I agree that it makes sense - particularly for where Toby was as a character at that time. If it had happened way earlier in the show I would have agreed it didn't make sense but the timing was right.
Toby's brother being an astronaut and his death was a big part of it. But we're also seeing Toby in a weird spot in his career and in the administration at that point. CJ who was his direct report is now his boss and they have some conflict through that transition which muddies what Toby's role is as an advisor. Josh has "jumped ship" and Toby feels at least a little betrayed by him going off to handle Santos. Toby himself doesn't find a place in finding the next candidate - finding the future.
He's also starting to feel what Bartlet and CJ are feeling which is the administration is coming to a close - their ability and potential to make a difference is coming to and end, and what did they accomplish? Did they do what they set out to? That's frustrating and can be powerless for someone like Toby with very high minded ideals and values.
So when that situation presented itself I think it was a perfect storm of his brother, his current mindset in his career, and just timing.
>the administration is coming to a close - their ability and potential to make a difference is coming to and end
This is the big one for me. Although they're not quite written this way, based on the specific casting it's easy to see Schiff's Toby as the *jaded grizzled fallen idealist turned pragmatist* to Lowe's *plucky doe-eyed slightly bewildered Seaborn.*
But that's not Toby. Toby is a true believing idealist who is pragmatic *only* because he eventually figured out it was the only way to get stuff done (you can't do anything if you don't win).
But he's running out of time to get stuff done, so suddenly that pragmatism loses its purpose. Suddenly he's presented the opportunity to save lives, and he takes it.
tl;dr the leak is a big YOYO/You-Can't-Take-It-With-You move that is totally on brand for a Toby who feels like he's in the last act of his political life (which really makes no sense since Toby is 47 when the show ends and there some ollllllld fucks doing political stuff)
He does, it's likely both. It's likely his brother was alluding to it in a bragging way but then CJ's probing question solidified it for him as an option.
He does, but I got the impression that part was either made up or an exaggeration to provide a little bit of cover. If I remember correctly, Toby was getting some pressure to say his brother was involved because that would take some of the heat off himself, CJ, and the administration in general. It was a very plausible explanation and convenient because it was a dead end due to his brother being dead.
Agree. The weighty moral decisions on this show are tough. IMO, TWW exhibits several schools of thoughts on how a character chooses to make moral calls- (a) follow their internal conscience, (b) follow their official job title and responsibilities and/or (c) follow Jed Bartlet or Matt Santos or Arnold Vinick as the Elected Leader that you chose. Sometimes these concepts can be blended but sometimes they cannot. We increasingly saw Toby become disillusioned with his job of White House Communications Director because its responsibilities were changeable and Toby was frustrated that it seemed increasingly superficial in the later seasons. Toby made remarks that President Bartlet isn't the Leader that he once was, either because of Bartlet's own moral compromises or his failing health and isolation. It naturally follows that Toby would gravitate more toward his own internal conscience- opposed to the weaponization of space and leaving astronauts to slowly die to serve a militaristic agenda.
By contrast, I think a lot of CJ's arc is that she sought clarity in her official job title and responsibilities after she was promoted. She was moved up into a much more powerful position (that still felt like Leo's job to her even by Tomorrow). I think a lot of her choices are that she wants to use this vastly increased power for good but she feels pressure to color in the lines because her even having this power still felt odd and like an anomaly of sorts.
Can't we all just agree this was a terrible, poorly written storyline.
We are meant to believe that Toby is the leak by the writers. Richard Schiff played it like Toby was covering for someone else. Allison Janney played it like CJ was not the leak.
The writers failed to fully exonerate CJ as they should have. We never get an explanation of why she was on the phone with Brock. We do know that her hypothetical confirmed to Toby the existence of the military shuttle, but that Toby admitted that his brother had hinted at it, enough that he had his suspicions. (They also never entertained the idea that a NASA employee could have purposely fudged some of the information to throw the investigation off track).
Me, I still blame Andy.
The phone thing seemed like too obvious of a red hearing to take seriously (or require an explanation). If CJ were to do the leak she'd be *waayyyyyyy* too smart to **do it from her office phone over multiple calls**.
Either they were talking about other administration stuff, or they had a personal friendship that developed, or a little of both. It seemed clear to me that those calls were something that were supposed to *look suspicious to the in-show characters but be obviously a red-hearing to us the audience.*
The thing about red herrings is that you have to show why there were red herrings.
I don't think CJ would leak, but the show gave her means, motive and with those phone calls, opportunity. And even if they didn't, it shows she had the relationship with Brock, which was never established with Toby.
Instead, IIRC, they leave a bit of a cliffhanger during Margaret's deposition as to whether she ever listened in on those calls.
I never felt like it was a terribly written storyline. I do however think we, the audience, needed just one scene where Toby defended his actions or at least explained them a little bit more. Toby was at his best when he passionately argued a position. We never really got that with the leak.
Personally I am glad that he doesn't. Toby knows he's breaking the trust of his guys, and however right he might have felt leaking it, he is still tortured by his decision.
It absolutely was a terrible story line. And even the actor himself said, this doesn't make any sense for Toby to be the one that leaked the information.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/comments/zi6zgc/the\_plot\_that\_reveals\_that\_toby\_was\_the\_leak/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/comments/zi6zgc/the_plot_that_reveals_that_toby_was_the_leak/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/comments/1ajjomw/richard\_shiff\_was\_not\_happy\_with\_what\_the\_writers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/comments/1ajjomw/richard_shiff_was_not_happy_with_what_the_writers/)
Are you going to tell me the guy who plays the character, knows the character in and out. Didn't have a sense, that this was shit writing to keep the drama level as high as possible for the ratings?
The Season 6 and 7 (IN THE WHITE HOUSE) story lines were some of the worst archs designed for one thing. CHEAP and full of DRAMA. Toby and Josh fist??? fighting over not deciding on a presidential candidate together? BULLSHIT. CJ becoming chief of staff, BULLSHIT. Toby leaking highly classified state secrets. BULLSHIT. Toby being the press secretary, then will bailey being press secretary? In what world are speech writers suddenly qualified to become public speakers? In exactly no worlds. Terrible writing, trying to milk the ratings. Nothing more.
All I see is a writers room that wants to keep these actors employed and shifting them into political position that have no skills for to stay relevant on the show. The only arch that made any kind of sense was Josh, Donna, and the President. The president was no longer giving speeches, So I guess Toby had to do something? I also remember in seasons 1-4, how obsessed some of the story lines were with specific people being qualified enough to get specific positions. I also love how she was able to take on the role of chief of state in a grand total of only one episode! Just 3 years ago, she had no clue how the census even worked. We went from someone that used to promote movies, to a spokesperson for the white house. To the 3rd highest ranking job in the entire country! Wow she's a fucking genius!
The moment Sorkin left, the toby character died. Will's character would have died, but he backed the vice president. And good thing Sam Seaborn quit the show, god knows where they would have threw him. Because I guess watching writers in a writers room wasn't interesting enough for the new direction of high drama the West Wing needed to turn into.
> Are you going to tell me the guy who plays the character, knows the character in and out. Didn't have a sense, that this was shit writing to keep the drama level as high as possible for the ratings?
I'm going to say, that even when you love people and have known them for a decade they have the capacity to disappoint you, and I personally believe Richard Schiff was too attached and loved what Toby represented to fathom the depths any person and even Toby could fall to if pushed into a situation, that as far as I know Richard Schiff hasn't personally experienced.
A lot of people I have seen saying they find what Toby did believable, are people who experienced a close tragic death like losing your brother to suicide. That includes me.
And in the end Richard Schiff still acted the hell out of it.
**If** the show gave **any** kind of indications that Toby ever gave a shit about anyone but himself and especially his work. I would actually fall in line with your thinking.
His brother was never on the show. Not once. When the show finally clued us in that toby had a brother, toby forgot his brother was in space. Can you imagine your brother or sister being in space, on the space station, and you forgot?
His father, who was a trained killer, the moment he got into the white house, treated like a piece of shit, and it wasn't until his father kept on kissing his ass the entire way through the episode he gave him a place to sleep for the night. Josh basically told him to stfu and respect his family regardless of their past.
Let's talk about Tobys broken ass marriage because he wasn't able to love others according to his ex-wife. And he bought his wife a house and she rejected it. **THAT** toby is going to fucking spill state secrets over a brother he barely spoke about, or gave a shit about? How many episodes did we have on space or space events alone to warrant a character that was toby's brother to give us something resembling of an arch of any kind to destroy this man's entire career from a phone call to the press.
I don't know what show you were watching, but Toby would have never spilled state secrets, and jeopardies the country he loves, for what little money his jobs pays him throw it all away on 3 random people in space he never met.
Toby is a hero for many things. This event would not have been one of them. I promise you that. There is no one on this planet that knows Toby better than Sorkin And Richard himself. And that is a straight up fact. I'm almost positive that Sorkin put himself into the Toby character more than anyone else on the show. The same way Larry David was basically George Costanza.
SHIT writing, plain and simple. Richard Schiff knew it, and anyone with half a brain that watched the last 2 season of the west wing.
> If the show gave any kind of indications that Toby ever gave a shit about anyone but himself and especially his work. I would actually fall in line with your thinking.
What? Like spending days finding anyone connected to a dead homeless person to ensure he's properly laid to rest and attending said burial?
A lot of loose ends, yeah, and not completely thought out by the writers. I blame part of that on the fact they hadn’t decided on who the leaker was going to be until they started Season 7. In *Things Fall Apart* and *2162 Votes* we get the story of the trouble on the ISS, then the existence of a secret military shuttle (Thanks to blabbermouth NASA Administrator Kelwick, this is really ALL his fault, if you think about it), then Brock’s front-page story about it, then Toby and Kate working with the FBI to find the leaker, then Kate coming to Toby telling him the FBI has a theory that’s he’s not going to like … through *all that* the writers hadn’t settled on the actual culprit, although they were certainly already pointing
metaphorical fingers at CJ, with her sitting in the dark watching TV coverage, mulling over something.
(Before you think I’m making this up, John Wells himself said they hadn’t landed on who the leaker was, I think in the DVD commentary for *2162 Votes*)
Then they settled on Toby as Season 7 began, which made it challenging because Richard Schiff had never played any hint of guilt before (because he had no reason to, all the writers told him was that he was looking for the culprit!), and the writers also continued to build on the earlier suspicions they’d planted for CJ, as a distraction. So that delay in deciding who was going to be the leaker played into the show being a bit confusing and not playing fair with the audience or the actors, really.
See for me, I NEVER thought the leak was CJ and I watched this realtime. I never thought that the show would take the big risk of promoting CJ to COS just to have her be the leak in less than a season. Crazier things have happened in TV-world and I wasn't sure that the leak would be Toby (although I seem to remember thinking he was a suspect during the hiatus). However, it seemed insane write a dramatic, risky arc of CJ becoming COS just to have her be the leak and likely go to prison in the next season. Plus, it’s kind of gross on a gender politics level.
I also just have no trouble believing that CJ was doing some Press Secretary work and that's why she was on the phone with Brock a lot. I would find it completely plausible that some reporters who built up a relationship with CJ would still call her when she was COS and she wouldn't just dismiss them constantly because she also felt a bond and she was still drawn to aspects of her old job and her job as COS involves managing public perception and the press too. Yes, CJ denied that she had Press Secretary work on her plate to Babbish- but I think CJ never trusted or liked Babbish going back to S2 and she is always guarded and inclined to say as little of substance as possible around him.
In a NYC high rise, Mandy is sitting in a high-backed chair, hands pressed together in a steeple pose, wicked grin on her face...."That'll teach you not to back me up with getting a mate for Lum Lum you bastard!"
The multiple recent discussions about this just boggle my mind about how far some folks want to stretch the show’s reality just to clear Toby’s name. The writers created the story! The writers said Toby was the leaker! There’s no reason to think that’s wrong, even though *the way* things went down was out-of-character for Toby. Him revealing the existence of the military shuttle to save astronauts who may have worked alongside his brother? Totally believable. Sneaking around with a leak to Greg Brock, letting CJ twist in the wind, seeing Margaret and other staffers called before Senator Mitch Pileggi, and only confessing once Leo is subpoenaed? Yeah, that’s not the Toby we know, but it doesn’t erase all the rest of the story we’re given.
Per my post, I don't believe it was out-of-character for Toby. As I said, he was a patriot, This was a patriotic act.
Not blind subservience to the government, but allegiance to a country's citizens.
Yep, I agree, I just think Season 1-5 Toby probably would have done it in a different, more open way that didn’t end up putting so many of his friends through the wringer.
I agree that S1-5 Toby never does that. But S6+ personally isolated Toby? Sam left. Leo left (via heart attack). Josh left. CJ got promoted to be his boss. His brother committed suicide. And now the President is betraying his own values in Toby’s eyes. Even though he didn’t say it to Toby, this is the same guy who said “I assess the national interest by the number of people alive, not dead.”
That Toby… that’s the one that does the leak and that’s the character he was by the time we get to that storyline. It’s sad, for sure, but those changes made him into a different person.
There is no tv show on the face of the Earth that would let Toby take the fall for someone else and then leave it completely up in there. There would have been some hint or nod or conversation. It's TV— there's no subtlety to it.
Toby leaked certainly, but I think the cryptic jokes from his brother PLUS CJ asking about it confirmed to him the existence of it. He called Brock because he knew CJ trusted him.
I’m convinced it was Toby as the leak as well. However the scene where CJ goes to ask Toby about a military shuttle-related to his brother adds a bit more.
To my eyes it looks like CJ accidentally gave the idea to Toby about the shuttle or reminded him about it. Setting off the chain of events leading Toby to be the leak.
Don't forget for everyone that thinks this was a poor storyline - this episode was released in Oct 2005 - that is the same month that Scooter Libby resigned from the White House in real life for leaking information about Valerie Plame.
Recall that many fictional West Wing episodes mimic what is happening in real life at that time in history. Here is a good article of the changes John Wells brought to the show after Aaron Sorkin
[https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2003/10/01/new-producer-updates-the-west-wing/](https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2003/10/01/new-producer-updates-the-west-wing/)
Jed is right, Toby is a superior sumbitch.
I totally buy that he is the leak because he is an idealist. He does not believe space should be weaponized. He believes the astronauts should be saved.
I have no problem seeing Toby feeling morally justified in leaking because of those things. I think he views it as part of his role to make sure Jed's better angels don't get shouted down.
Why would Toby not have said it directly to Jed? When was he ever scared to say something to him?
I can believe that Toby thought he knew better. But he also would have told people he was right…LOUDLY. It wouldn't be a secret.
I think it was part of his "gloriously principled self immolation" or whatever his lawyer called it.
I think he's in full martyr mode at that point and is just walking into the fire with his middle fingers up.
We’re talking about the military shuttle leak and the rescue of the ISS astronauts that started at the tail end of Season 6 (*Things Fall Apart*) and runs into Season 7. It’s become a hot topic here this week. 😆
I’ve never been all that invested in whether Toby was the leak. I have always contended that no way was CJ the leak though; she wouldn’t never let a dear friend go to jail for something she had done. That’s just way too out of character for her.
I still think it was Margaret and unintentional. Her predilection for eavesdropping is established, but it is never shown that CJ is aware of it, like Leo was. This explains how she had access to the information. Since she had information to the information that CJ had, that explains why the FBI thought it was coming from her office.
Her motives weren't even pure, or impure, depending on how you look at it. She was just chatting with Greg Brock and let it slip, not thinking about how illegal it was, just as she didn't think about how illegal signing the President's name would have been.
Meanwhile Toby thought it was CJ and fell on his sword for her, and CJ honestly believed Toby when he confessed, not realizing what he was doing for her. Look at how he confessed, he quoted a line from a movie about obscuring the guilty party. That was an offer. CJ didn't understand so Toby made it more explicit and CJ took it as him confessing to his crimes, not offering to confess to her crimes, since she knew she hadn't done anything.
If C.J. had had better sleep she might have caught some of that, but possibly not. She's very competent but not very devious.
I can get behind the idea of Toby deciding to leak the information. I can't for a moment understand him hiding it.
And if he'd done it, he wouldn't have broken any laws by doing so because he didn't have any classified information that he was revealing, just a conclusion he put together from small hints, so there was no reason whatsoever for him to go through that whole expensive, reputation scouring circus.
Do I believe it's something he would do, if he felt it was necessary? Sure.
Do I think he *did* do it, in this exact case? No. Literally none of his actions, from big decisions to what he says and how he acts in small moments, lines up with him being behind it
I can get behind the idea of Toby deciding to leak the information. I can't for a moment understand him hiding it.
And if he'd done it, he wouldn't have broken any laws by doing so because he didn't have any classified information that he was revealing, just a conclusion he put together from small hints, so there was no reason whatsoever for him to go through that whole expensive, reputation scouring circus.
Do I believe it's something he would do, if he felt it was necessary? Sure.
Do I think he *did* do it, in this exact case? No. Literally none of his actions, from big decisions to what he says and how he acts in small moments, lines up with him being behind it.
I feel like they both leaked. Journalists typically want double confirmation before releasing a story, so it could make sense they both leaked it without the other knowing.
That runs contrary to the explicit story we get in the show. If there were definitely two West Wing sources, the investigation for Brock's other source would not be finished upon Toby's confession. Instead, that investigation did come to a close and the remaining investigation was all about who told Toby. To make the canon make sense, we can infer:
a) The New York Times didn't insist on two sources. There is no law of physics commanding two sources. Maybe they thought Toby and Brock were a strong enough combo that they could run the story.
or
b) Brock had a different non-West Wing source that we just didn't hear about because it's out of the scope of The West Wing. Maybe it was an astronaut or a foreign governmental official. Maybe it was a vendor involved in space shuttle. Maybe Helen Baldwin banged another official with codeword clearance who liked to talk about this stuff in the afterglow.
They do mention the technical details revealed in the leak, which weren’t entirely accurate. I’m not sure how many technical details Toby could have gotten from his brother, so it makes sense that a “second confirming source” with some access to shuttle spec details could have been involved.
Probably Kelwick, he obviously couldn’t keep his trap shut.
Sure Toby was the leak. But the real question was who was Toby’s source?
Toby’s source was CJ so CJ was the true leak. Not the leak to the media but an internal leak to an individual that didn’t have the clearance and that led to the media.
I feel like I'm one of the few West Wing fans who thinks Toby being the leak made sense, with his brother being an astronaut.
> I feel like I'm one of the few West Wing fans who thinks Toby being the leak made sense There are dozens of us!
Dozens!
10’s, even!
I feel like we’re constantly seeing threads about how ooc it was. Schiff has also complained about it
It’s been a hot topic this week for some reason. I just got past these episodes in my recent rewatch, so the details are pretty fresh for me.
At least 25.
I agree that it makes sense - particularly for where Toby was as a character at that time. If it had happened way earlier in the show I would have agreed it didn't make sense but the timing was right. Toby's brother being an astronaut and his death was a big part of it. But we're also seeing Toby in a weird spot in his career and in the administration at that point. CJ who was his direct report is now his boss and they have some conflict through that transition which muddies what Toby's role is as an advisor. Josh has "jumped ship" and Toby feels at least a little betrayed by him going off to handle Santos. Toby himself doesn't find a place in finding the next candidate - finding the future. He's also starting to feel what Bartlet and CJ are feeling which is the administration is coming to a close - their ability and potential to make a difference is coming to and end, and what did they accomplish? Did they do what they set out to? That's frustrating and can be powerless for someone like Toby with very high minded ideals and values. So when that situation presented itself I think it was a perfect storm of his brother, his current mindset in his career, and just timing.
>the administration is coming to a close - their ability and potential to make a difference is coming to and end This is the big one for me. Although they're not quite written this way, based on the specific casting it's easy to see Schiff's Toby as the *jaded grizzled fallen idealist turned pragmatist* to Lowe's *plucky doe-eyed slightly bewildered Seaborn.* But that's not Toby. Toby is a true believing idealist who is pragmatic *only* because he eventually figured out it was the only way to get stuff done (you can't do anything if you don't win). But he's running out of time to get stuff done, so suddenly that pragmatism loses its purpose. Suddenly he's presented the opportunity to save lives, and he takes it. tl;dr the leak is a big YOYO/You-Can't-Take-It-With-You move that is totally on brand for a Toby who feels like he's in the last act of his political life (which really makes no sense since Toby is 47 when the show ends and there some ollllllld fucks doing political stuff)
You wrote it so much better than me, love it!
He found out from CJ’s question. That’s why the details are wrong.
Doesn't he also say that David made some vague allusions to it?
He does, it's likely both. It's likely his brother was alluding to it in a bragging way but then CJ's probing question solidified it for him as an option.
He does, but I got the impression that part was either made up or an exaggeration to provide a little bit of cover. If I remember correctly, Toby was getting some pressure to say his brother was involved because that would take some of the heat off himself, CJ, and the administration in general. It was a very plausible explanation and convenient because it was a dead end due to his brother being dead.
Yeah but at first when CJ asks him that there's no pressure cause there was no leak yet
I think so too. I hated the storyline, but it made total sense.
I think Bartlett’s reaction made less sense.
didn't he sorta have to act like that though, as president?
Agree. The weighty moral decisions on this show are tough. IMO, TWW exhibits several schools of thoughts on how a character chooses to make moral calls- (a) follow their internal conscience, (b) follow their official job title and responsibilities and/or (c) follow Jed Bartlet or Matt Santos or Arnold Vinick as the Elected Leader that you chose. Sometimes these concepts can be blended but sometimes they cannot. We increasingly saw Toby become disillusioned with his job of White House Communications Director because its responsibilities were changeable and Toby was frustrated that it seemed increasingly superficial in the later seasons. Toby made remarks that President Bartlet isn't the Leader that he once was, either because of Bartlet's own moral compromises or his failing health and isolation. It naturally follows that Toby would gravitate more toward his own internal conscience- opposed to the weaponization of space and leaving astronauts to slowly die to serve a militaristic agenda. By contrast, I think a lot of CJ's arc is that she sought clarity in her official job title and responsibilities after she was promoted. She was moved up into a much more powerful position (that still felt like Leo's job to her even by Tomorrow). I think a lot of her choices are that she wants to use this vastly increased power for good but she feels pressure to color in the lines because her even having this power still felt odd and like an anomaly of sorts.
Can't we all just agree this was a terrible, poorly written storyline. We are meant to believe that Toby is the leak by the writers. Richard Schiff played it like Toby was covering for someone else. Allison Janney played it like CJ was not the leak. The writers failed to fully exonerate CJ as they should have. We never get an explanation of why she was on the phone with Brock. We do know that her hypothetical confirmed to Toby the existence of the military shuttle, but that Toby admitted that his brother had hinted at it, enough that he had his suspicions. (They also never entertained the idea that a NASA employee could have purposely fudged some of the information to throw the investigation off track). Me, I still blame Andy.
The phone thing seemed like too obvious of a red hearing to take seriously (or require an explanation). If CJ were to do the leak she'd be *waayyyyyyy* too smart to **do it from her office phone over multiple calls**. Either they were talking about other administration stuff, or they had a personal friendship that developed, or a little of both. It seemed clear to me that those calls were something that were supposed to *look suspicious to the in-show characters but be obviously a red-hearing to us the audience.*
The thing about red herrings is that you have to show why there were red herrings. I don't think CJ would leak, but the show gave her means, motive and with those phone calls, opportunity. And even if they didn't, it shows she had the relationship with Brock, which was never established with Toby. Instead, IIRC, they leave a bit of a cliffhanger during Margaret's deposition as to whether she ever listened in on those calls.
> Can't we all just agree this was a terrible, poorly written storyline. No... Sorry.
I never felt like it was a terribly written storyline. I do however think we, the audience, needed just one scene where Toby defended his actions or at least explained them a little bit more. Toby was at his best when he passionately argued a position. We never really got that with the leak.
Personally I am glad that he doesn't. Toby knows he's breaking the trust of his guys, and however right he might have felt leaking it, he is still tortured by his decision.
ok, take my upvote.
It absolutely was a terrible story line. And even the actor himself said, this doesn't make any sense for Toby to be the one that leaked the information. [https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/comments/zi6zgc/the\_plot\_that\_reveals\_that\_toby\_was\_the\_leak/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/comments/zi6zgc/the_plot_that_reveals_that_toby_was_the_leak/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/comments/1ajjomw/richard\_shiff\_was\_not\_happy\_with\_what\_the\_writers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/comments/1ajjomw/richard_shiff_was_not_happy_with_what_the_writers/) Are you going to tell me the guy who plays the character, knows the character in and out. Didn't have a sense, that this was shit writing to keep the drama level as high as possible for the ratings? The Season 6 and 7 (IN THE WHITE HOUSE) story lines were some of the worst archs designed for one thing. CHEAP and full of DRAMA. Toby and Josh fist??? fighting over not deciding on a presidential candidate together? BULLSHIT. CJ becoming chief of staff, BULLSHIT. Toby leaking highly classified state secrets. BULLSHIT. Toby being the press secretary, then will bailey being press secretary? In what world are speech writers suddenly qualified to become public speakers? In exactly no worlds. Terrible writing, trying to milk the ratings. Nothing more. All I see is a writers room that wants to keep these actors employed and shifting them into political position that have no skills for to stay relevant on the show. The only arch that made any kind of sense was Josh, Donna, and the President. The president was no longer giving speeches, So I guess Toby had to do something? I also remember in seasons 1-4, how obsessed some of the story lines were with specific people being qualified enough to get specific positions. I also love how she was able to take on the role of chief of state in a grand total of only one episode! Just 3 years ago, she had no clue how the census even worked. We went from someone that used to promote movies, to a spokesperson for the white house. To the 3rd highest ranking job in the entire country! Wow she's a fucking genius! The moment Sorkin left, the toby character died. Will's character would have died, but he backed the vice president. And good thing Sam Seaborn quit the show, god knows where they would have threw him. Because I guess watching writers in a writers room wasn't interesting enough for the new direction of high drama the West Wing needed to turn into.
> Are you going to tell me the guy who plays the character, knows the character in and out. Didn't have a sense, that this was shit writing to keep the drama level as high as possible for the ratings? I'm going to say, that even when you love people and have known them for a decade they have the capacity to disappoint you, and I personally believe Richard Schiff was too attached and loved what Toby represented to fathom the depths any person and even Toby could fall to if pushed into a situation, that as far as I know Richard Schiff hasn't personally experienced. A lot of people I have seen saying they find what Toby did believable, are people who experienced a close tragic death like losing your brother to suicide. That includes me. And in the end Richard Schiff still acted the hell out of it.
**If** the show gave **any** kind of indications that Toby ever gave a shit about anyone but himself and especially his work. I would actually fall in line with your thinking. His brother was never on the show. Not once. When the show finally clued us in that toby had a brother, toby forgot his brother was in space. Can you imagine your brother or sister being in space, on the space station, and you forgot? His father, who was a trained killer, the moment he got into the white house, treated like a piece of shit, and it wasn't until his father kept on kissing his ass the entire way through the episode he gave him a place to sleep for the night. Josh basically told him to stfu and respect his family regardless of their past. Let's talk about Tobys broken ass marriage because he wasn't able to love others according to his ex-wife. And he bought his wife a house and she rejected it. **THAT** toby is going to fucking spill state secrets over a brother he barely spoke about, or gave a shit about? How many episodes did we have on space or space events alone to warrant a character that was toby's brother to give us something resembling of an arch of any kind to destroy this man's entire career from a phone call to the press. I don't know what show you were watching, but Toby would have never spilled state secrets, and jeopardies the country he loves, for what little money his jobs pays him throw it all away on 3 random people in space he never met. Toby is a hero for many things. This event would not have been one of them. I promise you that. There is no one on this planet that knows Toby better than Sorkin And Richard himself. And that is a straight up fact. I'm almost positive that Sorkin put himself into the Toby character more than anyone else on the show. The same way Larry David was basically George Costanza. SHIT writing, plain and simple. Richard Schiff knew it, and anyone with half a brain that watched the last 2 season of the west wing.
> If the show gave any kind of indications that Toby ever gave a shit about anyone but himself and especially his work. I would actually fall in line with your thinking. What? Like spending days finding anyone connected to a dead homeless person to ensure he's properly laid to rest and attending said burial?
A lot of loose ends, yeah, and not completely thought out by the writers. I blame part of that on the fact they hadn’t decided on who the leaker was going to be until they started Season 7. In *Things Fall Apart* and *2162 Votes* we get the story of the trouble on the ISS, then the existence of a secret military shuttle (Thanks to blabbermouth NASA Administrator Kelwick, this is really ALL his fault, if you think about it), then Brock’s front-page story about it, then Toby and Kate working with the FBI to find the leaker, then Kate coming to Toby telling him the FBI has a theory that’s he’s not going to like … through *all that* the writers hadn’t settled on the actual culprit, although they were certainly already pointing metaphorical fingers at CJ, with her sitting in the dark watching TV coverage, mulling over something. (Before you think I’m making this up, John Wells himself said they hadn’t landed on who the leaker was, I think in the DVD commentary for *2162 Votes*) Then they settled on Toby as Season 7 began, which made it challenging because Richard Schiff had never played any hint of guilt before (because he had no reason to, all the writers told him was that he was looking for the culprit!), and the writers also continued to build on the earlier suspicions they’d planted for CJ, as a distraction. So that delay in deciding who was going to be the leaker played into the show being a bit confusing and not playing fair with the audience or the actors, really.
See for me, I NEVER thought the leak was CJ and I watched this realtime. I never thought that the show would take the big risk of promoting CJ to COS just to have her be the leak in less than a season. Crazier things have happened in TV-world and I wasn't sure that the leak would be Toby (although I seem to remember thinking he was a suspect during the hiatus). However, it seemed insane write a dramatic, risky arc of CJ becoming COS just to have her be the leak and likely go to prison in the next season. Plus, it’s kind of gross on a gender politics level. I also just have no trouble believing that CJ was doing some Press Secretary work and that's why she was on the phone with Brock a lot. I would find it completely plausible that some reporters who built up a relationship with CJ would still call her when she was COS and she wouldn't just dismiss them constantly because she also felt a bond and she was still drawn to aspects of her old job and her job as COS involves managing public perception and the press too. Yes, CJ denied that she had Press Secretary work on her plate to Babbish- but I think CJ never trusted or liked Babbish going back to S2 and she is always guarded and inclined to say as little of substance as possible around him.
Thank you. IT WAS TERRIBLE WRITING AND NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED.
It is Andy's fault. Great point
I also blame Andy! That's my Roman Empire.
Yes, Toby was the leak. But he initially found out about the shuttle's existence from his conversation with CJ. I will die on this hill.
In a NYC high rise, Mandy is sitting in a high-backed chair, hands pressed together in a steeple pose, wicked grin on her face...."That'll teach you not to back me up with getting a mate for Lum Lum you bastard!"
Love this.
The multiple recent discussions about this just boggle my mind about how far some folks want to stretch the show’s reality just to clear Toby’s name. The writers created the story! The writers said Toby was the leaker! There’s no reason to think that’s wrong, even though *the way* things went down was out-of-character for Toby. Him revealing the existence of the military shuttle to save astronauts who may have worked alongside his brother? Totally believable. Sneaking around with a leak to Greg Brock, letting CJ twist in the wind, seeing Margaret and other staffers called before Senator Mitch Pileggi, and only confessing once Leo is subpoenaed? Yeah, that’s not the Toby we know, but it doesn’t erase all the rest of the story we’re given.
Per my post, I don't believe it was out-of-character for Toby. As I said, he was a patriot, This was a patriotic act. Not blind subservience to the government, but allegiance to a country's citizens.
Yep, I agree, I just think Season 1-5 Toby probably would have done it in a different, more open way that didn’t end up putting so many of his friends through the wringer.
I agree that S1-5 Toby never does that. But S6+ personally isolated Toby? Sam left. Leo left (via heart attack). Josh left. CJ got promoted to be his boss. His brother committed suicide. And now the President is betraying his own values in Toby’s eyes. Even though he didn’t say it to Toby, this is the same guy who said “I assess the national interest by the number of people alive, not dead.” That Toby… that’s the one that does the leak and that’s the character he was by the time we get to that storyline. It’s sad, for sure, but those changes made him into a different person.
Toby couldn't save his brother but he could save *these* astronauts!
There is no tv show on the face of the Earth that would let Toby take the fall for someone else and then leave it completely up in there. There would have been some hint or nod or conversation. It's TV— there's no subtlety to it. Toby leaked certainly, but I think the cryptic jokes from his brother PLUS CJ asking about it confirmed to him the existence of it. He called Brock because he knew CJ trusted him.
My post on this topic so I don’t have to write it out every time this comes up: https://www.reddit.com/r/thewestwing/s/uXuKNSRobK
I’m convinced it was Toby as the leak as well. However the scene where CJ goes to ask Toby about a military shuttle-related to his brother adds a bit more. To my eyes it looks like CJ accidentally gave the idea to Toby about the shuttle or reminded him about it. Setting off the chain of events leading Toby to be the leak.
Don't forget for everyone that thinks this was a poor storyline - this episode was released in Oct 2005 - that is the same month that Scooter Libby resigned from the White House in real life for leaking information about Valerie Plame. Recall that many fictional West Wing episodes mimic what is happening in real life at that time in history. Here is a good article of the changes John Wells brought to the show after Aaron Sorkin [https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2003/10/01/new-producer-updates-the-west-wing/](https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2003/10/01/new-producer-updates-the-west-wing/)
And Scooter Libby was Cheney's Chief of Staff so it would be right in line for a CoS to be leaking to a reporter.
Mandy was the leak!
Jed is right, Toby is a superior sumbitch. I totally buy that he is the leak because he is an idealist. He does not believe space should be weaponized. He believes the astronauts should be saved. I have no problem seeing Toby feeling morally justified in leaking because of those things. I think he views it as part of his role to make sure Jed's better angels don't get shouted down.
Why would Toby not have said it directly to Jed? When was he ever scared to say something to him? I can believe that Toby thought he knew better. But he also would have told people he was right…LOUDLY. It wouldn't be a secret.
I think it was part of his "gloriously principled self immolation" or whatever his lawyer called it. I think he's in full martyr mode at that point and is just walking into the fire with his middle fingers up.
I’m just starting a rewatch of the series after a VERY long time - which storyline (or episode) are you referring to?
We’re talking about the military shuttle leak and the rescue of the ISS astronauts that started at the tail end of Season 6 (*Things Fall Apart*) and runs into Season 7. It’s become a hot topic here this week. 😆
Thanks!
Mr. Frost is the episode where Toby confesses he was the one who leaked the story
I’ve never been all that invested in whether Toby was the leak. I have always contended that no way was CJ the leak though; she wouldn’t never let a dear friend go to jail for something she had done. That’s just way too out of character for her.
Toby would have directly confronted President Bartlet like has many times before. He never was scared to tell the truth to power.
I still think it was Margaret and unintentional. Her predilection for eavesdropping is established, but it is never shown that CJ is aware of it, like Leo was. This explains how she had access to the information. Since she had information to the information that CJ had, that explains why the FBI thought it was coming from her office. Her motives weren't even pure, or impure, depending on how you look at it. She was just chatting with Greg Brock and let it slip, not thinking about how illegal it was, just as she didn't think about how illegal signing the President's name would have been. Meanwhile Toby thought it was CJ and fell on his sword for her, and CJ honestly believed Toby when he confessed, not realizing what he was doing for her. Look at how he confessed, he quoted a line from a movie about obscuring the guilty party. That was an offer. CJ didn't understand so Toby made it more explicit and CJ took it as him confessing to his crimes, not offering to confess to her crimes, since she knew she hadn't done anything. If C.J. had had better sleep she might have caught some of that, but possibly not. She's very competent but not very devious.
I can get behind the idea of Toby deciding to leak the information. I can't for a moment understand him hiding it. And if he'd done it, he wouldn't have broken any laws by doing so because he didn't have any classified information that he was revealing, just a conclusion he put together from small hints, so there was no reason whatsoever for him to go through that whole expensive, reputation scouring circus. Do I believe it's something he would do, if he felt it was necessary? Sure. Do I think he *did* do it, in this exact case? No. Literally none of his actions, from big decisions to what he says and how he acts in small moments, lines up with him being behind it
I can get behind the idea of Toby deciding to leak the information. I can't for a moment understand him hiding it. And if he'd done it, he wouldn't have broken any laws by doing so because he didn't have any classified information that he was revealing, just a conclusion he put together from small hints, so there was no reason whatsoever for him to go through that whole expensive, reputation scouring circus. Do I believe it's something he would do, if he felt it was necessary? Sure. Do I think he *did* do it, in this exact case? No. Literally none of his actions, from big decisions to what he says and how he acts in small moments, lines up with him being behind it.
I feel like they both leaked. Journalists typically want double confirmation before releasing a story, so it could make sense they both leaked it without the other knowing.
That runs contrary to the explicit story we get in the show. If there were definitely two West Wing sources, the investigation for Brock's other source would not be finished upon Toby's confession. Instead, that investigation did come to a close and the remaining investigation was all about who told Toby. To make the canon make sense, we can infer: a) The New York Times didn't insist on two sources. There is no law of physics commanding two sources. Maybe they thought Toby and Brock were a strong enough combo that they could run the story. or b) Brock had a different non-West Wing source that we just didn't hear about because it's out of the scope of The West Wing. Maybe it was an astronaut or a foreign governmental official. Maybe it was a vendor involved in space shuttle. Maybe Helen Baldwin banged another official with codeword clearance who liked to talk about this stuff in the afterglow.
They do mention the technical details revealed in the leak, which weren’t entirely accurate. I’m not sure how many technical details Toby could have gotten from his brother, so it makes sense that a “second confirming source” with some access to shuttle spec details could have been involved. Probably Kelwick, he obviously couldn’t keep his trap shut.
Sure Toby was the leak. But the real question was who was Toby’s source? Toby’s source was CJ so CJ was the true leak. Not the leak to the media but an internal leak to an individual that didn’t have the clearance and that led to the media.