BARTLET:Later in the same season President Bartlet runs into Governor Ritchie at a play that both men are attending to support Catholic Charities.
Let's go ahead and say the Republicans nominate Ritchie.
TOBY:
They will.
BARTLET:
First of all, I'd stop for a moment and say, you know, 'why?' I mean they got some serious guys in the field. Kalmbach, Daniel, Wesley?
TOBY:
Democrats had a lot serious guys in the field, and they nominated you.
BARTLET:
That's true.
TOBY:
[moves a chess piece] Check.
BARTLET:
[responds with a move] You think the strike against me is nobody likes the smartest kid in the class.
TOBY:
I don't know, sir. Being a smartest kid in the class is a pretty good pitch, it's not a strike unless you watch it as it sails by.
BARTLET:
I don't do that.
TOBY:
Check.
BARTLET:
And I'm not a snob.
TOBY:
I don't believe you are.
BARTLET:
If a guy is a good neighbor, if he puts in a day, if every once in a while he laughs, if every once in a while he thinks about somebody else and, above all else, if he can find his way to compassion and, and tolerance, then he's my brother, I don't give a damn if he didn't get past finger-painting. What I can't stomach are people who're out to convince people that the educated are soft and privileged and out to make them feel like they're less, then, you know, 'he may be educated, but I'm plain-spoken, just like you!' Especially when we know that education can be a silver bullet, it can be the silver bullet, Toby! For crime, poverty, unemployment, drugs, hate...
TOBY:
Who are you trying to convince?
BARTLET:
I'm saying I don't watch the pitch go by.
CUT TO: INT. THE OVAL OFFICE - NIGHT
Bartlet pours himself coffee at his desk.
TOBY:
Abbey told me this story once. She said you were at a party once where you were bending the guy's ear. You were telling him that Ellie had mastered her multiplication tables and she was in third grade reading at a fifth-grade level and she loved books and she scored two goals for her soccer team the week before, you were going on and on... And what made that story remarkable was that the party you were at was in Stockholm and the man you were talking to was King Gustav, who two hours earlier had given you the Nobel Prize in economics. [laughs] I mean, my god, you just won the Nobel Prize and all you wanted to talk about to the King of Sweden was Ellie's multiplication tables!
BARTLET:
[approaches to sit across from him] What's your point?
TOBY:
You're a good father, you don't have to act like it. You're the President, you don't have to act like it. You're a good man, you don't have to act like it. You're not just folks, you're not plain-spoken... Do not, do not, do not act like it!
BARTLET:
I don't want to be killed.
TOBY:
Then make this election about smart, and not... Make it about engaged, and not. Qualified, and not. Make it about a heavyweight. You're a heavyweight. And you've been holding me up for too many rounds.
Toby lays down his king on the board to retire. Bartlet stands and turns to walk out.
BARTLET:
Pick your king up. We're not done playing yet.
ROBERT RITCHIE:
Mr. President.
BARTLET:
Governor.
RITCHIE:
You enjoying the play?
BARTLET:
I am. How about you?
RITCHIE:
We just got here. We were at the Yankee game. We were, you know, hung up in traffic.
BARTLET:
Yeah, I know. Listen, politics aside, and I don't want to make a big deal out of it, but you probably insulted the church, and you can head it off at the pass if you speak to the Cardinal tonight.
RITCHIE:
Well, I didn't mean to insult anybody.
BARTLET:
No.
RITCHIE:
And it's a baseball game. It's how ordinary Americans...
BARTLET:
Yeah. [beat] No, I don't understand that. The center fielder for the Yankees is an accomplished classical guitarist. People who like baseball can't like books?
RITCHIE:
Are you taking this personally?
BARTLET:
No. Something horrible happened about an hour ago.
The two find a place to sit across each other.
BARTLET:
C.J. Cregg was getting threats so we put an agent on her. He's a good guy. He was on my detail for a while, and he was in Rosslyn. He walked in the middle of an armed robbery, and was shot and killed after detaining one of the suspects.
RITCHIE:
Oh. Crime. Boy, I don't know.
BARTLET:
[sighs] We should have a great debate, Rob. We owe it to everyone. When I was running as a governor, I didn't know anything. I made them start Bartlet college in my dining room. Two hours every morning on foreign affairs and the military. You can do that.
RITCHIE:
How many different ways you think you're gonna find to call me dumb?
BARTLET:
I wasn't, Rob. But you've turned being un-engaged into a Zen-like thing, and you shouldn't enjoy it so much is all, and if it appears at times as if I don't like you, that's the reason why.
RITCHIE:
You're what my friends call a superior sumbitch. You're an academic elitist and a snob. You're, uh, Hollywood, you're weak, you're liberal, and you can't be trusted. And if it appears from time to time as if I don't like you, well, those are just a few of the many reasons why.
Music plays inside the theater.
BARTLET:
They're playing my song.
Bartlet stands and heads to the stairs, but he turns to Ritchie before reaching them.
BARTLET:
In the future, if you're wondering, "Crime. Boy, I don't know" is when I decided to kick your ass.
I certainly hope that the Republican Party chooses not to head down the Ritchie path with a coronation of the same Sarah Palin we observed in this election cycle. I don’t have a problem with ignorance, but I have a big problem with flaunting ignorance as a virtue, as if being intellectually engaged in world affairs was somehow a mark of elitism rather than prudence. Even David, who was certainly “unengaged” at the time of his anointing, was elevated because of humility, not because he saw his lack of gravitas as a blessed diamond to show the world.
