OOC

Handle: Jack
Contact: On Plurk at TheMightySpazz and on Discord at 5.11tacticool#2208!
Over 18? Affirmative!
Characters Played: The pattern is full, Ghostrider!

THE CHARACTER

Character Name: Josiah Edward “Jed” Bartlet
Series: The West Wing
Canon Point: Immediately following S4E21, “Life on Mars”
Character Age: 63

Background:

Jed Bartlet was born in New Hampshire in the early 1940s. As the firstborn son of the headmaster at Phillips Exeter Academy, Bartlet was well educated, but suffered terribly at the hands of his Protestant father for adopting his Catholic mother’s religion. He was accepted into Williams, Harvard, and Yale, but chose Notre Dame, as he was considering becoming a priest - a goal he gave up on after meeting his future wife, Abigail “Abbey” Barrington, a medical student at the time and a thoracic surgeon later on.

He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in American studies and a minor in theology, and continued his studies at the London School of Economics, where he received his Masters of Science and Ph.D in economics. Prior to his career in politics, he was a tenured professor at Dartmouth College, found time to learn three languages (including Latin and German, and likely Spanish for #3), and shared a Nobel Prize in economics with a Japanese economist whose belief system was much more conservative than his own Keynesian views. He also authored a book out of his research on macroeconomics in the developing world (titled, appropriately enough, Theory and Practice of Macroeconomics in Developing Countries).

His entrance into politics was far from flashy. He first served on the New Hampshire State Board of Education, then served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, then served two terms as Governor of New Hampshire after that, winning his second term with 69% of the vote. He was then approached and persuaded to run for president by his best friend, Leo McGarry.

Sometime in 1991, Bartlet was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, a diagnosis he is fiercely insecure about. While gradually more and more people find out about it over the course of the series, at the time of the pilot episode, only 14 people know about it - himself, his wife, his oldest and youngest daughters, six unspecified general-practice doctors and radiologists, his brother, the vice president, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He has three daughters - Elizabeth Anne Westin, Eleanor Emily Bartlet, and Zoey Patricia Bartlet. At the time of “Life On Mars”, he has two grandchildren from Elizabeth - Annie, approximately 16 years old, and Gus, approximately 4.

Personality:

Jed Bartlet may not always be the most experienced man in the room. He may not always be the bravest or the most cultured. He may not always be the smartest.

But he will be the one to bring everyone in that room together.

Bartlet is a dealmaker, a leader, a pint-sized political powerhouse in a Hickey-Freeman suit. He possesses a relentless energy for advocacy, and has an undeniable and unquenchable drive to use the power of the executive branch to better the lives of both American citizens at home and underprivileged people around the world. The West Wing is staffed with all kinds of personalities - it is a family in and of itself, and Bartlet is its patriarch, the glue that holds them all together. Erudite, quick of wit, and stoically compassionate, he is a father figure to both American citizens and West Wing staffers, and has been described by some television critics as the ideal president for a liberal world order.

Bartlet likes to think of himself as a mentor, and while he won't force himself into the role if it doesn't appear his experience is wanted, he'll take it with gusto if it's offered. It’s partly a carryover from his tenure at Dartmouth - he looks like someone’s economics professor because once upon a time he was someone’s economics professor. He'll take a shining to particularly precocious people like his Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Lyman or his Assistant Communications Director Sam Seaborn.

Bartlet can be a difficult man to work with. He is not one to shy from tradition or from listening to the advice of his subordinates, but neither is he one to buck it if he feels it’s justified, and holds his agendas near and dear to his heart. This is particularly illustrated in his interactions with his chief of staff Leo McGarry, his press secretary C.J. Cregg, and his wife Abbey. In particular, Jed tends to buck and be the idealistic firebrand to Leo’s more even-tempered political realism, tends to ignore (almost) all advice C.J. gives him with regard to handling the press, and gets into squabbling matches with Abbey when their political goals conflict - which tends to be quite often, as both of them are driven and passionate people. With most others - Toby, Josh, Sam, Will, but particularly his bodyman Charlie - he defaults to a doting father figure: stoically affectionate, but stern and serious when he feels it’s needed.

Bartlet is not a pompous man, but at times his conviction and intelligence (and his conviction in his intelligence) can be grating. His occasional eagerness to show off his intellectual gravitas can come off as arrogance, and he is not above the occasional immature remark or expression. The resulting exasperation can try even the most patient souls.

Bartlet is a man of unimpeachable integrity and morality. He holds both himself and his staff to an uncompromising moral code - to some observers, he may, in fact, seem a little too gluttonous for punishment. The old joke is "Catholic guilt", but Bartlet's sense of morality is independent of his religion.

Hardly anybody likes feeling helpless or weak, but the power and ability inherent to the office of the presidency has made Bartlet especially despise it. That can be a problem when you suffer from relapsing-remitting MS, as he does. His insecurity about his condition is palpable - hardly anybody outside his immediate family knows about it when the series starts, and even his best friend, Leo McGarry, is clueless about it until Bartlet suffers an attack that renders him unconscious just a few days prior to giving a State of the Union address. American presidents are entrusted with an awful lot of power and privilege, and that can get to their heads really quickly, really easily. It can be hard for Bartlet to admit that he is human like the rest of us, and that he is subject to the same flaws and foibles inherent to the human condition as the jaywalker down on E Street or the gift shop clerk at the Smithsonian.

Bartlet loves his country and is fiercely patriotic, but perhaps not in the way that first comes to mind. He believes in America wholeheartedly, both as a nation and as an idea, as a land of opportunity ready to take in the world’s tired and huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. He readily subscribes to the famous paraphrasing of Voltaire - “I may disagree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. Throughout the series, he demonstrates a willingness to reach across political and ideological aisles to work together with his opponents for the common good of American citizens and for the benefit of America’s standing in the world. About all that is truly anathema to him is willful ignorance and the opinions and ideologies that spring from it.

Bartlet has a lot to live up to.

The American presidency is one of the most exclusive fraternities in the world, and presidents before him have left their marks on the office, the country, and the world, for better and worse. Washington established the office as we know it today and guided a nascent nation through its tumultuous first years. FDR pulled the country out of the worst economic depression in its history and led it through the most destructive war the world has yet seen. LBJ oversaw the implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, one of the most sweeping pieces of anti-discrimination legislation in the nation’s history and a watershed in the American civil rights movement.

Against these giants who’ve well and truly embedded themselves in the fabric of American mythology, figurative titans whose names are writ large in the history books…who can’t help but feel a little inadequate? And who wouldn’t be measuring themselves up against them from time to time?

Throughout the series, Jed grows both as a person and as a president. In season 1, we see him chafing a bit as he settles into the office of the presidency and what is a feasible exercise of the powers entrusted to it by the Constitution - a good example of this is when he fumes over Leo’s avocation of a “proportional response” to the shooting-down of a Navy aircraft by a hostile power early on in season 1. We also see him balance out the commitments demanded of him as the chief executive, as a husband, and as the father to a young woman about to continue her academic career at Georgetown University. Between the pilot and the conclusion of S4E21 (where he’ll be plucked from), Jed has gone from an aimless politician a bit too eager to play it safe if it’ll secure his legacy and his second term to an American statesman in his own right. By the end of season 4, we see him become more comfortable with the responsibilities and privileges of the office, and see him emerge as a man who uses the sum total of both his and his advisors’ knowledge and experience to truly become the leader of the free world, to drive both himself and the citizens he leads to emulate John Winthrop’s famous thesis of a “city upon a hill”.

Powers/Abilities: he can prank-call the Butterball hotline and put it in a bestselling memoir, how’s that for a power

Power Nerfs (if applicable): probably no Butterball hotline in-game. ☹

Inventory: Bartlet will be arriving with nothing but the suit on his back and a pair of reading glasses!

Incentives:

Bartlet isn't in this for money or gadgets, and will likely see any offered monetary compensation as an attempt to buy his loyalty or cooperation. The most effective way to gain his cooperation would be to guarantee the safety of the sleeping staffers still in stasis.

SAMPLES

[STASIS]

[It’s a hell of a thing, to wake up like this.

Yesterday, he was meeting with the Speaker of the House to discuss an appropriations bill that had yet to get out of committee, shouting down the governor of Wyoming over wildfires that had engulfed a third of Yellowstone National Park, and meeting with Admiral Fitzwallace to go over reports from the National Reconnaissance Office that two Delhi-class destroyers and a Brahmaputra-class frigate were getting too close to Karachi for anyone’s liking, all before breakfast.

Today, all of it is gone.

(“I don’t know whose ass he was kissing there, ‘cause - I think you’re just vindictive.”)

Leo. Abbey. Zoey. Charlie. CJ, Toby, Sam, Josh, Will - they’re all here and all in good health, apart from the deep cryosleep they seem to be in.

He can’t help but think that he had the power to stop this. He can’t help but think that he failed.

That alone is enough to make him mute with reflection as he slides his hands into his pockets and bows his head.

Perhaps it’s a sound that breaks him out of his thoughts. Perhaps it’s a light touch. Either way, his head remains bowed and his response is the same:]

Can I help you?

[OMAGE]

[This is a few steps up - okay, a couple steps and a leap up - from the Oval Office intercom, and he’s without Charlie or Mrs. Landingham to walk him through it. But Jed Bartlet is a persistent little git - it’s not that he doesn’t know how, it’s just that he hasn’t learned yet.

It takes him longer than it probably should, but eventually, after no small amount of impatient muttering and cursing that would probably get him ten Hail Maries and Our Fathers were he within earshot of Father Cavanaugh, he gets online.]

Connecting to server... Looking for someone you can chat with... You’re now chatting with [JBARTLET]... Say hi!

>>Hello?
>>I can see the screen’s on, so that must mean this is working.

[Time for a shot in the dark.]

>>Does the name “President Bartlet” mean anything to you?

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