it up: it’s dinner, but still hardball.

As their media consultant, Mandy’s job is to predict the PR implications of the developing crises, and she foresees disaster at the siege. She tells Josh the reason the FBI knew the survivalists possessed illegal weapons is because they sold them to them. Furthermore, there are crossed wires in Idaho, so it’s not clear who’s running the show. Miscommunication can have devastating effects. Meanwhile, Leo works to start the flow of communication between the two sides of the trucking dispute, but to no avail. Silence reigns in the Roosevelt Room.

At another photo op with Siguto, Danny Concannon questions Bartlet about the presence of protesters across the street. Neither the President not C.J. are aware of any protesters, but they’ll check into it. Danny drops a hint, clearly enunciating as he says, “Vermeil.” C.J. reiterates that she’ll cover it at the next briefing. When Danny is safely out of earshot, C.J. asks Carol to go research vermeil; she needs to know what it is.

C.J. learns that vermeil is gilded silver, and the White House has a large collection of it. The small band of protesters objects to its presence in the virtual seat of democracy, viewing it as a relic of tyranny because Louis XV owned a lot. C.J. reprimands Danny for asking about the protest; had he kept his mouth shut, no one would have known that six people were protesting across the street. Danny shirks the blame by asking C.J. what she’s wearing to the dinner. His paper doesn’t really care, but he does.

Sam meets Laurie for lunch, and while he clearly wants to talk to her, she’s trying to study for a test. She looks up from the books long enough to ask Sam if he’s afraid to be seen with her. Sam says he isn’t. He asks if she’s working tonight. She is, but she doesn’t know where she’s going. The guy calls, tells her what to wear, and the rest is a surprise. The name of the game is discretion, and Sam says her night job stinks.

At an Oval Office meeting about the hostage situation, Mandy suggests using a negotiator when everyone else, the FBI included, wants to take the farmhouse by force. Mandy argues that if they raid, the next day’s front page will show a screaming woman running out of a burning house with a baby in his arms. Her point is well taken and the President decides to go with Mandy’s negotiation plan. She seems utterly surprised she won out.

Fending off any questions regarding what appears to be a huge military mobilization out of Norfolk, Leo explains to the President they’re clearing a battle carrier group away from the path of the hurricane. Charlie pulls Josh aside and asks him to find out if his grandparents are safe. They live in a little house off the coast of Georgia.

As the storm closes in around Washington, the staff anxiously wait for news. The lull is eerily quiet. The FBI negotiator in Idaho has been in the house two hours; the teamsters are still hashing out hiring procedures with management; Donna is out of luck with her translator. Indonesia is home to 583 languages: her guy speaks Javanese and Mr. Bambang speaks Batak. After much searching, she finds someone in the kitchen who can translate Batak into Portuguese for their translator to render into English.

The reception preceding the state dinner is swarming with elegant people. Abby Bartlet (Stockard Channing), the first lady, is the centre of attention. Both stunning and likable, she puts people at ease, even on this stuffy occasion. As she not so discreetly introduces C.J. to an unmarried cardiologist, C.J. asks the first lady about the vermeil collection. Abby’s not embarrassed by its tarnished history. It’s out history, she says.

At the dinner, Leo introduces Toby, Josh, and Sam to Carl Everett, a man who’s raised a sizable amount of money for the party in the Midwest. Without using so many words, Leo wants Everett to be schmoozed. Everett introduces his date, the very beautiful and very nervous Laurie. Sam plays it cool, but says there are to be no pictures of Everett’s date with the President.

Each of the day’s crises are coming to a head. Charlie’s grandparents are safe, but Hurricane Sara’s headed out to sea, straight toward the newly positioned fleet, which could be catastrophic. In Idaho, the FBI has recaptured the house, but in the chaos, the negotiator was shot and is in critical condition. As the carrier group and its crew of 12,000 sit waiting for the hurricane to crash upon them with the fury of Mother Nature, the FBI negotiator enters surgery. There is nothing for the President to do but wait at the dinner for news.

Toby’s meeting in the White House kitchen with Bambang resembles a three-ring circus and looks like it could last for hours. Three languages float off the tongues of the interpreters, and Toby asks Bambang for a favour, the release of a friend of his imprisoned for antigovernment activity in Indonesia. With his ears ringing, Bambang admits he speaks perfect English. But he believes the dinner toast was despicable and humiliating, and he knows who wrote it.

BAMBANG: Mr. Ziegler, does it strike you at all hypocritical that a people who systematically wiped out a century’s worth of Native Americans should lecture the world so earnestly on human rights?
TOBY: (pause) Yes, it does.

With that Bambang tells Toby to go to hell.

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion (cont.):

Danny Concannon has heard rumours of the siege in Idaho and asks C.J. about it. Without waiting for a response, he tells her she has on a nice dress.

C.J. When you flirt with me, are you doing to get a story?
DANNY: No.
C.J.: Why are you doing it?
DANNY: I’m doing it to flirt with you.

C.J. accuses Danny of saying she’s too friendly with the press. You are, he says. But he’s still flirting with her.

Carl Everett is willing to take advantage of the schmoozing; he knows Sam gets a lot of face time with the President and suggests they form a mutual bond. Eyeing Laurie, Sam says he costs $500 an hour. The meaning and intent is lost on Everett, but Sam clarifies – he costs $500 an hour in the private sector, and the White House is pretty rigid on people taking on private clients. Everett quickly makes an escape, and, without considering the consequences, Sam offers Laurie $10,000 not to go home with Everett. She looks at Sam with a mix of affection and sadness, but returns to Everett when he calls.

In the Roosevelt Room, the teamsters and management have failed to come to an agreement. As the deadline draws near, President Bartlet gives each side five minutes to present its case, standing as if appearing in court. Bartlet, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, listens for a while before declaring that none of them knows what they’re talking about. He threatens that at 12:01, he’ll use his executive power to nationalize the trucking industry. Management protests, but Bartlet argues that Truman did it in ’52 with the mines, and he’ll take his chances with the Supreme Court. And he’ll ask Congress to give him the power to draft truckers into the military. Leaving the room, Bartlet tells the open-mouthed teamsters and management that they have forty-seven minutes to do a deal.

Mrs. Bartlet finds her husband. She knows the evening’s turning out to be a rough one.

ABBEY: I’ve found that one of the things that happens when I stay away to long, is that you forget you don’t have the power to fix everything. (smiles) You have a big brain and a good heart and an ego as big as Montana. (laughs) You do, Jed. (beat) You don’t have the power to fix everything. . . . But I do like watching you try.

As Hurricane Sara transforms the ocean into a giant whirlpool, the President tries to reach the fleet commander on the USS Kennedy to hear how they are weathering the storm. The only answer the get is from Signalman Third Class Harold Lewis, a radioman aboard the Hickory, a maintenance ship. Lewis reports 80-foot seas and 120-knot winds. There’s a fire on board and no lights. The President says he’ll stay on the line as long as the radio works. “Just hang on.”