Bartlet Grapples with His Own Law Blocking Library Site
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Bartlet learns from Charlie that his own legislation, the Historic Barn and Bridges Preservation Act, is obstructing his presidential library's first-choice site.
Bartlet hesitates to approve the secondary library site, revealing his deeper ambivalence about solidifying his legacy.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Professionally insistent on legal compliance
Neda Wallin referenced by Charlie as library commission counsel who alerted Jonathan to preservation act violation, her legal vigilance triggering the fax and Oval crisis.
- • Enforce preservation act against library ambitions
- • Advise on viable alternate site options
- • Historic preservation trumps post-presidency monuments
- • Gubernatorial laws endure against executive convenience
persistent and professional
Insists President review ten-year projections despite historical inaccuracies in hallway conversation.
- • Persuade President to examine ten-year projections
Deferential poise veiling keen attentiveness to presidential mood shifts
Charlie intercepts in the Outer Oval to flag the incoming fax, follows into Oval Office delivering precise intel on violation via notes, keeps eyes averted during Bartlet's self-realization beat, relays commission request, confirms retracted stall order with quiet deference.
- • Accurately relay brother's fax and commission's site dilemma
- • Secure clear directive on library site progression
- • Presidential authority demands unvarnished facts without intrusion
- • Institutional protocols like preservation laws bind even the commander-in-chief
Determined advocacy inferred through proactive intel relay
Jonathan Bartlet invoked as fax sender who consulted Neda Wallin on violation, catalyzing Oval confrontation; Bartlet tasked Charlie to relay stall message back to him.
- • Expose library site legal flaw to force presidential review
- • Push for swift approval on alternate site
- • Family legacy merits bending preservation rules
- • Presidential oversight can override gubernatorial legacies
sarcastic, frustrated, ambivalent
Sarcastically dismisses accuracy of ten-year projections in hallway exchange with staffer, enters Outer Oval and Oval Office, discusses brother's fax with Charlie revealing library site violation due to his own past legislation, curses the bill before realizing authorship, initially green-lights second site then retracts with sigh and instructs to stall.
- • Reluctantly engage with bureaucratic projections
- • Grapple with internal conflict over library site blocked by own law and stall decision to express ongoing presidential frustrations
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Charlie flags the incoming fax from Jonathan Bartlet as the event's inciting document, its contents unpacked to reveal site violation against preservation act, driving Bartlet's ironic curse, flip-flop decision, and stall order—narrative pivot exposing legacy fractures.
Charlie quotes the Historic Barn and Bridges Preservation Act verbatim from notes, weaponizing its pre-1900 structure mandate as the site's fatal flaw; Bartlet savages then claims authorship, the law embodying his principled past clashing with present ambitions in humiliated retreat.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
Bartlet Presidential Library Commission materializes via counsel Neda Wallin's alert to Jonathan, torpedoing prime site under preservation act; Charlie relays their green-light plea for second site, Bartlet's stall underscoring bureaucratic drag on family legacy machine.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Bartlet's sardonic dismissal of bureaucratic formalities continues into his later, more profound frustration with the challenges of his presidency."
"Bartlet's sardonic dismissal of bureaucratic formalities continues into his later, more profound frustration with the challenges of his presidency."
Key Dialogue
"BARTLET: What plaid flannel-wearing, cheese-eating, yahoo of a milkman governor signed that idiot bill into state law? [beat, while Charlie keeps his eyes down] It was me, wasn't it? CHARLIE: Yes, sir."
"CHARLIE: They'd like a green light to go ahead with the second site. BARTLET: Yeah, go ahead. CHARLIE: Thank you, sir. BARTLET: No. CHARLIE: I'm sorry? BARTLET: No, don't go ahead with the site. I just... [sighs] Tell my brother to hang on, would you? I'll make a decision. I don't know what the damn hurry is."