Loud Polka-Dot Tie (Bartlet's Hypothetical)

Imagined for rhetorical use in a legal discussion and not physically present.

1 appearances

Appearances in the Narrative

When this object appears and how it's used

1 moments

S1E9 · The Short List

Textualism vs. Lived Rights

Bartlet's 'loud polka-dot tie' is an invoked illustrative prop — an imagined, garish accessory — used to test the nominee's boundaries between protected expression and trivial regulation, thereby exposing doctrinal absurdities when applied to everyday life.

Before: Nonexistent physically; a hypothetical image conjured by Bartlet.

After: Remains a rhetorical device that shifts the debate from legal abstraction to cultural taste and popular consequence.

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