Making the Case for Big Government
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Toby and Josh confront Bartlet about the speech line 'the era of big government is over,' arguing for a bold affirmation of government's role in achieving collective good.
Bartlet approves Toby's rewritten speech vision, uniting staff around a progressive governmental philosophy despite political risks.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Professional, neutral — performing the role of orderly aide.
Opens the door, announces Toby's arrival to the President — a brief logistical cue that permits the rhetorical confrontation to begin.
- • Ensure the President's schedule and visitors are managed smoothly
- • Create a clear, unobstructed flow for staff to deliver counsel
- • Orderly access to the President matters in crisis moments
- • Small, timely interventions support decision making
Calm, authoritative, quietly engaged — receptive to moral argument rather than defensive or performative.
Sits on the couch listening, adjudicates the argument, endorses Toby's moral reframing aloud, and issues the directive that Toby, Josh (and Sam) operationalize the revised message for the State of the Union.
- • Ensure the State of the Union communicates what he truly believes about government responsibility
- • Resolve staff dispute quickly to preserve presidential control of messaging
- • Rhetoric should reflect substantive values, not just tactical advantage
- • The presidency must supply moral leadership in public speech
Urgent, principled, slightly exasperated but composed — driven by conviction rather than ego.
Enters, makes an impassioned speech challenging the tested line about 'big government,' argues for a positive framing that emphasizes collective responsibility and the phrase 'no one gets left behind.' He anchors the moral argument and presses for revision rather than political expedience.
- • Prevent the administration from abandoning a vision of government responsibility
- • Change the tested line to a constructive theme that can be defended publicly
- • Language shapes ethical commitments and public expectations
- • Political advantage doesn't justify abandoning fundamental principles
Measured and businesslike — mildly wary of impropriety but committed to executing chosen policy.
Interjects with a constitutional aside earlier about maharajas, listens during Toby's plea, and then removes himself to return to operational work; acts as the steady managerial presence in the room.
- • Keep domestic and foreign advice within constitutional and political bounds
- • Ensure the President's decisions are operationalized without spectacle
- • Constitutional limits matter even in pragmatic diplomacy
- • Crisis requires clear directives and prompt action
Confident, slightly amused — trading in realpolitik and anecdote rather than moralism.
Delivers a blunt, worldly policy prescription — 'buy them off' — describing a pragmatic carrot‑and‑stick plan for India; explains infrastructure inducement and supports hard pressure if needed, then takes his leave.
- • Persuade the President to adopt a pragmatic inducement strategy for India
- • Cut through ideological hesitation with plainspoken realism
- • Geopolitics is transactional and often solved by incentives
- • Old diplomatic practices (carrot and stick) remain effective
Pragmatically relieved and supportive — ready to move from debate to execution.
Pokes his head in, listens, defers to Toby when Toby is right, offers procedural assent and accepts the President's charge to organize teams to implement the revised rhetoric.
- • Convert the President's moral endorsement into a practical communications strategy
- • Protect the administration from rhetorical missteps while scoring political points
- • Winning politics and moral clarity can be aligned if messaging is managed correctly
- • The President's explicit endorsement is the decisive lever for staff action
Referenced by the President as the military contact who must deliver reconnaissance photos in 24 hours; he is assigned an …
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
The upholstered couch functions as the meeting seat where Bartlet and Leo sit during Marbury's briefing. It frames the private nature of the conversation and creates a domestic, intimate staging for policy talk and the later rhetorical intervention.
C.J.'s office doorway object stands in for the bedroom's threshold action: Charlie opens the door to announce Toby's arrival. The doorway facilitates the transition from private diplomatic discussion to the staff-level rhetorical confrontation.
Whiskey is invoked by Marbury as part of an offhand, humorous prescription for flu remedies — it functions as social ballast and character color, briefly humanizing the participants before the policy exchange sharpens.
A citrus peel functions as a minor tactile prop in Marbury's opening remarks, reinforcing the conversational, slightly comic atmosphere that precedes the shift to weighty diplomatic bargaining.
Ginger root appears as part of Marbury's anecdote about remedies — a small, worldly detail that undercuts the formality of the policy briefing and signals Marbury's casual bantering style.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The President's bedroom serves as a liminal domestic-political theater where private intimacy and the mechanics of state collide; a cozy setting for Marbury's anecdote becomes the arena for a decisive rhetorical intervention that shapes national messaging.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"The initial clash over speech rhetoric between Josh and Toby sets the stage for their later, more substantive debate about the role of government."
"The initial clash over speech rhetoric between Josh and Toby sets the stage for their later, more substantive debate about the role of government."
"The initial clash over speech rhetoric between Josh and Toby sets the stage for their later, more substantive debate about the role of government."
Key Dialogue
"TOBY: The era of big government is over. You want to cut the line? I want to change the sentiment. We're running away from ourselves, and I know we can score points that way. I was the principle architect in that campaign strategy, right along with you, Josh. But we're here now. Tomorrow night, we do an immense thing. We have to say what we feel. That government, no matter what its failures are in the past, and in times to come, for that matter, the government can be a place where people come together and where no one gets left behind. No one... gets left behind, an instrument of... good. I have no trouble understanding why the line tested well, Josh, but I don't think that means we should say it. I think that means we should... change it."
"BARTLET: I think so, too. What do you think, Josh?"
"JOSH: I'd make it a point never to disagree with Toby when he's right, Mr. President."