Rewatching “The West Wing” makes me nostalgic for a fictional administration. Luckily, Aaron Sorkin occasionally comes through with some new dialog, like this post-debate conversation:
BARTLET … I’m a father of daughters, you’re a father of daughters. It looked to me like right before you went on stage, Sasha told you she likes a boy in her class who has a tattoo.
OBAMA That’s not what hap —
BARTLET Here’s what you do. You invite the boy over for dinner, you have a couple of fellas from your detail brush their suit coats back just enough so the lad can see the .44 Magnums — problem solved. You have what every father of a daughter dreams of — an army and a good dog.
OBAMA The girls are fine, that wasn’t the problem. In the debate prep we —
BARTLET Whoa … there was prep?
OBAMA (shouting) Enough! (taking a cigarette and lighting it) I appreciate that the view’s pretty good from the cheap seats. Gore chalked up my debate performance to the altitude. He debated at sea level — what was his excuse?
BARTLET They told you to make sure you didn’t seem condescending, right? They told you, “First, do no harm,” and in your case that means don’t appear condescending, and you bought it. ’Cause for the American right, condescension is the worst crime you can commit.
OBAMA What’s your suggestion?
BARTLET Appear condescending. Now it comes naturally to me —
OBAMA I know.
…
Lots more where that came from.
