El Salvador
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
El Salvador functions as the historical referent Toby uses to anchor the struck draft: he says the language was about El Salvador and therefore was removed, turning an abstract rhetorical choice into a concrete lesson from past intervention.
Evocative and cautionary; the mention conjures heavy historical weight and the smell of past controversy.
Historical precedent and cautionary example invoked to restrain current doctrinal impulses.
Represents the perils of missionary-like idealism translated into policy—history teaching prudence.
El Salvador is invoked by Toby as historical precedent for the struck language; it functions as a concrete example of when high-minded rhetoric was judged politically or operationally unwise and subsequently removed from the record.
Used as a cautionary historical echo—distant but weighty, carrying institutional memory.
Historical reference point that grounds Toby's procedural argument against resurrecting old doctrine.
Symbolizes past mistakes and the prudence of striking certain rhetoric from official record.
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
Will reads aloud a long-stricken Bartlet passage that reframes U.S. action around values rather than narrow interests. Toby recognizes the language as a 16-year-old Bartlet draft and warns there was …
In Toby's office Will reads a values-driven foreign policy—language drawn from a struck Bartlet speech—and a charged argument erupts over authorship, authority, and consequences. Toby reacts like a guardian of …