Good god I hope not.
Hey, I'm on Bob Cesca Goddamn Awesome Blog! Gonna have to call my mom.

McCain Scretary of State? I think not. But maybe Ambassador to the Federated States of Micronesia.

Quick fact about Micronesia: It’s actually 607 small islands in the South Pacific. Interestingly, while its total land mass is only 270 square miles, it occupies more than a million square miles of the Pacific Ocean. Population is 127,000 and the U.S. Embassy is located in the state of Pohnpei and not, as many people believe, on the island of Yap.

I think whoever Obama picks for Secretary of State should know the difference between Sunni and Shia.
You betcha.
And also.

Elvis, you are geeking.

>>the U.S. Embassy is located in the state of Pohnpei and not, as many people believe, on the island of Yap.

This is the funniest sentence you've ever written. Seriously. I snarfed my egg salad. Ouch!

Why would a person have that information at their disposal?

(Elvis, if you say "parties," I swear to god, I will make out with you.)

"Parties."

But the best two moments from "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics" have got to be these:

Bartlet: I need you to hire a guy.
Mitchell: Who sir?
Bartlet: The former ambassador to Bulgaria.
Mitchell: Who is that, sir?
Bartlet: Ken Cochran.
Mitchell: Well, isn't Ken Cochran the current ambassador to Bulgaria?
Bartlet: Not for long. Look, he's a good man, a smart man, I think he'd make a very good corporate officer.
Mitchell: Why is he being fired, sir?
Bartlet: Gross incompetence.

And then later on, when Cochran arrives and Charlie confronts him about his membership in a whites-only club, some sass that Cochran takes umbrage with and says is "out of line":

Cochran: I want to speak to your supervisor.
Charlie: My supervisor? Well, I'm personal aide to the President, so right now my supervisor is kinda busy looking for a back door to throw you out of. But I'll let him know you'd like to lodge a complaint.

Fucking brilliant. We are, my friends, moving into the Era of the West Wing West Wing. It's going to be a joy to watch.

I have probably watched every episode of the first 4 seasons of The West Wing conservatively 25 times over the past 3 or 4 years, as I work from home and always have some noise running in the background. Nine times out of ten it's a West Wing DVD. I may be the world's leading Bartlet Administration historian, the Doris Kearns Goodwin of the Josiah Bartlet years. Not so much after Sorkin quit, though. The show immediately went over a cliff when he left.

So, Elvis, please help me recall the name of Alan Alda's character in losing to Jimmy Smits' Matt Santos? And since that character lost with honor (it was TV, not real), that is another reason why McRage will not even be considered for Secretary of State. 2 words: Pa and lin.

Interesting Elvis, because I really got into the show toward the end of the run and enjoyed it so much, that I went out and bought the entire set to try and catch up before Season 7 started. I even went so far as to get a released version from China (or Korea, I can't make out the lettering) of Season 5 before it was released in the US. My goal was to watch every episode in order in time for Season 7, the final season. If it weren't for my wife getting sick of watching multiple episodes daily, I would have succeeded too. I left her in the dust and eventually completed the task.

I'll never undertand the female of the scepies not being able to sit down and watch something for the sake of watching it and not as a background distraction while multitasking. Enfuriating.

Anyway, my point was that although West Wing fans say the show tanked after Sorkin left, from my persepective I think it was good enough to make me want to watch the whole thing. I am of the opinion that writing didn't suffer as much as the hardcore fans say it did. Yeah, a couple of the plotlines meandered a bit, but it was still a helluva show and I was sad to see it go.

@ Rollah - Senator Arnold Vinick.

Oh shit this means the administration will be torn to shreds by reasonable critics and canceled after like 6 episodes due to terrible ratings.

Mr The Broadway Carl - I think it's easier to go backwards to greatness from mediocrity than it is to do the opposite. I started watching TWW early in Season 2, after accidentally catching an episode when nothing else was on. I vividly remember tuning in right at the begining of a Walk-and-Talk and thinking, when they broke for the opening credits, "My The God™, that six minutes of dialogue was better than a full hour of anything else on TV!" I was immediately hooked, and quickly caught up via BRAVO, which ran reruns constantly back then. So having steeped myself in the sheer weighty genius of the first four seasons, I was utterly disheartened to find the writing suffer so without Sorkin at the helm. There are episodes in Season 5 that literally feel like an entirely different program to me.

The episode "Han," for example, is particularly ludicrous given what came before it. A Korean piano player wants to defect, and Bartlet is torn about what to do. And C.J., in defending Han the Soloist (HA! ZING!), says, "This young man's asking for freedom. It's what this country was built on; everyone's from somewhere else, some place less free. That's my argument."

Oh P-U! Come on, really? "It's what this country was built on"?? That was the last episode I watched on the air. I've since bought all 7 seasons on DVD, but it's the first 4 I wear out in repeats.

Well, I can't argue with that, Mr. The Elvis Dingeldein. What did you think about Season 7?

The comments on this thread have had me cackling away to myself like a demented person.

I thought I was the world's biggest West Wing fan, but something tells me that Elvis quoted that Micronesia speech from memory.

I bow before you, Sir Dingledein...

ARGH, TYPEKEY!
Anyway,
@all of the above, I've been at school all morning, so I was overjoyed to come home and find this discussion taking place.
@Elvis, I might be as much of a West Wing historian as you are. We might have to have a competition. Also, we should make out -- I promised, after all.

McCain Sec of State?

McCain has a better chance to be a singer with the Beach Boys!