And It's Surely to Their Credit

"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.

Plot

The episode features Ainsley Hayes's (Emily Procter) first day as an Associate White House Counsel and fellow West Wing employees' reactions to her employment, as she is a Republican in a Democratic administration. Early in the day, she is presented to her new boss, White House Counsel Lionel Tribbey (played by John Larroquette), who is angry about her hiring and distrustful of her motives. He also is angry about two junior West Wing staffers who have represented the White House badly before Congress, and he assigns Ainsley to visit Capitol Hill and try to placate the Republican leadership. Before leaving, she points out to Tribbey that, like her, he serves the president from a sense of civic duty despite disagreeing with many of his positions, and he responds with a reference from a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta; however, they disagree on the source of the quote. On her return, the two staffers are overtly hostile to Ainsley and later send her a wilted plant with an unsigned card calling her a bitch. Sam starts to reprimand her for addressing the two staffers directly, but upon discovering their inappropriate response, he storms to their office and fires them. Tribbey is standing nearby and seconds their dismissal, after which Sam disputes the operetta reference, alluding to his collegiate expertise in the matter. In the closing scene of the episode, he gathers Josh, C.J., and Toby in Ainsley's basement office to welcome her with a chorus from the disputed song, "He is an Englishman."

Elsewhere in the episode, C.J. 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 claims leave the U.S. military unprepared. C.J. first notes some flaws in both the budget views and the scope of conflicts envisioned in that assessment, then calls out that he has been wearing medals he did not earn. The general backs down, but the president later tells her that as the retiring leader fought valiantly ("he was the first in and the last out") in a war in which Bartlett did not want to serve, the general has earned the right to speak.

Sam tries to convince Josh to sue a variety of hate groups indirectly responsible for his shooting, citing precedents 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 staffers. Josh decides not to sue the hate groups because he feels it trivializes the matter, though he will pursue action against his obstinate health insurance company.

Meanwhile, the president has difficulty recording his weekly radio address and also finding time to spend with the First Lady now that he is sufficiently recovered from the shooting to resume sexual activity. She halts one encounter to chastise him for not being aware of the accomplishments of the prominent woman she was travelling to honour, journalist Nellie Bly, which inspires him to create a new radio message about the need for more monuments to the women who helped build the nation.

Title

The episode title is based on a line from the famous "He is an Englishman" solo and chorus from Act II of H.M.S. Pinafore, a comic opera by Gilbert and Sullivan. Whether the line is from Pinafore or The Pirates of Penzance, also by Gilbert and Sullivan, is the source of a running joke throughout the episode.

Trivia

• C.J. says that a three-star general is the Army Chief of Staff; that position is a four-star billet. (When the general shows up in CJ's office he has three stars on his shoulder boards.)

External links

• The West Wing Episode Guide