The Lame Duck Congress
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| "The Lame Duck Congress" |
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"The Lame Duck Congress" is the 28th episode of The West Wing.
Plot
As the last days of the lame-duck Congress roll forward, Sam Seaborn, Deputy Communications Director, discovers that an active opponent of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is going to be on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the staff considers calling for a special session to try and pass the treaty because it has no chance under the new Congress. Communications Director Toby Ziegler leads the effort but is caught short when a defeated Democratic Senator makes it clear why he cannot support the treaty, even though he was the primary architect of it. Chief of Staff Leo McGarry and Press Secretary C.J. Cregg have to do some fancy diplomatic footwork when a very pro-Western but equally pro-alcohol Ukrainian politician shows up at the White House demanding to meet with the President. Sam responds to Leo's new guideline for shorter policy summaries by working with Ainsley Hayes on a plan to prevent small-business fraud, but she impresses Sam so much he adopts all of her ideas and sends the plan forward to Leo and the President.
Production and creation
The story line about the Ukrainian politician was suggested by Marlin Fitzwater, who had been hired as a consultant for the show, and was based on the events during the period Fitzwater was working for President George H. W. Bush.[1] Boris Yeltsin had requested a meeting with President Bush while Mikhail Gorbachev was still the leader of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin and Bush met in the national security advisor's office so that the White House could say that he had never been in the Oval Office.[1]
Analysis
Kimberly A. Williams believes that the "The Lame Duck Congress" is series creator Aaron Sorkin's critique of the 2000 presidential candidates' approach to dealing with changes occurring in Eastern Europe at the time. She writes that the position was "although Eastern Europe reformers are 'crazy', they are 'our kind of crazy'; therefore the United States should stay the course in Eastern Europe."[2]
References
- ^ a b Inside The West Wing: An Unauthorized Look at Television's Smartest Show By Paul Challen
- ^ Williams, Kimberly. "Imagining Russia: Making Feminist Sense of American Nationalism in U.S ..." SUNY. Retrieved July 18, 2012.
External links
Template:Navbox The West Wing episodes
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