The West Wing (TV Series)

The Crackpots and These Women (1999)

Martin Sheen: President Josiah Bartlet

Quotes 

• [the Senior Staff are playing a pick-up basketball game with the President] 

  Josh Lyman : Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who's this?

  President Josiah Bartlet : I'm making a substitution.

  Toby Ziegler : Who is this guy?

  President Josiah Bartlet : Mr. Grant's a new member of my team.

  Toby Ziegler : A ringer, perhaps?

  President Josiah Bartlet : Mr. Grant is a federal employee.

  [Mr. Grant is played by real-life NBA forward Juwan Howard] 

  Toby Ziegler : You know the thing about you, Mr. President? It isn't so much that you cheat. It's how brazenly bad you are at it.

  President Josiah Bartlet : I beg your pardon?

  Josh Lyman : Toby's got a point there, sir.

  President Josiah Bartlet : When have I ever cheated?

  Toby Ziegler : Up in Florida, playing mixed doubles with me and C.J. You tried to tell us that your partner worked at the American consulate in Vienna.

  President Josiah Bartlet : And she did.

  Toby Ziegler : It was Steffi Graf, sir.

  President Josiah Bartlet : Well, I will admit that the woman bore a striking resemblance...

  Toby Ziegler : It was Steffi Graf, you crazy lunatic! You think I'm not going to recognize Steffi Graf when she's serving a tennis ball at me?

• C.J. Cregg : Good morning, Mrs. Landingham. Where are we in the saga of Toby and the President?

  Dolores Landingham : They seem to be having a disagreement.

  C.J. Cregg : A disagreement or a fight?

  Dolores Landingham : Well, it certainly has potential...

  President Josiah Bartlet : [Yelling from the next room]  Oh for God's sakes, Toby!

  Dolores Landingham : There we go.

• President Josiah Bartlet : What will be the next thing that challenges us, Toby? That makes us go farther and work harder? Do you know that when smallpox was eradicated, it was considered the single greatest humanitarian achievement of this century? Surely we can do it again, as we did in the times when our eyes looked towards the heavens and, with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of God. Here's to absent friends and the ones that are here now. Cheers.

• Toby Ziegler : ...If I were an actor or a writer or uh, uh, uh, a producer in Hollywood and someone were to start coming at me with lists of things that were American and un-American I'd start to think that this was sounding eerily familiar.

  President Josiah Bartlet : Do I look like Joe McCarthy to you, Toby?

  Toby Ziegler : No, sir. Nobody ever looks like Joe McCarthy. That's how they get in the door in the first place.

• Mandy Hampton : Yes, so, Mr. President, if you could further see clear to not answer that question like an economics professor with a big ole stick up his butt, that would be good too.

  President Josiah Bartlet : I *am* an economics professor with a big ole stick up my butt, but I'll do my best for you there, Mandy.

• President Josiah Bartlet : Is it time for my 10:00 a.m. scolding?

• President Josiah Bartlet : I'm sorry, but some of my staff has been waiting and they haven't had the chance to bother me for a couple hours.

• President Josiah Bartlet : 'Cause I'm weak-willed and stupid.

• President Josiah Bartlet : [during a basketball game with Toby, Josh, and Charlie]  Let the poets write about that *there*, Byron!