The President shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union . . .

Taking this cue from the United States Constitution, this week's The West Wing portrayed the President and his staff preparing for the State of the Union address to the Congress. The show opens with the President practicing the speech in front of his staff in the Press Briefing Room, which sets the background for an episode that also reveals the President's secret about his poor health condition, the Chief of Staff's recovery from a cross addiction to alcohol and drugs, and the resolution of the international crisis between Pakistan and India.

Preparation for the State of the Union address is a very, very big deal at the White House. The show did a very good job of portraying the intensity of those efforts. Most impressive were the scenes portraying Toby, the Assistant to the President for Communications, having meetings with officials who appeared to be from the Office of Management and Budget regarding several themes in the speech, including spending on the National Endowment of the Arts. In reality, there would have been even more people in that meeting. Every piece of the speech would have been commented on by every part of the President's administration over a period of many weeks prior to the date of the speech. This is generally true of every speech the President gives, but on a smaller scale. It is the Staff Secretary's responsibility to deliver a draft copy of every speech to all the President's senior advisors for comment. Therefore, if the President's speech involves environmental issues, or simply has a reference to the environment, the speech comment process, which is coordinated by the Staff Secretary, would ensure that the appropriate environmental officials reviewed the speech and commented on it before it was delivered by the President. It is through this process that officials make sure words like "potato" are spelled correctly.

The part of the show about the President not being invited by the Speaker of the House to deliver the State of the Union was a cute aside, but it was not very realistic. Having discovered that the President had apparently not received the invitation, the Deputy Chief of Staff calls the White House mail room to determine if the invitation had gone astray. In reality, the invitation would most likely come through one of two formal channels of communications between the White House and Congress. The real President has both political staff in the Legislative Affairs Office that act as the President's liaisons and lobbyists to Congress, and career staff in the Executive Clerk's Office that act as the President's official administrative liaison to Congress. Legislative Affairs works on shaping and influencing legislation as it is developed in Congress, while the Executive Clerk officially delivers bills to the President and makes sure they are signed or vetoed in the time frame allowed by law. At any rate, an invitation from Congress would never simply arrive by mail to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

In the developing story line about the Chief of Staff's cross addiction to alcohol and drugs, there is a dramatic moment when the Chief of Staff tells Sam, the Deputy Communications Director (Rob Lowe), that he doesn't want any of the President's staff to assist him in spinning the issue. The Chief of Staff explains that Sam's time should be spent focused on the President and nobody else, and that if he, the Chief of Staff, goes down, he is going down alone. That is all nice and gallant, but Sam is no fool: he writes a statement of support by the President anyway. This act of defiant support is portrayed as a selfless action, but in real life it would be very purposeful. Why? Because if the Chief of Staff is forced out of office, things will change in the West Wing, including the staff that work there. When Governor Sununu resigned as President Bush's Chief of Staff, many other senior staff changes followed. Staff changes trickle down from the top, and presumably, Rob Lowe does not want to lose this gig after such a long dry spell on the big screen. . . .

In another scene, the President heads to the Situation Room for a meeting with military officials regarding the crisis in Pakistan and India. As he enters, he says, in a bit of comic relief before the serious meeting, "what I really want to know is whether the Celtics won." Nobody knows the answer. At the end of the meeting, the camera quickly turns to a young, very handsome, military guy who is just hanging up a wall phone. He quickly turns to stand at sharp attention, looks adoringly at the President and announces in a loud, deep voice, "Mr. President, sir! The Celtics won, sir!"

How adoringly? Oh, I forgot -- don't ask, don't tell.

The scene in which the President collapses after being seized with what appeared to be the flu was pretty well done. Having a military doctor in the Oval Office attending to the President is accurate. In real life, military doctors are stationed at the White House around-the-clock. In fact, there is a doctor's office on the ground floor of the White House. While Martin Sheen, who portrays the President, did a good job at being sick on the T.V. show, the real President Bush still takes the cake for throwing up all over the Japanese Prime Minister. That was better than anything Hollywood could have thought up!

On a final note, this episode of The West Wing included several small, but very accurate, details about life in the West Wing. For example, as the President walked through staff offices in one scene, the staff sitting at their desks quickly jumped to their feet and stood as the President walked through. That really does happen. Also, there was a scene in the Chief of Staff's office in which the Chief of Staff was reading documents from colored folders, which were embossed with the Seal of the President. This is another accurate recreation: there are indeed "official" folders for the President, which are color-coded to indicate what type of documents they contain, such as reading materials, documents to be signed, or documents requiring action. Another realistic -- and cute - detail occurred when the Deputy Chief of Staff is walking into the office with his assistant, who is eating what appears to be ice cream. White House staffers are always eating! It is very common to see staffers with food in hand walking the halls of the West Wing. Although this character was eating ice cream, M&M candies would have been a better choice, since they are provided free to the White House staff in specially-designed boxes which, like the color-coded folders, are embossed with the Seal of the President.

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