opinion of this scene

[12th Doctor]

Tweed loves him some religion/God bashing. You're just so enlightened.

This was always one of the corny scenes that sticks out in my memory when I think of the West Wing. I mean, I literally start to gag. Oh, Jeb! Speak more Latin, baby. Show that God that you're in charge, Mr. President.

I love it. "3.8 million new jobs...bailed out Mexico...put Mendoza on the bench..."

Sure, it's dramatic but it's so incredibly corny.

Obviously have never seen the entire episode.... and its Jed Bartlet.

[12th Doctor]

Phil, you misread the scene as an attack on religion, rather than what it really is, a catharsis.

[12th Doctor]

Phil, you misread the scene as an attack on religion, rather than what it really is, a catharsis.

The irony is, of course, that the viewer is supposed to understand the moment more or less exactly as Phil understands it.  You are just supposed to understand it in the context of the episode.

[12th Doctor]

Tweed loves him some religion/God bashing. You're just so enlightened.

This was always one of the corny scenes that sticks out in my memory when I think of the West Wing. I mean, I literally start to gag. Oh, Jeb! Speak more Latin, baby. Show that God that you're in charge, Mr. President.

I love it. "3.8 million new jobs...bailed out Mexico...put Mendoza on the bench..."

Sure, it's dramatic but it's so incredibly corny.

Obviously have never seen the entire episode.... and its Jed Bartlet.

I've seen the entire episode several times. It's just so incredibly corny and it's meant for people like Tweed to drool over.

I always forget that the asshat is called Jed. Jeb just makes more sense "Josiah + Bartlett" but whatever.  

Okay, but then you should get that the whole point of the episode is not to glorify what happens in that one moment of weakness.

[12th Doctor]

[The scene was just a silly hat tip to progressives that had to live in a fantasy land during the Bush years. I bet they're all hoping that Obama pulls some similar stunt and somehow wins Nebraska, the Dakotas, Louisiana...

If this was true, then there wouldn't have been the follow-up scene with Landingham scolding Bartlet for his impiety.  Neither would the whole "Take the Sabbath Day" episode have even been possible, where Bartlet gets hammered by a Jew, a Quaker and finally at the end a Catholic priest who he confesses to at the end of the episode for allowing a federal execution.  I agree entirely that the West Wing went over the top about a lot of things (the Bartlet-Ritchie election where Bartlet, censured for lying about MS in the first election cycle, wins the Dakotas, Louisianna, Arkansas, Kentucky ect. ect. against a centrist southern governor because of one debate performance??  Good grief..a nod to reality, please!)  But I never found the show to be over the top about religion. 

Not to mention that the episode in question was likely written before the results of the 2000 election were fully known.  The West Wing writing schedule didn't enter the Bush Administration until season 3.

[12th Doctor]

Phil, there are two characters on the West Wing who are portrayed as being highly religious (Bartlet and Toby) and this is always shown in a positive light.  In a season 7 episode, it is a Religious Right pastor (Butler) and not the atheist Presidential candidate (Vinick) who is shown as being the bigger man.  If you are trying to sense some kinda extreme anti-religious bias in the West Wing, its not there.

[12th Doctor]

If you are trying to sense some kinda extreme anti-religious bias in the West Wing, its not there.

As I've said several times now, I do not believe there is some anti religious bias in the show. I've said that the episode itself wasn't even a jab at religion. That has been ignored though. Try reading my points before responding.

I don't agree with the idea that Don Butler was seen as the bigger man. Vinick was always made out to be secular hero, telling the religious conservatives to keep their backwards ways in church, not in politics - "If you have questions about religion, go to church." Please don't tell me that the religious conservatives were made out to be nice, meek people in that final season, Super. Remember the campaign manager at the end and the discussions about the base?

Watch again and note how they trash Butler the entire episode, but then Butler refuses to put Vinick in the position of having to make the "easy" decision.  It makes Butler come out appearing much better than Vinick's staff.

Note again how, in a later episode, Vinick lies to another social conservative (his name escapes me right now) outright about a pro-life candidates pledge.  Again, makes you feel worse for the guy he lied to.

[12th Doctor]

Vinick justifies it in his own mind by saying that he only lied to a liar, because he made that guy make the group, that I assume is supposed to be analogous to the Christian Coalition, promise to to say anything.  However, it is never revealed who made the information public.  It might not have been the gentleman in question at all, and Vinick just assumes it is, because that helps him feel better about himself.

[12th Doctor]

And lets not forget that Matt Santos, the candidate designed to appeal most to the liberal audience of the show, explicitly believes in God, and intelligent design, and privately expresses to Leo that he opposes abortion.

[12th Doctor]

And lets not forget that Matt Santos, the candidate designed to appeal most to the liberal audience of the show, explicitly believes in God, and intelligent design, and privately expresses to Leo that he opposes abortion.

Yeah, I know about all of the above but stuff like Vinick's "I'm lying to a liar" was probably seen as a good justification in the eyes of the viewers. I never took the whole Butler situation as anything but a huge eye roll at the silly religious conservatives.

It's true that the Catholic Church has never taught that the death penality should be abolished outright, but Roman Catholic theologians, the last two popes and the majority of Catholic bishops in the American conference have opposed its infliction by the state since the mid-70's.  In the espisode's concluding scene, Bartlet complains to Father Tom Kavenaugh (played beautifully by Karl Malden) that he has prayed and received no direction, and Malden again scolds him, saying that God has sent him a rabbi, a Quaker and a priest to advise him, tells him: "God is the only one who gets to kill people," and takes his confession at the end. 

Yes, I know but what is that a jab at? It's a jab at Bartlett not being in touch with a more liberal viewpoint of the Church. Again, I'm not saying that the writers try to bash religion at every turn in this show. They have, however, made it clear when they want to provoke an eye roll or poke fun at religious conservatives though.

Maybe the viewers took it that way, but many people, looking at the same situation, are going to view it differently.

In the DVD commentaries, the writers seem to think that the entire situation was presented to put Vinick in the wrong.