Great, great episode!

I love the writing of the scenes with Bartlet dealing with the immigrants.

Once again, Toby acts like a total ass when dealing with members of the other party. Saying "I'm better than you," which he literally says, is childish and does nothing more than harden the opposition. I used to like him, but watching these episodes on DVD shows that, in reality, he's a sour, rude person who feels superior to everyone else around him.

Re: "Shibboleth." First, Bartlet is a heck of a religious person to have this very obscure account memorized. (It's taken from Judges, chapter 12.)

Second, he explains it incorrectly. He says that it was a password that the ancient Israelites used to identify enemy soldiers, as the enemies could not correctly make the "sh" sound; instead, they pronounced it "sibboleth." As a result of this mispronounciation, the sentries stationed at the Jordan River put the fakers to death. It is true that shibboleth was used as a password; however, the "enemies" were really Israelites! They were from the half-tribe of Ephraim (two half-tribes, Ephraim and Manasseh, descended from Jacob's son Joseph; thus, the tribe of Joseph was never counted), who had declared war on the men living in Gilead. The Gileadites had asked Ephraim for help in a military campaign at one time and had been refused, so the next time they embarked against the enemy, they did not invite the Ephraimites along. This angered Ephraim, who declared war on Gilead. When the Ephraimites would try to escape across the Jordan, the Gileadites would use this test to weed them out.