Demanding a Doctrine
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Bartlet critiques the State Department's conservative foreign policy language in his inaugural speech draft, expressing his desire for more substantive rhetoric.
Will seeks clarity from Bartlet on his foreign policy vision and alludes to the deep collaboration needed between a President and his speechwriter.
Will requests Charlie's help in accessing extensive archival materials of Bartlet's past speeches to inform the inaugural address, showing his dedication to capturing the President's voice.
Toby instructs Will to meet with the State Department Communications Director, acknowledging the potential awkwardness of the inexperienced Will representing the White House.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Playful and alert — using levity to calm the room while monitoring how language and ritual will play to the press.
Participates in banter, raises the possibility that the Chief Justice's meter is a code, and stands by as staff rehearse oath details while managing the intersection of optics and protocol.
- • Ensure the President's ceremony and message will read well to reporters.
- • Probe whether unusual details (the dissent in meter) mean anything operational.
- • Support the President tactically as communications choices are made.
- • Press and ceremonial optics shape public reception of policy.
- • Strange facts (poetic dissent) can become distracting if not managed.
Apologetic but efficient — anxious to solve practical problems without slowing the President.
Interrupts to report that Hollowman requires lead time to fetch the George Washington Bible, offers to help Will obtain Governor Bartlet's records, and exits after the President chooses the family Bible.
- • Secure the requested ceremonial Bible or acceptable substitute.
- • Support staff research requests quickly (New Hampshire archives, Library of Congress).
- • Keep the inauguration logistics from derailing policy work.
- • Custodians (Hollowman/Freemasons) control historical artifacts and require notice.
- • Staffers should handle archival and logistical tasks quietly and competently.
Not shown; functional presence via protocol.
Referenced by Charlie as the Freemasons' contact who controls access to the George Washington Bible; not on stage but his rules shape the President's ritual choice.
- • Protect custody and condition of the George Washington Bible.
- • Enforce source protocols for artifact retrieval.
- • Historical artifacts require controlled handling and lead time.
- • Organizations safeguarding relics set strict access rules.
Frustrated with institutional euphemism but resolute — masking anxiety about real-world consequences with rhetorical precision and wryness.
Leads the room: demands foreign policy copy on the prompter, repudiates safe State Department phrasing, absorbs the Khundu security update, and chooses a personal family Bible for the oath — steering both rhetoric and ritual under pressure.
- • Force the inaugural rhetoric to mean something substantive rather than safe diplomatese.
- • Maintain ceremonial authenticity (choose a Bible with personal resonance).
- • Understand and respond to the Khundu crisis.
- • Prevent White House language from being co‑opted by cautious bureaucracy.
- • Words in a presidential address should carry moral weight and real consequence.
- • Institutional language (State boilerplate) often softens moral responsibility.
- • Symbolic acts (the Bible) matter to the public and the President's integrity.
Concerned but controlled — juggling crisis facts with organizational reassurance.
Delivers the Khundu security update tersely (death tolls, endangered missionaries), calms Bartlet by promising the language will be fixed, then withdraws to manage operations from his office.
- • Ensure the President is informed of the Khundu situation.
- • Contain panic and provide staff with a clear operational path.
- • Coordinate follow-up action (evacuation/intel) offstage.
- • Accurate intelligence briefings are necessary before policy decisions.
- • Staff will operationalize presidential directives if properly marshaled.
Neutral and task‑oriented — focused on executing cues accurately.
Receives a clear instruction to load item 144 on the prompter and prepares to display the foreign‑policy copy for the President and staff to review.
- • Load the requested copy promptly and accurately.
- • Support the President's review process through reliable operation.
- • Teleprompter must reflect the exact text requested by senior staff.
- • Operational smoothness aids rhetorical clarity.
Not shown; implied protective of diplomatic language.
Mentioned by Toby as the State Department Communications Director who will meet Will; functions offstage as the institutional counterweight that prefers cautious, diplomatic phrasing.
- • Ensure State's preferred wording and diplomatic considerations are reflected.
- • Guard against rhetorical developments that could complicate foreign engagements.
- • Conservative, tested phrasing reduces diplomatic risk.
- • State should have input on presidential foreign‑policy language.
Pragmatic and slightly amused; protective of rhetorical precision and aware of leaks and turf issues.
Runs the prompter cue, discovers and reads aloud the Chief Justice's trochaic dissent, flags State Department wording as overly cautious, and instructs that Will meet with State's Communications Director — initiating a delicate interagency handoff.
- • Ensure the president's text is rhetorically precise and defensible.
- • Manage interagency input on foreign‑policy phrasing.
- • Limit the risk of leaks and bureaucratic dilution of the White House voice.
- • State Department expects and should have voice on phrasing, but White House must own the President's message.
- • Precise language matters both rhetorically and operationally.
Not directly observable; inferred as whimsical or old‑fashioned from the dissent's tone.
Not physically present but actively shaping mood: his eccentric dissent (written in meter) is the comic/curious hook that briefly distracts and humanizes the staff amid policy tension.
- • (Implied) Influence jurisprudential debate through memorable prose.
- • (Implied) Leave a distinctive intellectual imprint on legal opinions.
- • Legal writing can be rhetorical and personal.
- • The Court's voice may carry idiosyncratic expression.
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The George Washington Bible functions narratively as the unavailable ceremonial ideal: Charlie reports Hollowman's need for notice and the Freemasons' custody, which forces the President to select a personal family Bible instead — a small but telling defeat of pageantry in favor of personal authenticity.
Bartlet's Khundu security cable is the factual trigger: its contents (short cable about unrest, massacres, and trapped missionaries) shift the room from rhetorical debate to ethical imperative, grounding the abstract discussion of 'vital interests' in human lives.
Toby reads and laughs over his faxed copy of the Chief Justice's dissent and hands it to Bartlet; the paper breaks the tension, supplies comic relief, and temporarily redirects staff energy before the Khundu briefing resumes serious focus.
The Oval Office teleprompter is ordered to load item 144 — the foreign‑policy passage — and serves as the focal display for the President and staff to review and argue over phrasing, enabling immediate textual adjustments and rehearsal.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The West Wing hallway functions as connective tissue: Bartlet and Leo step out to exchange private remarks about the Chief Justice and the Khundu cable, emphasizing how quickly public ritual and private policy collide in the day’s flow.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The State Department functions as the institutional interlocutor whose cautious, tested phrasing is invoked as the opposing posture to the President's moral clarity; Toby warns that State will want input, and Will is ordered to coordinate — highlighting turf, timing, and diplomatic risk.
The New York Freemasons appear as custodians of the George Washington Bible; their control of the artifact and procedural demands (lead time via Hollowman) shape the President's ceremonial choices and force an emotional pivot to a personal family Bible.
The Library of Congress is invoked as the resource to supply Bartlet's historical floor speeches and statements to Will; its archival authority enables the speechwriter to craft an authentic presidential voice grounded in past utterances.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Leo's briefing on the escalating violence in Khundu prompts Bartlet to order a forced depletion report."
"Charlie's initial logistical issues with the Bible lead to Bartlet's later decision to change his mind about which Bible to use."
"Charlie's initial logistical issues with the Bible lead to Bartlet's later decision to change his mind about which Bible to use."
"Bartlet's dissatisfaction with State Department's conservative language parallels Will's proposal of a bold new doctrine based on American values."
"Bartlet's dissatisfaction with State Department's conservative language parallels Will's proposal of a bold new doctrine based on American values."
Themes This Exemplifies
Thematic resonance and meaning
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: "America cannot be the world's policeman. America cannot enforce its own values, its own standards across the world. Yet when it's in our clear an vital interests... We're being candid at least.""
"TOBY: "Will, you're going to meet with my counterpart, the State Department Communications Director. He likes to have input into foreign policy language." WILL: "Isn't he going to be insulted that he's meeting with someone he's never heard of, who isn't a White House staffer?""
"WILL: "There's a... partnership, sir, that can develop between someone and his speechwriter. It happens over time. You get to know just where he likes his commas and why he says self-government instead of governement... Like jazz musicians..." BARTLET: "I can't remember your name, but are you asking me out on a date?" WILL: "No, sir. It happens over time.""