The Portland Trip

Infobox Television episode
Title = The Portland Trip
Series = The West Wing


Caption =
Season = 2
Episode = 29
Airdate = November 152000
Production = 226207
Writer = Aaron Sorkin (teleplay)
Paul Redford (story)
Director = Paris Barclay
Guests = Timothy Busfield
Emily Procter
Charley Lang
David Graf
NiCole Robinson
Michael Tomlinson
Gregg Daniel
Episode list = List of "The West Wing" episodes
Season list = Infobox The West Wing season 2 episode list
Prev =
Next ="The Portland Trip" is the 29th episode of "The West Wing".

Plot

C.J. is made to join the President on a trip to Portland after making a joke about Notre Dame. The President wants to annouce a major education initiative but he doesn't have a specific idea, and Sam is facing a serious bout of writers' block in spite of Toby's efforts to help him out, leading C.J. to try and withdraw a Sam-written proposal that he is not happy about and wants to redo. Charlie suggests an interesting idea: the government offering tuition incentives in exchange for people teaching at a public school. After deciding not to use a phrase by Mao Zedong in discussing the idea, the plan comes forth for a small pilot program based on Charlie's suggestion, which the President glumly says is "a start".

Josh spends the evening discussing an anti-gay marriage bill with a gay Republican congressman, and can't really understand how a gay man could throw his support behind a measure that says he's a lesser citizen of the U.S. The Congressman says that he agrees with most of the Republican agenda and doesn't have to base his entire life around his sexuality, but does show visible contempt when some GOP colleagues fawn over his efforts in support of the bill.

Margaret is concerned that Leo will drink after being served with divorce papers. Leo says he doesn't need an excuse to drink but appreciates her concern. He spends his day monitoring a situation in the Persian Gulf where an American oil company has been caught smuggling Iraqi petroleum for sale on the black market. After going through the military measures to stop the ship and the process of testing to determine its origin, Leo acknowledges that under the UN sanctions plan, the company will have to pay a fine but will be allowed to sell the oil--this means they will bring in revenues that far exceed the relatively small fine figures. This gross imbalance, along with the education plan problems, spell out the limits of what the administration can do on some of the key issues it faces.

Donna goes on a date which was so awful she left after only having soup to eat and whiskey sours.

Trivia

Charley Lang, who played Congressman Skinner in two Season One episodes, had spoken with Aaron Sorkin about the issue of gay Republicans after his work on the No on Knight campaign, which was rallying against The Knight Initiative, which became law in 2001, prohibiting same sex marriages. He was called by show asking if he was interested in doing another episode and read in the script much of what he and Aaron discussed.

External links

* [http://epguides.com/WestWing/ The West Wing Episode Guide]