Missing Bible, Quick Fix
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
The motorcade arrives at an underground parking lot, and Charlie informs Bartlet about the missing Bible due to frozen train tracks.
Bartlet humorously critiques the lack of foresight in not providing a Bible, while Charlie quickly devises a solution by checking the House Library.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Concerned and focused; outwardly composed but urgent — determined to produce a practical fix immediately.
Meets the President in the underground lot, delivers the bad news that the ceremonial Bible is missing, explains cause (Metroliner stuck; frozen tracks; committee refused hotel rooms), quickly mobilizes and runs off to check the House Library for a replacement.
- • Find a replacement Bible so the oath can proceed without ceremonial embarrassment
- • Contain the problem and prevent escalation or public notice
- • Inform the President accurately while taking action
- • Problems are solved by immediate, practical action
- • It's his job to shield the President from avoidable friction
- • Ceremony can be preserved if staff move quickly and efficiently
Not present; represented as a pragmatic, perhaps bureaucratic actor whose choices have practical consequences.
Mentioned by Abbey (in earlier lines) as the person who made the parade-related decision; by implication tied to the Inaugural Committee's cost decisions that contributed to the Bible's delay.
- • Manage inaugural logistics (safety, scheduling)
- • Control costs and ceremony arrangements
- • Practical concerns (weather, region) should shape ceremony decisions
- • Logistics are the responsibility of the inauguration team, not the President
Bemused and lightly annoyed; using humor to defuse irritation and to assert the importance of ceremony and common courtesy.
Steps out of the limousine into the underground lot, reacts with bemused indignation to the missing Bible, delivers a wry historical quip invoking Washington and the borrowed Bible, and frames the lapse as an embarrassment to ceremonial propriety.
- • Preserve the dignity of the swearing-in ritual
- • Minimize the embarrassment of the White House over a logistical failure
- • Shift the moment into a manageable, human anecdote rather than a public fiasco
- • Ceremonial objects and rituals matter for legitimacy
- • Small logistical failures should be solved practically, not amplified
- • Historical precedent (Washington) can be used to normalize present mistakes
Neutral and businesslike — pragmatic acceptance that small logistical problems happen and will be handled.
Trailing the President during the walk-and-talk; provides quick, matter-of-fact confirmation that the House Library should have a Bible when Charlie asks, then watches Charlie sprint off to fetch it.
- • Assist in solving the immediate logistical problem
- • Support the President and Charlie by supplying information
- • Keep the process moving smoothly
- • Institutional resources (like the House Library) can provide quick fixes
- • Small operational failures are not existential crises
- • Staff should respond with calm competence
Referenced symbolically; no internal emotional state in-scene.
Invoked by Bartlet and Abbey earlier as a comic reference to bungling competence; functions here as shorthand for light, deflating humor that frames procedural mistakes as human folly.
- • Provide a cultural shorthand to defuse tension
- • Offer a tone of affectionate mockery toward logistical errors
- • Comedic reference can reduce tension
- • Minor incompetence is human and often amusing
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The House-Library Bible is identified as the likely immediate replacement for the missing ceremonial Bible. Charlie runs to the House Library to fetch it; the object functions narratively as the practical solution to a ceremonial problem and as a comic contrast to the lost, stamped ceremonial copy.
The Metroliner is the transport that failed to deliver the ceremonial Bible; its frozen tracks in Philadelphia create the logistical chain-reaction — missed rooms, unused tickets, stranded property — that generates the scene's crisis.
The four train tickets are invoked as part of the petty logistical calculus — a concrete detail that signals cost-cutting and the human consequences (handlers stranded) of the Inaugural Committee's decisions.
The unpaid hotel rooms are the proximate administrative cause for the Bible's absence: the Inaugural Committee's refusal to pay left handlers without lodging and contributed to the chain that stranded the Bible on the train.
The motorcade (the presidential convoy) is the means of transport that delivers Bartlet and staff to the Capitol and into the underground lot; it sets the stage physically for the discovery and the walk-and-talk that follows.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The presidential limousine is the immediate prior setting: where Barton and Abbey banter and where Charlie first reports the Bible's absence; it sets the intimate, conversational tone before the group exits into the lot.
The House Library functions as the plausible source of a replacement Bible; it is the institutional repository staff immediately turn to when an official ceremonial object is missing.
Pennsylvania Avenue is the public ceremonial route the motorcade traverses before arriving at the Capitol; it frames the public-facing pageantry that contrasts with the backstage lot where logistics are sorted.
The underground parking lot is the transitional, enclosed space where the motorcade stops and the staff gathers; it serves as the immediate action site for the problem reveal and the swift operational response.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The Inaugural Committee is implicated as the administrative body whose cost-cutting decisions (refusing to pay for four hotel rooms) set off the chain that stranded the Bible on a frozen Metroliner. Their choices surface as a small but politically resonant failure of logistics.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
No narrative connections mapped yet
This event is currently isolated in the narrative graph
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: It's here?"
"CHARLIE: No, sir."
"CHARLIE: Excuse me, what are the chances there's a Bible in the House Library?"