Forced-Depletion Report — Khundu's Human Cost Meets Rhetoric
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Leo enters and shares concerns about the Chief Justice writing in verse, highlighting unusual behavior.
Bartlet informs Leo about the forced depletion report on Khundu, revealing potential U.S. casualties in a peacekeeping mission.
Leo updates Bartlet on Toby's work on new foreign policy language, indicating progress on the administration's response to Khundu.
Bartlet hands the forced depletion report to Leo, emphasizing the gravity of the situation in Khundu.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
Focused and industrious — implied, working under deadline to craft language that will carry heavy moral weight.
Mentioned by Leo as the author of new foreign-policy language; Toby's handiwork is invoked to show the administration is already trying to translate policy into rhetoric.
- • Draft foreign-policy language that is precise and durable
- • Ensure presidential rhetoric matches operational realities
- • Words shape policy outcomes
- • Careful phrasing can reduce political and human cost
Helpfully neutral — focused on practical tasks, not the policy argument unfolding between principals.
At Bartlet's desk organizing papers, acknowledges Bartlet's Bible decision, assists with logistics, and exits when Leo arrives — a background stabilizer who opens the scene's domestic note before policy intrudes.
- • Support the President with small logistical tasks
- • Keep the Oval Office orderly and prepared for the day
- • Facilitate any material needs for inauguration optics
- • Small operational details enable the President to focus on larger decisions
- • Tasks should be completed quietly to avoid intruding on senior deliberations
Expressive or whimsical (as implied by the verse), producing unease among White House staff about judicial seriousness.
Referenced by Leo through a quoted concurring opinion in Stiles v. Rhode Island; the Chief Justice's verse punctuates the scene and undercuts solemnity with literary eccentricity.
- • Communicate judicial reasoning in a distinctive voice
- • Maintain the Court's decisions and presence in public discourse
- • Legal opinion can be a form of personal expression
- • The judiciary's tone influences public perception of institutions
Concerned and conflicted — trying to preserve ritual dignity while clearly unsettled by the human cost the report implies.
Enters the Oval from the portico, abandons a private ceremonial decision about the inauguration Bible, announces he requested a forced-depletion report on Khundu, summarizes its bleak findings aloud, and physically hands the report to Leo.
- • Choose an inaugural Bible that feels right and not parochial
- • Understand the human and political costs of a potential Khundu intervention
- • Ensure his senior staff sees and understands the report's implications
- • Symbolic acts (the Bible) matter for legitimacy and tone
- • Presidential words and doctrine have tangible consequences for lives
- • He can and should direct discreet, reality-testing intelligence outside standard channels
Wry on the surface; privately worried about institutional optics and political fallout from both the Court's eccentricity and the Khundu assessment.
Enters from his office, lightens the moment by reading and metrically counting a Supreme Court concurring opinion, then pivots to the report — pressing Bartlet for provenance and content, taking the handed forced-depletion report into his possession.
- • Gauge the political and institutional implications of the report
- • Protect the President and the administration from avoidable fallout
- • Bring data under his supervision so he can manage downstream messaging
- • Odd judicial behavior (the Chief Justice's verse) signals broader strain that matters politically
- • Hard intelligence (the report) must be seen and managed centrally
- • Rhetoric (Toby's language) and operational plans must be aligned to avoid catastrophe
Not present on stage; implied professional detachment and rigor in producing an unwelcome estimate.
Mentioned as the preparer of the forced-depletion report; his analytic work provides the concrete casualty estimates that change the scene's tone.
- • Produce a clear, honest assessment of U.S. casualty risk
- • Inform senior decision-makers so they can weigh intervention costs
- • Operational realism should inform political choices
- • Honest military analysis is necessary even if politically costly
Procedural and purposeful — implied, performing National Security Advisor duties behind the scenes.
Referenced by Bartlet as the person who 'got Jack Reese' to produce the forced-depletion report, implying Slattery acted operationally to commission discreet analysis.
- • Provide the President with timely security analysis
- • Use trusted military channels to gather candid estimates
- • Senior decisions require discreet, direct intelligence
- • Operational officers like Reese can produce candid assessments outside bureaucratic friction
Objects Involved
Significant items in this scene
Charlie is actively sorting and fixing these outer-oval desk papers at the scene's opening, providing the domestic, administrative texture that is abruptly interrupted by higher-stakes policy dialogue. The papers underscore the Oval's everyday workaday function against extraordinary decisions.
The forced-depletion report is the catalytic document: Bartlet references its findings aloud, recounting the likely costs of engagement in Khundu, then physically hands the classified analysis to Leo. It converts a conversation about ceremony into urgent policy business and a moral test.
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
The Republic of Equatorial Khundu is the crisis-geography referenced by the forced-depletion report; its terrain and the Arkutu insurgency frame the operational realities that make rhetoric consequential and intervention costly.
Northampton, Massachusetts is invoked as the provenance of Johnathon Edwards' Bible — an off-stage source that anchors Bartlet's symbolic choice in intellectual and religious history.
Organizations Involved
Institutional presence and influence
The Supreme Court is invoked via a quoted concurring opinion; its unexpected literary tone becomes a political talking point and a source of White House unease about institutional seriousness.
The White House is the institutional frame within which the ceremonial (Bible choice) and the operational (forced-depletion report) collide. Its staff, protocols, and optics are directly implicated as leaders weigh rhetoric against lives.
The Arkutu-directed mob is the violent antagonist referenced in the forced-depletion report; their behavior (laying down weapons or dispersing into countryside) determines casualty projections and policy risk.
The Republic of Equatorial Khundu is the state context for the report — the geography and politics that generate humanitarian catastrophe and binary choices for U.S. policy-makers.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Charlie's initial logistical issues with the Bible lead to Bartlet's later decision to change his mind about which Bible to use."
"Charlie's initial logistical issues with the Bible lead to Bartlet's later decision to change his mind about which Bible to use."
"Charlie's initial logistical issues with the Bible lead to Bartlet's later decision to change his mind about which Bible to use."
"Charlie's initial logistical issues with the Bible lead to Bartlet's later decision to change his mind about which Bible to use."
Part of Larger Arcs
Key Dialogue
"LEO: "I'm worried about the Chief Justice.""
"BARTLET: "I've asked for a forced depletion report on action in Khundu.""
"BARTLET: "The best scenario is that simply by engaging, the Arkutu lay down their weapons, but that doesn't seem likey, so we'd lose people.""