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Speaking of The West Wing, I recently watched Isaac and Ishmael, an episode written in response to the September 11 tragedy. It’s a “very special episode” in that it’s nearly a play in format, and sits outside the continuity of The West Wing plot. Whenever I hear “very special episode” I think of that classic, weird episode of Family Ties.

In this episode, the senior staff talk with each other and a group of high school students while in ‘lock down’ at the White House. It’s kind of a pretentious, didactic device, but I have to credit writer Aaron Sorkin with some fairly prescient observations. Here are two of my favourites:

TOBY
What about illegal searches? What about profiling? Do you know what Benjamin Franklin said?

C.J.
He said, “Hey, look, I’ve invented the stove.”

BILLY
He said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

And C.J. makes a number of salient points on the nature of combating terrorists and the impact of ‘homeland security’:

Look, I talk civil liberties as seriously as anybody, okay? I’ve been to the dinners and we haven’t even talked about free speech yet and somebody getting lynched by the patriotism police for voicing a minority opinion. That said, Tobus, we’re going to have to do some stuff. We’re going to have to tap some phones and we’re going to have to partner with some people who are the lesser of evils. I’m sorry but terrorists don’t have armies and navies. They don’t have capitals. Some of these guys we’re going to have to walk up to them and shoot them. Yeah, we can root terrorist nests but some of these guys aren’t going to be taken by the 105thn armored tank division. Some of these guys are going to be taken by a busboy with a silencer.

It’s still the smartest show no longer on television. You can read the entire script online, should you want to.