Oliver Babish
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Oliver Babish is a fictional character in the NBC television series The West Wing. Played by Oliver Platt, he has been White House Counsel in President Josiah Bartlet's White House for the majority of his two term Presidency.
Babish became President Bartlet's fifth and final White House counsel in 2001, following the departure of Lionel Tribbey for reasons that have never been made clear. The first time Babish appeared in the show was with regards to President Bartlet's decision to make public the fact that he had multiple sclerosis and had not made this public at any previous stage of his presidential candidacy or his presidency. Before that point Babish had served for three months as White House counsel, having previously been Midwest Finance Chairman on the Bartlet for America campaign.
During Babish's questioning of the White House senior staff with regards to what they knew about the President's disease, he had particular difficulty with then Press Secretary C.J. Cregg, who he accused of being "pissed at the world for no particular reason" during his initial questioning of her. He was also shown as being frustrated with First Lady Abbey Bartlet, as a result of his perception that she didn't accept the seriousness of her violation of medical ethics rules in medicating her husband.
Following the end of the story arc regarding the disclosure of the President's multiple sclerosis, Babish did not appear through Seasons 4-6, reappearing in Season 7 to participate in the White House's internal investigation into the identity of the person responsible for leaking information regarding the existence of a military space shuttle to the New York Times. After initially viewing White House Chief of Staff C.J Cregg as the prime suspect, he advised the President to shut down the White House investigation, and to instead co-operate with the Congressional investigation into the leak. Following the confession of White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler, Babish questioned him briefly about the leak, before being the sole observer to an Oval Office meeting between President Bartlet and Toby Ziegler in which the Communications Director was fired for an "egregious national security violation".
Later on in Season 7, during the transition between President Bartlet's final term and the beginning of Congressman Matthew Santos's, it was revealed that Babish had just left the White House, owing to him being soon to be out of a job anyway, to join a law firm. Santos, however, expressed desire to make him Attorney General.
[edit] Other items
- Babish has been divorced four times in total.
- He admits to having been kicked out of bars in the past.
- Babish owns a large gavel that was a gift to his grandfather from Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. The gavel is referred to by his staff as the "big hammer".
- Babish's children know President Bartlet's children. Due to what would have to be a fairly large age discrepancy between Babish and Bartlet (as their actors are two decades apart age-wise) this would imply Oliver had his children at quite a young age. (Or possibly that children plural was merely a generalization, and Bartlet's youngest Zoey is friends with one of Babish's oldests.)
- There is some sort of history between Babish and Mrs. Bartlet, enough for Abbey to assume that Oliver might be under the impression that he was the fifth White House Counsel instead of the first White House Counsel because of her.
