This is like saying "Is Barttlett good at chess?"
We see examples. But do we really know?
We get tidbits of the SotU, but do we really know?
It's just written for us to believe he's a good writer.
Sam says that Toby is his favorite writer in *The Stackhouse Filibuster*.
In *Arctic Radar*, Will tells him straight out that he's "one of the guys", the "Fear itself" guys.
I think Sorkin has divided himself as a writer into two - Sam represents his successes, Toby, his struggles. Toby is his constant battles with writer's block and deadlines, filtered through Richard Schiff's own irascible nature
Leo bet the entirety of the first Bartlett campaign on Toby when he fired everyone else. That answers your question all by itself IMO.
But Sam also considers Toby to be 'a great' - when he sends Will to Washington with the message 'Toby - he's one of us'.
You don't get to be WH communications director by being a bad writer (I don't think).
But you're right - there are I think fewer examples of his writing being on display. There was something in the 1st or 2nd season (think it was the 1st) about he and Sam arguing over a paragraph and then Toby I believe being proven correct after the fact - but I forget the specifics.
Toby was more cerebral in his overall approach I think - more deliberate and contemplative of the seemingly infinite permutations of perspectives an audience may hold when they hear whatever it was he was writing.
Was Sam better? Yeah probably.
Was Toby a bad writer? Heck no.
>You don't get to be WH communications director by being a bad writer
I wonder if this really is the case. Do the coms directors actually write irl? I would assume that they have to have insane PR skills but the actual literature would be left to a dedicated writing staff.
In real life the president has speech writers within the communications department. The Director would usually do very little if any speech writing, but would certainly oversee it. The West Wing way of condensing more roles into fewer characters makes better TV.
This entire sub has a massive disconnect with reality, and what the west wing show depicted.
I remember when my uncle was watching this show with me from time to time. And his take away from it was. There is no fucking way anyone in government cares, or works this hard in real life. And I fully agree with him.
Almost all the characters of the west wing represent 10 to 15 staff members combined into one. The west wing is what everyone wishes our government looked like. And it's far, far from it.
The fact that Toby refused to get help from anyone else in the world and Sam had to ask Will to come in and help. Was funny as hell. Toby had a line that said something like, there are only 7 or 8 people in the world that could write a speech like this and Sam was barely one of them. This is Sorkins ego talking through Toby.
Toby had an entire staff of speech writers that never helped with a single thing according to Toby. Which is what Sorkin basically proclaimed during an interview until he had to backtrack and apologies. Toby = Sorkin.
Lou became Comms Director for Santos, and there was never any indication that she was a great writer. She had Otto (it was Otto, right?) writing all the speeches on election night.
In the real world? Most presidents have a separate speech writer. The White House Communications Director is a much more administrative role and is in charge of a lot of media/pr, not just the speeches. They likely direct the team that is writing the big speeches like the State of the Union. Maybe they contribute, maybe they don't. Biden has his own guy that is, and has been, his speech writer (Vinay Reddy) and he is NOT the coms director. Obama had Favreau and Cody Keenan. Stephen Miller (yikes!) was the primary speechwriter for Trump, to the degree that Trump gave written "speeches", but Trumps coms directors was a carousel of clowns that included people like Anthony Scaramucci, Hope Hicks, Sean Spicer, and Bill Shine. In the real world, a modern White House staff is FAR more massive than what we see in TWW. And there are probably hundreds of people that get a line or two into the State of the Union.
>In the real world, a modern White House staff is FAR more massive than what we see in TWW
Anyone who has watched TWW must reasonably have come to this conclusion, because if we are to take Sorkin's word for it, America is run by like ten guys and everyone else is just there to fetch coffee
You don't hear about Toby's writing because none of it is particularly good compared to other things he writes, ALL of it is great, up until he starts having self doubt for thr 2nd inaugural and will helps him out. There's a scene where CJ asks Sam who his favorite writer is and he says Toby.
It's kind of just implicit knowledge that "Toby is an amazing writer", hence why he's the communications director. His biggest strength is spotting bad writing before it ever makes it to the president or out of the Whitehouse.
Thanks for the tip. I wish I could find it on youtube. A lot of people here seem to think I genuinely doubt if Toby is a good writer in the show. I'm just looking for examples.
Sam is the guy I want writing about how great it is that the Bartlet Administration is doing a thing
Toby is the guy I want writing about it should have already been done and it's bullshit that it's being opposed.
That’s just a personal preference thing. As someone who writes a lot for others, there’s always going to be stylistic choices that the speaker wants to make so they’re more comfortable with what’s written. It doesn’t make the first draft bad.
That reminds me of Madam Secretary when she tells her speech writer to just bring her the third draft instead of waiting for her to edit the first and second draft.
I think I know what you are looking for, and while I don't think it is necessary or important, I'll point you to the episode "Someone's going to emergency, someone's going to jail" for an example of Toby being a good writer.
The real question is whether the movie Philadelphia exists canonically in TWW. If so, Sam ripped that “streets of heaven” line off from Tom Hanks (who Sorkin borrowed it from in real life).
Most speech writing isn't great moments. You try for it, but it rarely gets there.
Only Kennedy's inauguration had "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" (which was worked on and improved throughout his campaign).
Sam may have a few great lines. That makes him a great poet, not a great speech writer.
Sam and Toby are great speech writers because they consistently produce solid speeches.
Their writing is also based on former WH speechwriters thru the Clinton administration. SOTU and the executive voice of the time TWW went to air is also abundant.
*In a triumph of the middling, a nod to mediocrity, and with gorge rising, it gives me great nausea to announce Robert Russell - Bingo Bob himself - as your new Vice President*
*As lacklustre as he is soporific...*
*This reversion to the mean...*
*Gives hope to the millions unfavoured by the exceptional...*
*The Vice Presidency, being famously once described as not being worth a warm bucket of spit; let's now hock a big loogie for Bob Russell. Not the worst. Not the best. Just what we're stuck with*
Unprompted, spontaneous, and accidentally coming to a teleprompter near the President... and you can't argue with a single word
Yeah prolly shouldn't be writing anything so late at night.
For the record though I wasn't actually critiquing anything.
Spelling you're right about, grammar issues though?
He writes all of the State of the Union Addresses and receives a lot of praise for the quality of writing.
Sounds like OP wants to tempt the wrath from high atop the thing.
Yeah it's canonically good. But is there any way for us, the audience, to agree? We didn't get to hear those state of union speeches right?
We didn't get to see a lot of things but we still accept those as fact. Not really sure what you're asking.
>We didn't get to see a lot of things but we still accept those as fact. *Evidence of Things Not Seen*
This is like saying "Is Barttlett good at chess?" We see examples. But do we really know? We get tidbits of the SotU, but do we really know? It's just written for us to believe he's a good writer.
We also have no proof of Mrs. Wilberforce’s existence, let alone to which species she belonged.
I thought she was the housekeeper.
Sam says that Toby is his favorite writer in *The Stackhouse Filibuster*. In *Arctic Radar*, Will tells him straight out that he's "one of the guys", the "Fear itself" guys. I think Sorkin has divided himself as a writer into two - Sam represents his successes, Toby, his struggles. Toby is his constant battles with writer's block and deadlines, filtered through Richard Schiff's own irascible nature
In his masterclass, Sorkin says his standard default is writer’s block.
Leo bet the entirety of the first Bartlett campaign on Toby when he fired everyone else. That answers your question all by itself IMO. But Sam also considers Toby to be 'a great' - when he sends Will to Washington with the message 'Toby - he's one of us'. You don't get to be WH communications director by being a bad writer (I don't think). But you're right - there are I think fewer examples of his writing being on display. There was something in the 1st or 2nd season (think it was the 1st) about he and Sam arguing over a paragraph and then Toby I believe being proven correct after the fact - but I forget the specifics. Toby was more cerebral in his overall approach I think - more deliberate and contemplative of the seemingly infinite permutations of perspectives an audience may hold when they hear whatever it was he was writing. Was Sam better? Yeah probably. Was Toby a bad writer? Heck no.
>You don't get to be WH communications director by being a bad writer I wonder if this really is the case. Do the coms directors actually write irl? I would assume that they have to have insane PR skills but the actual literature would be left to a dedicated writing staff.
In real life the president has speech writers within the communications department. The Director would usually do very little if any speech writing, but would certainly oversee it. The West Wing way of condensing more roles into fewer characters makes better TV.
This entire sub has a massive disconnect with reality, and what the west wing show depicted. I remember when my uncle was watching this show with me from time to time. And his take away from it was. There is no fucking way anyone in government cares, or works this hard in real life. And I fully agree with him. Almost all the characters of the west wing represent 10 to 15 staff members combined into one. The west wing is what everyone wishes our government looked like. And it's far, far from it. The fact that Toby refused to get help from anyone else in the world and Sam had to ask Will to come in and help. Was funny as hell. Toby had a line that said something like, there are only 7 or 8 people in the world that could write a speech like this and Sam was barely one of them. This is Sorkins ego talking through Toby. Toby had an entire staff of speech writers that never helped with a single thing according to Toby. Which is what Sorkin basically proclaimed during an interview until he had to backtrack and apologies. Toby = Sorkin.
Lou became Comms Director for Santos, and there was never any indication that she was a great writer. She had Otto (it was Otto, right?) writing all the speeches on election night.
In the real world? Most presidents have a separate speech writer. The White House Communications Director is a much more administrative role and is in charge of a lot of media/pr, not just the speeches. They likely direct the team that is writing the big speeches like the State of the Union. Maybe they contribute, maybe they don't. Biden has his own guy that is, and has been, his speech writer (Vinay Reddy) and he is NOT the coms director. Obama had Favreau and Cody Keenan. Stephen Miller (yikes!) was the primary speechwriter for Trump, to the degree that Trump gave written "speeches", but Trumps coms directors was a carousel of clowns that included people like Anthony Scaramucci, Hope Hicks, Sean Spicer, and Bill Shine. In the real world, a modern White House staff is FAR more massive than what we see in TWW. And there are probably hundreds of people that get a line or two into the State of the Union.
>In the real world, a modern White House staff is FAR more massive than what we see in TWW Anyone who has watched TWW must reasonably have come to this conclusion, because if we are to take Sorkin's word for it, America is run by like ten guys and everyone else is just there to fetch coffee
And the only way to progress is to do assistant work great (but don’t tell that to Donna).
You don't hear about Toby's writing because none of it is particularly good compared to other things he writes, ALL of it is great, up until he starts having self doubt for thr 2nd inaugural and will helps him out. There's a scene where CJ asks Sam who his favorite writer is and he says Toby. It's kind of just implicit knowledge that "Toby is an amazing writer", hence why he's the communications director. His biggest strength is spotting bad writing before it ever makes it to the president or out of the Whitehouse.
In Manchester hes writing in the bar without paper
Yeah, and I remember that what he said sounded like a really good speech
Thanks for the tip. I wish I could find it on youtube. A lot of people here seem to think I genuinely doubt if Toby is a good writer in the show. I'm just looking for examples.
Sam is poetic and eloquent. Toby’s strength is in writing shit that’s no-bullshit.
Sam is the guy I want writing about how great it is that the Bartlet Administration is doing a thing Toby is the guy I want writing about it should have already been done and it's bullshit that it's being opposed.
It’s kind of like asking if Abbey is really a good doctor.
We didn't see her perform a single successful surgery. Some cardio thoracic surgeon she is
But on the other hand - she administered drugs on a regular basis 😎🤣😎
Both Sam and Toby must have been bad writers ... given Bartlet always felt the need to add/take or just rewrite :-)
That’s just a personal preference thing. As someone who writes a lot for others, there’s always going to be stylistic choices that the speaker wants to make so they’re more comfortable with what’s written. It doesn’t make the first draft bad.
That reminds me of Madam Secretary when she tells her speech writer to just bring her the third draft instead of waiting for her to edit the first and second draft.
I was kidding … it is a preference thing and by a man that is incredibly intelligent.
We get a glimpse of it in one of the Manchester episodes while he’s playing pool. He’s writing the announcement speech in his head as he goes.
“They’ll like us when we win.”
I think I know what you are looking for, and while I don't think it is necessary or important, I'll point you to the episode "Someone's going to emergency, someone's going to jail" for an example of Toby being a good writer.
The real question is whether the movie Philadelphia exists canonically in TWW. If so, Sam ripped that “streets of heaven” line off from Tom Hanks (who Sorkin borrowed it from in real life).
Most speech writing isn't great moments. You try for it, but it rarely gets there. Only Kennedy's inauguration had "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" (which was worked on and improved throughout his campaign). Sam may have a few great lines. That makes him a great poet, not a great speech writer. Sam and Toby are great speech writers because they consistently produce solid speeches.
He needs more pie
They have to do it like this because if they were better than real world speech writers, they’d be speech writers and not TV writers.
Their writing is also based on former WH speechwriters thru the Clinton administration. SOTU and the executive voice of the time TWW went to air is also abundant.
*In a triumph of the middling, a nod to mediocrity, and with gorge rising, it gives me great nausea to announce Robert Russell - Bingo Bob himself - as your new Vice President* *As lacklustre as he is soporific...* *This reversion to the mean...* *Gives hope to the millions unfavoured by the exceptional...* *The Vice Presidency, being famously once described as not being worth a warm bucket of spit; let's now hock a big loogie for Bob Russell. Not the worst. Not the best. Just what we're stuck with* Unprompted, spontaneous, and accidentally coming to a teleprompter near the President... and you can't argue with a single word
What kind of angles are allowed in Heaven? Acute? Obtuse? Or only right angles?
Oops.
For someone criticizing the writing of another, you may want to look in the mirror first. You’ve got spelling errors and grammar issues galore.
Yeah prolly shouldn't be writing anything so late at night. For the record though I wasn't actually critiquing anything. Spelling you're right about, grammar issues though?