Tell Me What Happens When I Give the Order | The West Wing

“Up to the point where you burn holes in priceless antiques.”
Season 2 Episode 14: The War At Home
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[@benvolio85]

Every since this channel started, I go to it at least twice a day to see if there are new clips. Keep'm coming, admin!

[@TheStuport]

Ditto! Salute

[@TheWestWing]

There's more on the horizon!

[@Dive-masters]

Agreed!

[@imissnewspapers]

I love the detail that Leo was a better chess player than the President.

[@Critical1ce]

Chief of Staff has to be sometimes

[@lucy7th]

It's part of the clear contrasts between Leo and the President, the military man and the university professor, the pragmatist and the idealist, the one who does not hesitate to do sacrifice plays and the one who is compassionate and won't move before getting all the necessary information.

[@ivnmrtnz]

@@lucy7th the one who does not hesitate to do sacrifice plays and the one who is compassionate and won't move before getting all the necessary information. i did not pick up on that here great spot

[@eldersprig]

Playing chess was apparently necessary for his MS treatment. To monitor something.

[@jasonkoch3182]

That's not what the scene is showing. In the West Wing, Chess is always used as a metaphor for seeing the bigger picture. In this scene, President Bartlet isn't seeing the bigger picture. He's hyperfocused on two things: how he's going to convince Abbey he has to break their deal and getting the hostages back. Leo is able to see a bigger picture, but he's only seeing four moves deep. Neither of them are considering the larger play, which is why they get caught off guard when the task force is killed because they walked them into a trap.

[@martinstent5339]

It was Clement Freud who said: 'If you give up drink and sex, you don't live longer. It just seems longer.' Now maybe GBD said it first, but I couldn't find the actual quote anywhere.

[@heddalee]

Leo single-handedly sank the Titanic.

[@SamaritanPrime]

I wonder if Bartlett kept standing out in the cold because being cold meant that he could still feel and wasn’t having an MS episode.

[@belloutdoors5217]

Good catch!

[@rudyjuarez4535]

So that's one of the symptoms or something? How to identify a potential episode?

[@SamaritanPrime]

@@rudyjuarez4535 I’m not sure. MS is essentially you being unable to move your body because your limbs have gone numb. Ergo, Bartlett standing out in the cold means that Bartlett feels cold, ergo he’s not having an MS episode.

[@somebuddyX]

It's funny seeing Glenn Morshower, because it reminds me that 24 was yet to air a single episode at this point

[@samvelrubenian3184]

I've never understood how you can play against yourself in chess. How do you calculate against yourself when you know what the other side's calculation is?!

[@aidanabregov1412]

Imagine being Leo, watching him: “This dude does NOT know how to play chess!”

[@franz-dominikimhof4940]

To take a rock with a bishop is no sacrifice.

[@Martin-pb7ts]

A rook is worth 5 points and a bishop is worth 3 points.

[@regenschein6476]

He plays two moves for black in a row... Also the queens rook was open from the beginning and his bishop may have been open but was defended so it was not a sacrifice. Not that I mind, just to save someone time who wants to analyze the position: the moves don't make sense

[@heddalee]

They were playing a version called Presidential Chess.

[@jg6022]

Mickey was great in his role. Wsish there was more of him.

[@michaelmuldowney8]

Was this storyline inspired by Operation Eagle Claw - Jimmy Carters failed attempt to rescue the Iranian hostages in 1980 ?

[@heddalee]

Eagle Claw was a doofus name.

[@Degan1000]

@@heddalee Eagle Claw is my favorite brand of fishing hooks.

[@heddalee]

@@Degan1000 I knew you'd say that.

[@Robisme]

I love this show. But every election year it feels like they post all these videos as if saying this is how Democrats rule.😂😂😂

[@datadivanet]

West Wing is liberal porn. It's how we imagine government can run. It was hugely influential on a lot of the Obama staffers.

[@Rye7]

I enjoyed the writing of this show, however, I despise the way they portray the Republicans as "evil" and the Democrats as being direct descendents of Jesus Christ himself. Also, Bartlett would be considered a Republican by today's standards of modern politics.

[@kyledelaney4049]

Tell me you didn’t watch the whole show without telling me you didn’t watch the whole show.

[@Rye7]

@@kyledelaney4049 I have watched the entire series.

[@ZATennisFan]

@@Rye7I never thought they tarred the entire Republican Party with the same brush. However they had to have an antagonist didn’t they? I always thought that Bartlett was a pragmatist but you knew exactly where he stood on certain issues and he would not let that pragmatism be used as stick that the other side could beat him with…..

[@cosyfoot7867]

@@Rye7I don’t know if you look at Joe Biden in the late 80s to early 2000s he was for slashing social security, for the crime bill, for the Iraq War. Yet he’s a democrat today. A lot of both sides were pretty centrist ideas from a fiscal and social standpoint 25 years ago and now with time each party has moved to the more radical side of things. For example we want mass deportation, or we want open borders. We want partial birth abortions or we want no abortions. Depending on the issue each side has reasonable points in some situations. But both sides have become more radical in their ideas and hasn’t helped the every day person.

[@JR-bj3uf]

I think the West Wing is a brilliant TV show about a giant Democrat fantasy of how good and noble they are. The reality is much more scathing, dirty and broken.