Manufactured Narrative and the Cost of Secrecy
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Fitzwallace details the misinformation campaign for the Shareef assassination, explaining Langley will manufacture documents and spread the false narrative through foreign outlets.
Bartlet meets with Jordan Kendall, who expresses profound discomfort and warns of unprecedented legal exposure, including potential war crimes charges, for the Presidency.
Bartlet defends his decision to assassinate Shareef, framing it as a necessary act of justice for American lives and a response to Shareef's terrorist actions.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Uncomfortable and alarmed, professionally outraged at legal and constitutional implications while remaining composed.
Jordan Kendall delivers a private legal reckoning: warns Bartlet of separation-of-powers injury, potential war-crimes liability, and the unprecedented legal exposure the covert assassination creates.
- • Clarify legal exposure and discourage unilateral covert actions without proper legal cover.
- • Force the President and staff to confront the legal and moral consequences of their operational choices.
- • Law and constitutional process matter and are designed to constrain executive overreach.
- • Secretly admitted crimes cannot be reconciled easily with justice or international law.
N/A (offstage/mentioned) — portrayed as culpable and dangerous in dialogue.
Abdul Lebin Shareef is referenced by Bartlet as the target of the covert killing—cited to morally justify the operation — though Shareef does not appear onstage.
- • (Narratively) His past actions are used to justify punitive covert measures.
- • Serve as the moral and strategic rationale for executive use of lethal force.
- • He is responsible for prior mass-casualty plots and murder of Americans (as asserted).
- • His elimination served U.S. security interests.
Framed as aggressive and potentially violent; motive and interiority remain opaque.
The Johnson County suspects are described in third person as the occupants who purchased pseudoephedrine and claimed weapons; they function as the immediate threat and the investigative link to the Patriot Brotherhood and KSU bombing.
- • (Inferred) Produce meth and maintain armed resistance against law enforcement.
- • (Narratively) Serve as the domestic spark that brings White House attention to the wider terror network.
- • They are committed to violent or illicit action (as implied by weapons and meth lab).
- • They may align ideologically with the Patriot Brotherhood's aims.
Anticipatory (not present) — positioned as ready to advise on operations.
The Director is requested to be brought into the Oval Office for consultation; they are not onstage but are invoked as a needed participant for operational decisions.
- • Provide operational guidance and execution capacity for any ordered action.
- • Ensure chain-of-command compliance with presidential directives.
- • Operational authority must be synchronized with presidential orders.
- • Covert actions require coordination with agency leadership.
Cool, almost flippant — treats disinformation as a routine instrument of statecraft.
Chairman Fitzwallace calmly pitches an aggressive operational solution: Langley will manufacture documents, photos, audio, even a body double to shape regional narratives and blunt diplomatic blowback from the covert killing.
- • Provide a plausible international cover story to prevent escalation.
- • Protect U.S. personnel and the President from diplomatic and legal repercussions.
- • Secrecy and engineered narratives are acceptable tools to preserve strategic advantage.
- • Intelligence assets can and should be used to manage international perception post-operation.
Anticipatory/absent — invoked as a needed legal check on presidential action.
The Attorney General is summoned by Bartlet as necessary legal counsel for the unfolding raid/cover operation; referenced but not present in the scene.
- • Assess and advise on legal ramifications of domestic raids and covert foreign actions.
- • Protect the administration from criminal or constitutional exposure.
- • Legal advice is essential before taking actions that can implicate separation-of-powers or international law.
- • The Justice Department must be looped in when executive actions risk legal breach.
Businesslike urgency — focused on facts and immediate threat without rhetorical flourish.
Special Agent Casper delivers the field briefing: suspects purchasing pseudoephedrine and mixing with starter fluid; deputies shot at; weapons claimed inside; he supplies factual, graphic detail that catalyzes the President's assertive control order.
- • Convey the immediacy and danger of the Johnson County standoff to senior leadership.
- • Ensure federal oversight and direction before any raid proceeds.
- • Field evidence must drive the White House response.
- • The presence of automatic weapons and meth lab chemicals escalate the threat level to require federal involvement.
Resolute and weary; a pragmatic exterior masking the strain of defending morally compromised choices.
President Bartlet receives urgent intelligence, asserts sole authority over tactical entry orders, hears a Langley misinformation proposal, and defensively frames a covert assassination as morally necessary to prevent further mass-casualty attacks.
- • Maintain presidential control over use of force and operational timing ("only on my order").
- • Protect the nation and justify covert actions as necessary to prevent future attacks.
- • Immediate lethal action can be justified when it prevents greater loss of life.
- • Traditional legal niceties (amicus briefs, declared wars) are inadequate to contemporary threats.
Concerned and focused; anxious about legal and operational fallout but steady in damage control.
Leo relays linkage between local raid intelligence and Patriot Brotherhood suspects, coordinates bringing in legal and operational authorities, and facilitates movement of the President between locations to manage counsel and decisions.
- • Ensure legal counsel and the Director are present before any action is taken.
- • Protect the Presidency from procedural missteps and contain political/legal exposure.
- • Proper process and counsel can mitigate legal and political risk.
- • Centralized, coordinated White House response is necessary in multi-front crises.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The Mac-10 is listed by Casper as one of the automatic weapons the suspects claim to possess, heightening the perceived lethality of the standoff and justifying federal attention and presidential caution over raid timing.
Referenced as part of a weapons list (MP-5) during Casper's briefing to establish the military-grade armament present at the scene, increasing justification for federal-level coordination.
The Car 15 is cited as another weapon the suspects claim to hold, contributing to the urgency of the briefing and the President's decision to centralize command of any entry.
Fabricated audio messages are suggested as a way to simulate Patriot Brotherhood statements or other incriminating evidence, intended to seed regional outlets and shape a plausible narrative about responsibility for actions.
Printed as field evidence in Casper's briefing, pseudoephedrine is invoked as the purchased precursor chemical tying suspects to meth production and therefore to criminal networks possibly linked to the Patriot Brotherhood and the KSU bombing.
Referred to colloquially as 'allergy medicine,' this item functions as a narrative shorthand in Casper's briefing to show how commercially available drugs were being diverted as meth precursors, sharpening the domestic-threat picture.
Tractor starter fluid is named explicitly as the volatile solvent combined with pseudoephedrine, used narratively to underscore lethal danger and the suspects' capacity for violent self-harm and danger to others inside the standoff house.
Langley's falsified documents are proposed by Fitzwallace as part of a manufactured cover story to divert blame for a covert assassination; they function narratively as the concrete instrument of institutional deception under consideration.
Fabricated photographs are pitched as part of the disinformation toolkit to be planted in regional media and palaces to retroactively justify or obscure the covert killing; they serve to illustrate the lengths to which the administration might go to control narrative.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The East Colonnade is the nighttime setting where the initial Johnson County briefing occurs; its cool pillared walkway frames a hurried, off-the-record triage and transfers the group from field briefing into formal decision space.
The Johnson County, Iowa house is the off-screen battleground and catalyst for the entire briefing—reported as a meth lab and a barricaded, armed standoff that links local crime to national terrorism concerns.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The Presidency as an institution is the focal organizational actor under threat of legal and moral exposure; the scene stages how executive authority is used, justified, and potentially compromised by covert operations and cover-ups.
The Johnson County Sheriff's Office is the initiating local agency whose deputies were shot at during the raid; their field action triggers federal involvement and the White House briefing.
Kennison State University (KSU) is the referent trauma—the pipe-bombing that killed 44 students—used by Bartlet to morally justify urgent, even extralegal, responses and the elimination of Shareef.
The Patriot Brotherhood is the ideological/organizational antagonist invoked to connect the Johnson County suspects to domestic terrorism and the KSU bombing; it functions as the named enemy that legitimizes aggressive policy measures.
Langley (the CIA) is invoked by Fitzwallace as the operative arm that can fabricate documents, photos, audio, and body doubles to shield a covert assassination; it stands as the proposed instrument of state deception in international theaters.
Al Jazeera is invoked as a likely foreign broadcast channel that would carry the manufactured story planted by Langley agents in regional palaces; it stands as the vehicle for international dissemination that could inflame regional opinion.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Special Agent Casper's update on the KSU bombing investigation escalates to the standoff in Johnson County, Iowa, linked to the Patriot Brotherhood."
"Special Agent Casper's update on the KSU bombing investigation escalates to the standoff in Johnson County, Iowa, linked to the Patriot Brotherhood."
"Special Agent Casper's update on the KSU bombing investigation escalates to the standoff in Johnson County, Iowa, linked to the Patriot Brotherhood."
"Leo's discussion of potential international fallout from Shareef's death escalates to Bartlet's meeting with Jordan Kendall, who warns of legal exposure for the Presidency."
"Leo's discussion of potential international fallout from Shareef's death escalates to Bartlet's meeting with Jordan Kendall, who warns of legal exposure for the Presidency."
"Leo's discussion of potential international fallout from Shareef's death escalates to Bartlet's meeting with Jordan Kendall, who warns of legal exposure for the Presidency."
"Bartlet's concern about the scale of the KSU tragedy and potential for similar attacks echoes his later defense of the Shareef assassination as a necessary act of justice."
"Bartlet's concern about the scale of the KSU tragedy and potential for similar attacks echoes his later defense of the Shareef assassination as a necessary act of justice."
"Bartlet's concern about the scale of the KSU tragedy and potential for similar attacks echoes his later defense of the Shareef assassination as a necessary act of justice."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"FITZWALLACE: "Basically, Langley manufactures documents, photographs, audio messages, even a body double, if necessary.""
"JORDAN: "You understand domestically you're looking at possible injury to separation of powers; internationally, a possible war crimes charge? At the very least, we'd be wading up to our necks into unprecedented legal waters, exposing the Presidency to culpability undreamed of by the creators of the UN and the U.S. Constitution.""
"BARTLET: "44 people are dead in Iowa, and most them college kids. Shareef has murdered Americans in uniform. He's murdered Americans out of uniform. He was trying to blow up the Golden Gate Bridge, and I didn't have time to file an amicus brief.""