And It's Surely to Their Credit

Infobox Television episode
Title = And It's Surely to Their Credit
Series = The West Wing


Caption =
Season = 2
Episode = 27
Airdate = November 12000
Production = 226205
Writer = Aaron Sorkin (teleplay)
Kevin Falls & Laura Glasser (story)
Director = Christopher Misiano
Guests = Stockard Channing
John Larroquette
Emily Procter
Daniel Roebuck
Tom Bower
Paul Perri
Steven Flynn
Kathryn Joosten
NiCole Robinson
Episode list = List of "The West Wing" episodes
Season list = Infobox The West Wing season 2 episode list
Prev =
Next ="And It's Surely to Their Credit" is the fifth episode of the second season of the television series "The West Wing", which premiered on NBC on November 1, 2000.

The episode features Ainsley Hayes' (played by Emily Procter) first day as an Associate White House Counsel and fellow West Wing employees reactions to her employment. She tries to get two obnoxious West Wing staffers to correct an unintentional error they made in Congressional testimony due to their misplacing a memo. The staffers are overtly hostile to Hayes and later send her a wilted plant with an ugly message on it. Sam also lashes out at her but when he sees how hurt she is by this unprovoked attack, he turns his message around and fires the staffers on the spot, an action backed up by White House Counsel Lionel Tribbey (played by John Larroquette) who hates a Republican being in his shop but later admits to her that he also hates that the President isn't nearly as liberal as he'd like on key issues that are important to him, and by episode's end is making it clear--along with the senior staffers--that she's earned his and their respect.

Elsewhere in the episode, CJ Cregg faces off with a retiring Army General (Tom Bower) who is planning to publicly criticize the President. The General is angry about military budget restrictions that he claim leave the U.S. military unable to fight two major wars at the same time. C.J. first notes some flaws in both the budget views and the scope of conflicts envisioned in that strategy, then calls out that he has been wearing medals he did not earn (shades of the Jeremy Boorda case). The General backs down, but the President later tells her that the retiring leader fought valiantly in the Vietnam War while Jed Bartlet never served there and spent his energies trying to end the war, and says the General can go and say whatever he wants to without any restrictions or opposition from his administration.

Sam Seaborn tries to convince Josh Lyman to sue a variety of hate groups indirectly responsible for the assassination attempt on President Bartlet, citing precedent of damages collected from several neo-Nazi organizations. Toby is against the idea, pointing out that the sued organizations could then launch their own discovery motions against the staffers. Josh decides not to sue the hate groups because he doesn't want to beat them in that manner, though he will pursue action against his idiotic health insurance company.

Title

The title is a line from the song "He is an Englishman" in "H.M.S. Pinafore", a comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan which is the focus of a running gag throughout the episode.

External links

* [http://epguides.com/WestWing/ The West Wing Episode Guide]