S2e11- The Leadership Breakfast (So the spirit of bipartisanship begins!)

Well, we've got all sorts of failed partnerships going on here in this episode:

1. Josh and Sam try to build a fire in the Mural Room.  They are successful, but fail to notice that the flu is welded shut, so they're basically lighting the Mural Room on fire- together. 
   
2. Ed and Larry are working with CJ to get all the seating right for the Leadership Breakfast, and really do a wonderful job of it, with only one exception: they forget to put the President somewhere in the seating chart.  
   
3. Toby and the new Chief of Staff for the Senate Majority Leader, Ann Stark (Felicity Huffman, from Sorkin's previous show, Sports Night) work together to come up with a more substantive conversation at the Leadership Breakfast, but instead Toby gets outwitted by her, and creates a mess out of what was, according to Leo "a breakfast. It was a damn photo opportunity!"
   
4. Leo makes a dumb joke and asks Josh to help make it right (never joke about shoes).  Josh get's Sam to do it instead, but he ends up saying something just... dumb (really, Sam?  Nuclear weapons in Kyrgizstan?).  Sam asks Donna to make it right, and ends up leaving her underwear on the floor after trying to make it right (just don't ask).  Donna asks Charlie to see if the President will make it right, but he declines (a wise choice).  
   

Lots and lots of failed partnerships, all which begin with the notion of improving a situation- the cold, perfect seating, a substantive conversation, and whatever the hell the mess of #4 is.  In the words of Donna, "So the spirit of bipartisanship begins!"

LEO- Alexander Hamilton didn’t think we should have political parties. Neither did John Adams. 

He thought political parties led to divisiveness.

TOBY- They do. They should. We have honest disagreements. Arguments are good.

LEO- Only if they lead to statesmanship. Or it’s just theatre. And statesmanship is compromise.

Alexander Hamilton wasn't alone.  This is from George Washington's Farewell Address in 1796, after he refused to serve a third term as president.

"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."

There was a brief period of American history where this idyllic version of politics without party was lived out- known as "The Era of Good Feelings"- thirteen years from 1816-1839 led in many ways by James Monroe, who seized on the post-victory enthusiasm after the War of 1812 to bring people together through the politics of consensus.  So, in terms of honoring the wishes of the founding fathers, we've had no partisan politics for 13 of the more than 200 years in American politics.  6.5% is not stellar, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.  

Sam's written remarks for the President at the Leadership Breakfast say it better than I ever could:

"We spend so much time demonizing the other side, treating our opponents as if they were strangers with which we share nothing in common that we’ve lost sight perhaps of the greater truths."

One of those greater truths: there is far more that brings us together than that which separates us.  

Another of those greater truths: Disagreements and statesmanship should be about compromise- not about asserting your beliefs over anyone else's.

What's Next?  S2e12-The Drop-In

Like what you've read?  Click on those little buttons to share this blog via facebook, twitter, email, etc!