In this week's The West Wing, President Bartlett and his staff declared war on Congress! The show opened with the President making a speech (in black tie) in which he announced a controversial appointment to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). The announcement constituted a declaration of war not so much because the appointee was controversial (although the appointee did favor campaign finance reform), but because the President made the announcement without consulting Congress.

Political battles over appointments are very real, and the show did a good job of demonstrating this aspect of life in Washington. The nomination and appointment process is very politically sensitive, especially when the appointee or nominee is of a different political party than the majority in Congress, or when the appointment is for a life term, such as federal judgeships.

In the show, the President is a Democrat, while Republicans are in control of Congress, including the committee that would normally make recommendations regarding appointees to the FEC. The Republican senator who chairs the committee was angry that the President made the announcement without having received the senate's recommendation. Given the delicate nature of the process, it is always a good idea for the President and the President's nominees to brown nose Congress if they want to be approved, even if the nominee or appointee is of the same political party as the majority in Congress. The consequences of not doing so were seen recently in the Clinton Administration, when Republican Senator Jesse Helms blocked the appointment of another Republican, Governor Weld from Massachusetts, as Ambassador to Mexico. Senator Helms was angry simply because his blessing of the appointment had not been secured in advance of its announcement. If Governor Weld had gone to Senator Helms first and paid homage, much in the same way knights were expected to pay homage to their liege lords during the medieval period, he probably would now be Ambassador Weld instead of former Governor Weld.

Although the show accurately captured the politics of the appointment process, the role of some staff members was less realistic. While the President was speaking, C.J., the Press Secretary, was busy leaking to the press corps that the President was going to say something very important, as press secretaries typically do. However, what "the guys" (Josh, Toby and Sam) were doing at the same time was less plausible. While the President was speaking, they were backstage, girding for battle. The instant the announcement was made, Josh telephoned a senator and told him to shove his legislative agenda "up his ass!" It is highly, highly unlikely that anybody involved in government, especially a White House staff person who has to work with Congress to get nominees confirmed and legislation passed, would ever make this kind of statement to a senator. The golden rule in Washington is to never burn any bridge. In this case, Josh not only burned the bridge, he nuked it.

Such open combat is particularly unlikely when a president has as low an approval rating as President Bartlett does. Rather than looking for ways to further antagonize important members of Congress, the staff would be focused on ways to bring up the numbers, including how to get popular legislation - like the President's drug legislation - passed. The scene in which the staff had lunch at an outdoor restaurant to discuss the low approval ratings was ridiculous. The staff would never meet outside the White House in a restaurant and speak openly about approval ratings. Not only is it stupid to have that kind of meeting in public, but most White House staff could not afford to have those kinds of lunches unless The West Wing characters are paid substantially better than the real White House staff.

This episode witnessed the arrival of a new member of the White House staff - Joey Lucus, a pollster and campaign director from California who has made appearances in previous episodes, has been brought onto the White House staff to help with the politics of getting the President's proposal passed. Unfortunately, her arrival at the White House highlighted the biggest problem with the show, which is its condescending treatment of women. When Joey arrives, Josh tells her that he knows how women like to decorate their desks with hand lotion and pictures, and he informs her that the White House is a place where solemn work - and nothing else - is done. What a joke - especially since a previous episode had the staff partying all over the West Wing and the Press Secretary lip-synching to a rap song. But more importantly, Josh's comments reflect a strand of misogyny that underscores the show - most of the women are routinely marginalized and trivialized in a way that few real women working in the real White House would tolerate.

Even the women in the show who have relatively substantive positions are always making silly mistakes and embarrassing the President, while the men are lionized for their cunning and vigor. Last week, Mandy was castigated for authoring a memorandum critical of the President, even though she was working for his opponent at the time she wrote it. This week, when C.J. made the mistake of saying that the President did not have a legal obligation to make the FEC appointments, she was ridiculed and disciplined and had to apologize to the President, while Josh essentially received high fives for telling a senator to stick his legislative agenda up his ass.

Finally, the show concluded with the staff showing up in the President's bedroom for what appeared to be an informal wrap-up meeting for the day. The only apparent reason for the scene was to demonstrate that the President actually sleeps alone when his wife is out of town. But scenes like this give a very erroneous impression of the degree of intimacy that the White House staff has with the President. The Secret Service and the White House Ushers would never allow anybody, including the staff, into the President's residence, not to mention his bedroom, unless they were specifically invited.

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