Obama’s ‘Game On’ Moment

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After President Obama’s Wednesday State of the Union address, Washington Post pundit Jo-Ann Armao likened his performance to an episode of “The West Wing” in which President Jed Bartlet debates his Republican rival, Bob Ritchie. But Armao flipped the scripts – likening Obama not to the liberal, former professor president occupying the Oval Office on the show, but to his slow-witted but charming conservative rival.

Armao writes:

It was the end of his last presidential debate, against a challenger who possessed a knack for summing up complex issues with pithy statements, when Bartlet pounced: “There it is. Ten-word answers can kill you in political campaigns. They’re the tip of the sword. Here’s my question: What are the next 10 words of your answer . . .  How are we going to do it?” How exactly is what I yearned to hear from the president last night.

It’s a valid criticism – although one that could be applied to virtually any SOTU address in history, and not just Obama’s. But it was actually just two days later, when he faced GOP leaders in a Q&A-style meeting, that Obama truly epitomized the essence of that episode: the ass-kicking, substantive, eloquent-but-forceful president squaring off in his element.

The episode begins with staffers tired and anxious about how the president will perform after an exhausting series of prep sessions. After a last-second backstage fiasco involving a severed tie, the first exchange begins:

Gov. Robert Richie: My view of this is simple: we don’t need a Federal Department of Education telling us our children have to learn Esperanto, they have to learn Eskimo poetry. Let the states decide, let the communities decide on health care, on education, on lower taxes, not higher taxes. Now, he’s going to throw a big word at you – “unfunded mandate.” He’s going to say if Washington lets the states do it, it’s an unfunded mandate. But what he doesn’t like is the federal government losing power. But I call it the ingenuity of the American people.

President Josiah Bartlet: Well, first of all, let’s clear up a couple of things. “Unfunded mandate” is two words, not one big word. There are times when we’re fifty states and there are times when we’re one country, and have national needs. And the way I know this is that Florida didn’t fight Germany in World War II or establish civil rights. You think states should do the governing wall-to-wall. That’s a perfectly valid opinion. But your state of Florida got $12.6 billion in federal money last year – from Nebraskans, and Virginians, and New Yorkers, and Alaskans, with their Eskimo poetry. 12.6 out of a state budget of $50 billion. I’m supposed to be using this time for a question, so here it is: Can we have it back, please?

Ecstatic that Bartlet has come out swinging, his staffers enthusiastically shout “Game on!” backstage. White House staffers told the Huffington Post they were “absolutely ecstatic” after Obama’s performance in the Friday Q&A with congressional Republicans – meaning they had their own real life “Game on!” moment.

In the “West Wing” episode, Ritchie knows immediately that his political fate has been sealed, and whispers to Bartlet after the debate, “It’s over.” In real life, it’s obviously far from over, and Republicans aren’t likely to roll over and quit – especially since they’re still glowing from Scott Brown’s victory – nor are they likely to acknowledge having been smacked down as readily as Ritchie did. But it made for just television that was just as good as when the “Game On” episode aired in 2002, and was perhaps even more satisfying given the real-life stakes and implications.