Not bad.

I like Goodman as President Walken.

SPOILER (highlight as usual...)
Josh is wrong. In the short term, there may be a political price as the Republicans can take advantage, but the long term advantage to the Republic as a whole, including the fact that future terrorists will (hopefully) realize that kidnapping the President's family won't work, is an overriding factor.

End spoiler.

Among themselves, the staff refers to Walken as "Walken", not "The President".

I know I anti-nitted this one over on the Stargate SG-1 board, but I think there's a difference between "The Old Man" (commanding officer), and the President (wherein the office itself should command respect).

I like the uncertainty about where they stand with Walken.

SPOILER (highlight)
Regarding the VP issue... Leo or somebody should point out to Walken that appointing a Democrat would be a good thing to show that partisan politics aren't in play.

Agreed, Scott.

With which part?

Both. And Goodman makes an awesome President.

I hope that CJ gets severely reprimanded by Bartlett (after resuming office, of course) if he finds out that she told Danny to post his story. I mean, her actions were harmful to the Administration as a whole, and Bartlett will have to deal with the ramifications of her actions when he gets back into office. She put her personal feelings ahead of the good of her President.

Not that I don't like CJ, I do. I just want some realism here. She shouldn't be viewed as 'one of the good guys' for this.

I'm not sure about that Jesse. She told Danny to post, so that he could beat the Walken administration announcement. Either way it was coming out.

Yeah, that's true, Scott, but who announces it first is a big deal. If I admit publicly that I did something, it looks way better than if a major newspaper posts it and then I have to hold a press conference. Not only does it look like I'm choosing to come clean, but I get to control the spin of the story, and it takes the wind out of the newspaper version (e.g., it's old news).

CJ did what she did as a favor to Danny, and also because she doesn't view Walken as the President. Had Bartlett been in office, she never would have done that. This shows amazing disrespect on her part, particularly since (a) Bartlett caused the situation, not Walken, and (b) no one is going to hammer Walken for this, but when Bartlett comes back the hammering will commence.

Synopsis for this episode:

President Walken hits the ground running in the search for Zoey whilst Bartlett waits it out on the sidelines. Meanwhile the White House staff begin to resent the intrusion by the Republicans into the West Wing so CJ plays a little dirty....