Did C.J. Leak the Shuttle Story? | The West Wing

“It’s really the Republicans' fault that we’re caught in this terribly embarrassing situation.”
Season 6 Episode 21: Things Fall Apart
WATCH NOW: MAX
www.max.com/sh...
Subscribe now:
/ @thewestwing
This is the official “THE WEST WING” channel! Stay up to date on President Jed Bartlet and his White House staff’s most inspiring, unforgettable moments.
#TheWestWing #VoteBartlet #Drama #JedBartlet #AaronSorkin #MartinSheen

[@TheNukewarfare2]

“I aim for the stars, only sometimes I hit London.” 😂

[@pbdye1607]

"And I do it with the aid and on the backs of preternaturally-gifted Jewish slave labor."

[@jedsa05]

Or in the words of Tom Lehrer: "'Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That's not my department!' says Wernher von Braun."

[@gibu002]

The part that bothered me most about this story line is CJ being the chief of staff but somehow not having clearance for the entire range of top secret information?? Does this make sense? How does she do her job of screening for and advising the president without full clearance to anything and everything?

[@StumpyVanLife]

I agree. It seemed as if Leo knew everything about everything, even sometimes more than Bartlett. So why didn't CJ have access to the same information?

[@thekirksiffs5285]

this has been addressed over the course of the show. They purposely keep CJ out of the loop on some information, so that she has plausible deniability when talking with the press. There are some sensitive things that she can't discuss and if she truly doesn't know then she can't accidently let something slip.

[@bridyyc]

@@thekirksiffs5285 This isn't about CJ, Press Secretary. This is about CJ, Chief of Staff. Her clearance certainly went up a few notches when she got promoted.

[@StumpyVanLife]

@@thekirksiffs5285 Yes that applied when she was the press secretary. But by this point she was Chief of Staff, and she no longer talked to the press on a daily basis.

[@gibu002]

@@thekirksiffs5285 When she was White House spokesperson. She is now Chief of Staff to the President of the United States. Its an entirely different job now... Remember when Josh snickered a bit because he "technically" outranked her.... now she is Leo and she outranks everyone except the president and its her job to gate keep for him, to decide who gets his time, who doesn't, and how much time then advise the president on all his choices.... Technically she should know more than the president so she can properly direct his traffic. Different job.

[@bigz0725]

Secretary of Defense J Walter Weatherman: "And that's why you never take all the shuttles offline."

[@stephencronin1080]

Pity Obama didn't read that

[@terrygracy8345]

I don’t for a minute believe Bartlett loses a few astronauts when he has a second - even top secret- shuttle available

[@DeclanMBrennan]

You would be surprised what sacrifices are made to protect important secrets, especially in wartime. For example reveals from Project Ultra message decoding in the UK, were often not acted upon, because to do so would reveal a vital code breaking capability, thus allowing the Germans to take corrective measures. Many lives were lost in the short term to protect the long term goal of winning the war. Sadly the morality of an effective leader can differ somewhat from that of an individual civilian.

[@shuttlecrossing1433]

A shuttle like this these days can't be kept secret at all. Test flights are very easy to spot. The way it works nowadays is we know something exists but not what it can do. They'd have had it up there the second Bartlett heard about the problem.

[@kalospantarkes1861]

@@shuttlecrossing1433 The U.S. does have a military version of the shuttle, although scaled down and unmanned.

[@christianvalentin5344]

@@kalospantarkes1861yep, and SpaceX launched it a few months ago on a Falcon Heavy.

[@ThatLadKev]

He had a foreign dignitary assassinated. Bartlett may be idealistic but he is also pragmatic about the balance between his values and what's good for the country. Especially where it comes to military matters

[@OhNoNotAgain42]

“Whoever leaked it had to be somebody big”. One of the hundreds of engineers who designed it? One of the thousands of technicians who assembled it? Janitors in the hanger? Thousands of people would know about this vehicle.

[@christianthompson3926]

CJ had an informal conversation with Toby, in which she alluded to the military shuttle. Toby then leaked the story to a reporter. Although Toby shouldn't have had the information, he committed the security breach and ultimately took responsibility for it. He protected CJ by lying about how he learned about the military shuttle. This was all played out on the show...

[@HalfDomeIndustries]

The investigators said that Nasa people suspected of leaking had the technical information off. If they didn't have the right technical info, how did Toby, as we don't see CJ giving Toby loads of details.

[@blancobasnett]

And then Bartlett agonized over pardoning him. Never had to wonder w/45, who dangled pardons to elicit illegal activity.

[@timweaver7826]

I thought it was his brother the astronaut that told him.....or maybe his motivation to leak it.

[@PeterSedesse]

I loved the West Wing, but they often mess up basics. The US never had both shuttles in maintenance mode for exactly this reason. If there are people on the ISS, there is always a way to get them down.

[@Gredddfe]

The part about Toby leaking it seemed rushed, and other elements of the story suggested that Toby was going to be a big part of the later seasons. But suddenly Schiff has only a recurring guest role in the show. I'd like to know the reasoning behind this.

[@RobotMetalhead]

Schiff wanted to leave the show after the 6th season, but was convinced to stay on when the showrunners told him the 7th would be the last one. By that point, the primary story was about the presidential campaign, so a lot of the White House characters took a back seat because there were so many people in the main cast. Dule Hill was also given a reduced role cause he was shooting the pilot/first season of Psyche during the last season.

[@untexan]

Why is Charlie sneaking out of Zoey's room shoehorned into this clip?

[@ASimoneau]

They might be aiming for clips to be a certain length. In the last month, all the videos seem to be between 4:30 and 5:15. The Charlie/Zoey scene is about 1:20. It's possible there isn't a secret shuttle scene of comparable length from this episode for them to fit into this video.

[@Cramdeon1969]

Also. A good scene that shows this episode is not just about the leak.

[@stargazer7644]

I'm confused. (sorry, I haven't seen the actual episode) ISS has an air leak? Notwithstanding the fact that whatever module that is leaking can be sealed off to prevent impact on the rest of the station, ISS has multiple spacecraft docked and ready to be lifeboats to carry the entire crew back to Earth if necessary in a couple of hours. What's the problem?

[@LucasA84]

You're not thinking in terms of a tv show.😊

[@kanderson-oo7us]

They literally have the character say at 2:43 that the sections can be closed off to conserve air.

[@MikeWood]

At the time this aired in 2004 there were four modules: Destiny, Zarya, Unity and Zvezda. they could have been sealed off for sure. But the space station was much smaller and couldn't accommodate multiple lifeboat craft like it does now. Though there would have been at least one crew capable Soyuz. Depending if there was a Soyuz crew hand over, a second one could have been present.

[@christianvalentin5344]

As someone stated earlier, it’s TV. In reality there are always enough seats on attached spacecraft for everyone on board the ISS. When SpaceX’s current Dragon capsule up at the ISS had to change docking ports for Starliner, it required those 4 astronauts to suit up and board the Dragon capsule even though they wouldn’t be doing anything. Safety measure.

[@deborawagner7657]

@@christianvalentin5344 This episode is for a scenario 20 years ago. What is possible now was threadbare back then.

[@NonSenseMcGee]

Poor Toby. 😢

[@geoffrose9647]

"The answer to that would be yes." Man knows how to offer information without offering an opinion. He'll go far in the intelligence game.

[@kinggoldark3853]

That’s the Secretary of Defense, so I’m guessing he has.

[@nickvellis9823]

Hated this storyline. To make Toby responsible was terrible. His character was to loyal to the president to do that. I can see him arguing with the president and overstepping his bounds as Leo did over the peace talks but a leak! No! Honestly, after Sorkin left at the end of season 4, it TWW was not the same. The walk-and-talk dialogue was good, but the storylines were weak. The show was not as compelling and true to the characters as before. This storyline and the Presidential campaign were a letdown to me. Really- nuclear accident in California?

[@elijahcanning3020]

Having a Republican Senator from California who was pro-choice who somehow made it thru the Republican Primary didn't really make any sense. Even 20 years ago.

[@Sylvander1911]

@@elijahcanning3020 Not that far-fetched. The last Republican Senator from California let office in 1992 just 14 years before the final season.

[@KnataGuy]

Agree. It was mostly annoying and bad, right down to the new characters like Will & Kate. It was, for 4 years, the best show on television. It quickly was not.

[@rwmorey71]

I thought Toby leaked it and wound up getting fired? Wasn't his brother one of the astronauts?

[@kentoncampbell7069]

Yes, Toby was the leaker. No, his astronaut brother wasn't stranded on the station. David was revealed to have died in S06E16 Draught Conditions. This was before S06E21 Things Fall Apart, when the oxygen leak on the space station occurs.

[@TheCritic-MMA]

Wait, CJ is the WH Chief of Staff and doesn't have the highest clearance possible; the "civilian" NASA Administrator knows more than she does; this toppest of top secret info is known by a moron blabbing it about and this is the first it's ever leaked...? Yes the nature of TS:SCI is that you have to have a need to know something to know it... but in this instance clearly she does (though it probably wouldn't be the NASA administrator to read her in)... the NSA/NSC apparently knows and could though...

[@stargazer7644]

That isn't really how clearances work. Just because you have a clearance doesn't automatically give you access to everything at that clearance level especially at the higher clearance levels. During the Manhattan project the Vice President didn't even know about the project. When Roosevelt died and Truman became president he had no idea about the bomb, he was briefed after he was sworn in as president. CJ isn't the one who decides she has a need to know.

[@WolfRamAndHart]

Perhaps the NASA admin was brought into the topic, but normally doesn't have the absolute highest TS clearance. It's not hard to believe that DOD would want fulll access to build their military shuttle Which is why he had access. But he's not used to having to keep that sort of clearance, so let's it slip a tiny bit to CJ. WHat's unbelievable is that CJ wouldn't have full Top Secret clearance, one of the highest in the United States, after being promoted to CoS.

[@anime-xh7qs3ej8n]

a nasa scientist is a moron?

[@stargazer7644]

@@WolfRamAndHart TS is not the highest clearance, and as has been repeatedly said, that doesn't give you free access to anything you want. Highly classified programs are compartmentalized. Only certain people have access to them.

[@Threnody248]

You clearly don’t know what SCI means

[@timeimp]

Season 7 plot writing at its finest

[@TIB1973]

Wasn't this season 6?

[@tmoore4075]

@@TIB1973yes it was.

[@jeremymuir4332]

Is this one the silliest problem, resolution, consequence drama in the entire run of the show?

[@markbailey1970]

There is no way Toby did it - it was always CJ

[@Bariom_dome]

No, dear. It was Toby.

[@Gmuc72]

I agree that it should have been CJ. She would get worked up about things and would take people's heads off when she thought she was right even to the point of outright berating people. Toby could be highly opinionated as well but he was better about being dismissive to people or opinions that he didn't like. CJ multiple times leaked things to the press that went against what the White House put as the narrative. Toby would go sulk whenever he was pushed out of the conversation. I feel like it's these differences as to why it should have been CJ to have been the leak. I could also see Toby standing beside her in the decision when it was time to face the consequences. He was loyal like that even to those that had spurned him.