Rare News Desk
Though it has been off the air for close to 7 years, lessons from NBC’s “The West Wing”, still hold up in today’s time. The one-hour dramedy, based around experiences of a fictional White House staffers, delivered some of the more poignant and topical moments 21st century television has ever seen.
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Here are some fun quotes to remember it by.
President Jed Bartlet on Modern Television
“I was watching a television program before, with a kind of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends – apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends’ mothers. And they brought the boyfriends out, and they fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don’t vote, do they?”
Josh Lyman on Bipartisanship
“Stopping all bi-partisan legislation is like saying, ‘lets blow up the place, maybe voters will hire us to rebuild it.'”
C.J Cregg on Learning From Your Mistakes
“We have at our disposal a captive audience of schoolchildren. Some don’t raise their hand or go to the blackboard ’cause they think they’re going to be wrong. I think you should say to those kids, ‘You should come down here and see how the big boys do it.'”
Sam Seaborn on Perseverance
“Cause it’s next. ‘Cause we came out of a cave, and we looked over the hill and we saw fire; and we crossed the ocean and we pioneered west, and we took to the sky The history of man is hung on a timeline of exploration, and this is what’s next.”
Leo McGarry on Civic Duty
“Yes. It is in the spirit of Andrew Jackson that I, from time to time, ask senior staff to have face-to-face meetings with those people representing organizations who have a difficult time getting our attention. I know the more jaded among you, see this as something rather beneath you. But I assure you that listening to the voices of passionate Americans is beneath no one, and surely not the peoples’ servants.”
Toby Ziegler on China
“I think it would be a good idea as a symbol to signal that China is serious about their relationship with us if they stop running over their citizens with tanks.”
Josh Lyman on Fandom
“I’m a fan. I’m a sports fan, I’m a music fan and I’m a Star Trek fan. All of them. But here’s what I don’t do. Tell me if any of this sounds familiar: ‘Let’s list our ten favorite episodes. Let’s list our least favorite episodes. Let’s list our favorite galaxies. Let’s make a chart to see how often our favorite galaxies appear in our favorite episodes. What Romulan would you most like to see coupled with a Cardassian and why? Let’s spend a weekend talking about Romulans falling in love with Cardassians and then let’s do it again.’ That’s not being a fan. That’s having a fetish. And I don’t have a problem with that, except you can’t bring your hobbies in to work, okay?”
President Jed Bartlet on Political Authority
“Every once in a while… every once in a while, there’s a day with an absolute right and an absolute wrong, but those days almost always include body counts. Other than that, there aren’t very many unnuanced moments in leading a country that’s way too big for ten words. I’m the President of the United States, not the President of the people who agree with me. And by the way, if the left has a problem with that, they should vote for somebody else.”
