This is another solid episode in a very strong season. I felt compelled to write this though to highlight one moment of exposition that is just really sub par. There's a moment in the situation room when someone mentions that a CIA "wet team" will be going on a rescue mission. The President asks why a wet team, the location is no where near water. It's explained that wet team is the term used when a mission is expected to get bloody.
So yeah. It is totally inconceivable that a President in his fourth year of office would not know that term. Add to that this is President Bartlet who is intellectually gifted and preternaturally attentive to detail and it's even more unbelievable. A weak moment, then. Sorkin did this a few times over the seasons, making Bartlet ignorant of things he wouldn't have been, just because he needed to have some exposition at a critical moment, but this was a particularly egregious example and not for nothing but I would bet the farm on him cringing if he sat through and listened to that line today. Sorkin is a genius but that moment always reminds me he's human too.
So yeah. It is totally inconceivable that a President in his fourth year of office would not know that term. Add to that this is President Bartlet who is intellectually gifted and preternaturally attentive to detail and it's even more unbelievable. A weak moment, then. Sorkin did this a few times over the seasons, making Bartlet ignorant of things he wouldn't have been, just because he needed to have some exposition at a critical moment, but this was a particularly egregious example and not for nothing but I would bet the farm on him cringing if he sat through and listened to that line today. Sorkin is a genius but that moment always reminds me he's human too.