And It's Surely To Their Credit

[Admin]

From NBC:
President Bartlet's (Martin Sheen) controversial -- and conservative -- new choice for associate White House counsel (Emily Procter) has rough sledding on her first day when she suffers the wrath of her hostile boss Lionel Tribbey (John Larroquette), gets a chilly reception from her co-workers and is humiliated by two other staffers, Mark Brookline and Steve Joyce (Steven Flynn and Paul Perri). Also, when Josh's (Bradley Whitford) insurance company turns down his claim for his recent life-saving medical bills, Sam (Rob Lowe) tries to convince him to sue the people who shot him -- the Ku Klux Klan. In addition, C.J. (Allison Janney) tries to shame the outspoken General Ed Barrie (Tom Bower) who is critical of the President into meeting with her.

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion:

Josh is sitting at his desk, outraged. He’s just received another letter from his insurance company, asking him for $40,000 (I think it should be $50,000) to cover his hospital bills. Donna is welcoming thirty guests to the White House to watch the President record his weekly radio address. She tells Sam the President once took eleven takes for a speech that’s usually two or three minutes. Bartlet cracks up, comprehensively blowing the first take, and he’s still going at take five.

C.J. tells Toby she’s okay with Ainsley. When she first heard the news, she broke a door, but it’s over now. C.J. says it’s sexist for people to stereotype Ainsley just because she’s a good-looking Republican woman. Toby informs her that Ed Barrie, a retiring three-star general, is doing all the Sunday morning shows. Worried that Barrie’s going to beat up the President, C.J. tells Carol to get him to her office at once.

TOBY: By the way, you are a beautiful woman and no one around here ever assumes you were either ambitious or stupid.
C.J.: Toby?
TOBY: Yeah.
C.J.: Took two years.

Leo tells Ainsley Hayes the Lionel Tribbey (John Larroquete), the White House counsel, thinks hiring her was a great idea. Ainsley knows Leo hasn’t told him. Tribbey comes in going full throttle, brandishing a cricket bat he says he’ll kill people with. He’s after two guys – Joyce and Brookline – who testified to Congress they couldn’t produce the Rockland memo. Tribbey says he has the renegade memo in his hand. Leo introduces him to Ainsley. He asks if she’s the girl who’s been writing the columns. Leo says yes. “You’re an idiot,” says Tribbey, without missing a beat. Leo tells Tribbey Ainsley’s working for him. Tribbey laughs a little and excuses himself.

The President is nailing the radio address when the door flies open and Tribbey bursts in, loudly complaining about the “blond and leggy fascist” they just hired. Bartlet tells Tribbey he might not have noticed the people in the room, all of whom have given the party significant amounts of money. They can talk about Ainsley later. The President tells his guests Lionel Tribbey is obviously a very brilliant lawyer they cannot live without. Otherwise, “they’d be very little reason not to put him in prison.” And he starts the address over, take twelve.

Sam tells Toby about Josh’s insurance woes. The hospital was “out of network,” so only 20% of Josh’s bills are covered. After he was shot, Josh neglected to have his life-saving operation approved. Sam asserts that he’ll have to sue. Toby remarks that he likes a country where you can sue the insurance company but not the people who shot you. Something clicks in Sam’s head.

SAM: Josh, this is our way in. A civil action. You could subpoena everything. Membership rolls, donor rolls, minutes of meetings, weapons inventories, computer downloads, and you depose every man and woman who’s ever been to a meeting and every man and woman they name. (beat) Josh, the Southern Poverty Law Center wants you to sue the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for a hundred million dollars.

Abbey Bartlet wants to see her husband. He’s tied up so Charlie takes a message. Abbey says the President’s blood pressure is 120 over 80; all his signs are good. “So we can have sex now.” Not Abbey and Charlie, Abbey and the President. She tells Charlie to find him, and Abbey waits while Charlie gives him the message. Bartlet flies into the Oval Office and he wants to get down to it right there; it’s been fourteen weeks, he says. They can’t have sex in the Oval Office so they coordinate their schedules. They’ll find an hour sometime before six.

General Barrie sends an aide to see C.J. The aide admits Barrie has some concerns about the readiness if the armed forces, and Barrie feels it’s his patriotic obligation to voice them to the public before his retirement. C.J. says it’s called ring and run. She wants Barrie.

C.J.: Go back to the Pentagon. Right now. Tell General Barrie C.J. Cregg says he’s a coward.

Leo and Ainsley are trying to find her office in the bowels of the White House basement. Ainsley thanks Leo for being decent. He says the others will come around. He tells her she’s in the administration foxhole now and her colleagues are under siege. Leo says when he announced his alcoholism hi faced radio, TV, magazines, cameras in front of his house, editorials, op-eds. People said he’s a dangerous drunk, he should resign. Ainsley says she wrote one of those op-eds. Leo says he knows. They find Ainsley’s office. It’s a little room with various widths of pipe running everywhere and a desk and chair just stuck in. Trying to sound upbeat and professional, Leo explains that it’s the steam pipe trunk distribution venue. Welcome to the White House.

Tribbey lumbers into the depths of the White House basement and finds Ainsley’s “office.” He demands to know what she’s doing here. She sweetly professes that she’s serving her country, she feels a sense of duty. He asks if she’s stepped out of The Pirates of Penzance? “He is an Englishman. That’s HMS Pinafore,” she says knowingly, without a hint of annoyance. (Ainsley is correct, as confirmed by Sam. The song is from HMS Pinafore of The Lass that Loved a Sailor, words by Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911), music by Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan (1842-1900), which was first performed in 1878.) Tribbey brushes her off; if she wants to prove herself so badly, she can go to the Hill and talk to the associate majority counsel at governmental affairs. It’s time to deal with Joyce and Brookline, the guys in the Communications Office that Tribbey had earlier threatened to kill. As Tribbey’s about to leave, she declares that Bartlet’s way to moderate for him. She’s done her research: didn’t he leave his practice with its seven-figure income out of duty, too?

[Joey Lucas]

From The Official Companion (cont.):

Sam’s delightedly showing Josh the evidence he’s gathered to start deposing witnesses in his lawsuit: racist books and videotapes inciting violence. . . . Leo interrupts to update Sam on the situation with Joyce and Brookline. Sam is prepared to talk to governmental affairs, but Leo explains that Tribbey sent Ainsley Hayes already. Sam’s clearly disgruntled that he’s been trumped, and bitterly announces that they better hope she doesn’t leak the story. Toby admits he’s not wild about the developing lawsuit against the hate groups. They can file equally harmful depositions, asking Leo about drugs, Sam about prostitutes. But Leo assures Josh if he says the word, they’ll all take a leave of absence and join his legal team.

The President is trying take twenty-one of the radio address in front of a new audience. He glances at his watch and sees it’s 5:45 P.M. He races out of the Oval Office on a reason of “a special meeting of the government,” but Charlie stops him short. He tells the President his wife had to leave early for a trip to Pennsylvania, so there will be no residence rendezvous this evening.

General Barrie (Tom Bower) bursts into C.J.’s office shouting about his service record. When she called him a coward, she said the one thing guaranteed to get him down there. Barrie goes at C.J. hard and she gives it right back. She says jumping up and down on the commander in chief and leaving town is an act of cowardice. She has an answer for all his charges about readiness. Barrie says he’s going to tell Tim Russert. She says he isn’t. C.J. calmly tells Barrie she notices he wears a Distinguished Combat Service Medal he won when he served on the USS Brooke. But she found out the Brooke never saw action. He wears a medal he never won. The blood is gone from Barrie’s face. “Debate is one thing,” says C.J., “but I don’t allow drive-bys.”

Fresh back from the Hill, Ainsley goes to see Brookline and Joyce. They’re immediately rude and hostile. Ainsley says Tribbey asked her to take care of the false testimony they gave about the Rockland memo. They could face a grand jury. And some of the Republican committee members take their attitude as a sign of disrespect. She says just apologize, it’s easy. A short note, it’s done. Joyce tells her they’re busy.

That night, Bartlet races to the residence. He says Abbey has two minutes to get ready for him or he’s going to get Mrs. Landingham drunk. As Abbey’s changing, Bartlet asks her why she was in Pennsylvania. She says she was dedicating a statue to Nellie Bly. Bartlet says she didn’t have to do that, she can pass that kind of thing along. Abbey stops undressing. He’s blown it. Abbey tells her husband Nellie Bly pioneered investigative journalism. Then she tells him about other women overlooked for memorials: Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman M.D., Amelia Bloomer . . .

Sam is reading off lists of precedential cases for Josh. He sees Ainsley and says he should have been the one to confront Brookline and Joyce because they work for him. Ainsley asks if there’s any chance Sam could be rude to her tomorrow. One more disappointment today from this place she used to worship and she’s going to lose it. Sam watches her walk away and tries to resume his conversation with Josh, but thinks better of it and follows her down to her office. He finds her staring at a vase of dead flowers on her desk, complete with an envelope addressed with the word “BITCH.”

Without pausing to think, Sam flies into the office Brookline and Joyce share with a bunch of staffers. He grabs a blotter, scattering stuff of Brookline’s desk. In a heat of impassioned anger, he tells them when he writes something, he signs his name. Do they understand how bag a harassment suit they exposed the White House to? Do they realize that whether or not they like it, she works here? He grabs a black magic marker and scrawls on the back of the big blotter.

SAM: Which is more than I can say for either one of you.
SAM shows them the blotter: “You’re fired. S. Seaborn.”
BROOKLINE: Sam, I don’t know who you think you are around here, but you can’t fire us.
LIONEL: (O.S.) Ohhhhhh . . . yes he can.
They turn to see LIONEL standing in the doorway.
LIONEL (pause) Leave here and don’t ever come back. It’s time for you to both write your book now.

On Saturday morning, Bartlet is recording his radio address in front of Abbey, who’s watching him very closely. Bartlet, clearly inspired, catalogs more women deserving of public monuments, only fifty of which have been built with public money. He does the address in one take. Before he can follow Abbey up to the residence, he tells C.J. to let Barrie out of the box. “The man’s earned the right to say whatever he wants,” he says.

Josh tells Sam the lawsuit would tie up the staff indefinitely, that he’s using his position for a personal agenda. He thinks a lawsuit’s too small, like he slipped in someone’s driveway. He doesn’t want to sue the West Virginia White Pride. But he’ll sue the insurance company – no problem.

Ainsley’s coming to her office but the lights are all out. She feels around for a light switch and the sound of a fanfare blares forth. The walls of her office are decorated with posters from The Mikado; The Pirates of Penzance; HMS Pinafore. Sam, Josh, Toby, C.J., Charlie, and Donna are all there. (I don’t think Charlie and Donna are there). They welcome her with a toast, singing along: “For he himself has said it/And it’s greatly to his credit/That he is an Englishman/That he is an Englishman.”