Social and Cultural References
Writer Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr. is a former Washington insider, and the episode carries many references to contemporary political themes. The web site in question, bringing the leak about Hoynes, is the real-life Drudge Report, a political site that made its fame during the Lewinsky scandal. "The West Wing" had on several occasions been in contact with Matt Drudge, the operator of the site, for permission to use its logo on the series, but been turned down. When the site was used without Drudge's permission, he reportedly reacted with anger. The timing of the episode, however, was fortuitous, in that it coincided with the much-publicised Drudge story about presidential candidate John Kerry's alleged affair with a journalist.
The Democratic Washington mayor coming out in favor for a pilot program of school vouchers, could be based on Mayor Anthony A. Williams, who broke ranks with his party to support a similar scheme by congressional Republicans.
Perhaps the most peculiar fact associated with the episode was a letter by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Representative John M. McHugh addressed to show character Josh Lyman, concerning the closing of an upstate New York army base. Josh points out that the deep-snow training base of Fort Drum is relatively useless in a time when most wars take place in desert terrain. Clinton and McHugh wrote a tongue-in-cheek response pointing out flaws in Lyman’s reasoning.
Read more about this topic: Full Disclosure (The West Wing)
Famous quotes containing the words social and, social and/or cultural:
“A man’s social and spiritual discipline must answer to his corporeal. He must lean on a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed. He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy of friends.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The primary function of myth is to validate an existing social order. Myth enshrines conservative social values, raising tradition on a pedestal. It expresses and confirms, rather than explains or questions, the sources of cultural attitudes and values.... Because myth anchors the present in the past it is a sociological charter for a future society which is an exact replica of the present one.”
—Ann Oakley (b. 1944)