The West Wing (1999)

5 quotes from season 4

★★★★☆

Starring: Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Rob Lowe, Bradley Whitford, Stockard Channing, Richard Schiff, Dulé Hill, John Spencer, Janel Moloney, Joshua Malina

Genres: Drama

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Movie Quote Quiz

Debate Camp - S4-E5

President Josiah Bartlet: My daughters are here?
Abbey Bartlet: Are you kidding? Ellie's wearing makeup.
President Josiah Bartlet: Well, I don't approve of that.
Abbey Bartlet: You understand she's 27, right?
President Josiah Bartlet: I don't approve of that, either.

Game On - S4-E6

Josh Lyman: I got it. I read it. It was good stuff. It's possible the salient details escape me.

20 Hours in America: Part I - S4-E1

President Josiah Bartlet: I'm going to find out anyway. What I lack in memory, I more than make up for with exceptional powers of deductive reasoning.

20 Hours in America: Part I - S4-E1

Sam Seaborn: Do we have some sort of condensed, Reader's Digest index of... Well, all human knowledge?
Ginger: We usually just use Margaret.

20 Hours in America: Part I - S4-E1

Sam Seaborn: Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright.

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Mistakes

Election Day (Part 1) - S7-E16

Continuity mistake: When Bruno and Bob are poring over exit polls, they mention that Santos seems to be leading in North Dakota, and comment that it is a state that hasn't gone Democratic in forty years. While that is true in the real world, in the fictional West Wing world, it is stated in Season 4 that Bartlet won the Dakotas in his landslide reelection.

marathon69

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Trivia

Trivia: Martin Sheen also played the President in the mini series "Kennedy" and in another character's vision in 1983's The Dead Zone.

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Questions

In Excelsis Deo - S1-E10

Question: This is as good a place to ask as any. In various US TV shows (including this one, and this episode), someone says "I could care less", when they always seem to mean "I couldn't care less", ie. they have no interest in what's going on. Surely if they COULD care less that means they actually care a reasonable amount? Is there any logic to this, or is it just a really annoying innate lack of sense?

Jon Sandys ★

Chosen answer: A really annoying innate lack of sense. My friends and family say the same thing all the time, and I'm endlessly trying to correct them. I think people just don't know any better and (ironically) couldn't care less that they're speaking incorrectly.

Answer: It's an endlessly annoying dropped negative, and it's been a common colloquialism for far too long. I believe it comes from an original (and now omitted and merely implied) "As if" preceding the statement. "As if I could care less." (Meaning "As if it were possible that I could care even less than I do.") But there's really no way to know.

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