Donna’s Diary June 2005
I can’t walk fast enough. I’m pretty tall, and my legs can motor when they need to, but
right now they’re very shaky and all I can focus on is the exit. I’ve got to get out of
Santos HQ and I have to get out now. I have never been so humiliated in my life;
personally or professionally. I know those people outside Josh’s door must have heard
some of our conversation. Surely, they noticed my exit from his office. They’ll know he
sent me away and they’ll have to assume at least some of it is personal.
I did a great job for Russell. I did! I went with the frontrunner, I took a risk, and was able
to prove myself as a political operative outside the sphere of Josh Lyman. Now that I
have my own resume and have proven my own abilities, I was sure I could be hired on
the Santos campaign without any questions about why I was being brought onboard.
He had my clippings! Not a Russell file, not a press file, it was a Donna Moss only file.
Josh Lyman, master politician, saw my move coming a mile away and was ready to blunt
it before I even got the words out of my mouth. I tried to explain it was just doing my job. I
know many other Russell people have been hired by the Santos team. No, this is
personal; very personal.
I manage to get out of the building and turn into the nearest shop which happens to be a
bookstore. I find a comfy chair in the back corner and sit while I take deep breaths. What
a horrible mistake. I should never have gone there. In any case, I can’t go back to the
Vice President’s office like this. I call the office and tell him I’ll be out the rest of the day.
They don’t even ask why. The mood in the Vice President’s office has been very grim.
I pull myself together, stand up and wander through the bookstore a bit. I find myself in
the political section, big shock.
There are tons of books on the shelf about the Bartlet administration. I’m not surprised
really, but I haven’t really paid much attention to them either. Every so often a new one
comes out claiming to know the ‘secrets’ of the Bartlet White House, but most of them
are full of shit. Then one title catches my eye; Bartlet’s Bulldog: How Josh Lyman put an
unlikely candidate in the White House Twice. This I’ve got to read. I can’t believe I haven’
t seen this before. All these books have to go through a vetting process at the White
House so surely Josh knew about it. But if he did, why didn’t he insufferably rub it in my
face…and everyone else’s for that matter.
Without thinking, I take the book up to the counter and purchase it. Then I head home. I
treat my wounded pride with a dish of Ben and Jerry’s…okay, two, and snuggle into my
couch for the read.
So many public events that I was a part of in some small way are captured here. It’s
uncanny to have a stranger describe your friends and events that you know firsthand.
And this author, Ben Lager, has captured everyone pretty well. But the picture he paints
of Josh seems off to me. He describes him as a brilliant strategist, which I have to agree
with, and an outside the box thinker who was able to bring Bartlet back from the brink of
the MS scandal and the Government shutdown. All of which is true for the most part, but
then he goes on to paint a picture of a man who is driven to win at any cost and is quick
to blow his own horn.
Josh loves to blow his own horn; he revels in it, but just around us. After the shutdown,
when the President credited Josh’s strategy with starting up the Government again,
reporters were clamoring for an interview with him. He refused every one of them. When
I expressed surprise at his decision, he said “I’m not the story. I serve the President of
the Untied States”. He had been eviscerated in the press and the party for Carrick’s
defection, which Mr. Lager described in eerily precise detail, but he wouldn’t take the
credit for restarting the Government even if it would help rehabilitate his professional
standing because it might reflect poorly on the President.
Then he said the most astonishing thing. He told me that I should go out and do an
interview since I was single handedly responsible for saving millions of social security
checks. When I got over the shock of his offhanded remark, I replied, “I’m not the story. I
serve the President of the United States”. And we shared a smile at our parts in the
news cycle. That was all that was ever said by either of us about the shutdown, but I
think that was the kind of thing the author neglected to find out about Josh.
I came to a chapter about his personal life and saw his tragedies laid bare for anyone
with the price of a book; his sister, his father, Rosslyn, and…holy shit! Gaza. This son of
a bitch used the bombing in Gaza and Josh’s abrupt departure during a crisis to come to
me as an excuse to peddle nasty rumors and innuendo about Josh and me! It made my
stomach churn. THIS was why the book was never brought to my attention by Josh,
despite the title what he would have loved to show off.
I finished the book in just under 3 hours, it was pretty lengthy, and I laid back down on
the couch to think about what I just read. After musing for quite awhile about the book
and its implications, something occurs to me. What if Josh refusing to hire me wasn’t
about him still being pissed about how I quit? What is he was trying to avoid another
situation that Ben ‘douchebag’ Lager can write about? If he hired me, and I was a direct
report to him, wouldn’t that just start the rumors again just when I’ve established myself
independently. Was Josh Lyman doing something noble? I can’t say for certain that he
was, but I like that explanation much better than the one I had earlier so I decide to go
with it. Then I go over to my computer and draft a letter.
Dear Sir,
I have just finished your book, “Bartlet’s Bulldog” and I wanted to offer some comments,
as a bystander to some of the events you list in your book. Josh Lyman is indeed a
Bulldog when it comes to President Bartlet’s policies and the issues he is passionate
about. But I believe you have mischaracterized him as a person who will do anything to
win instead of someone who will do anything to see that ‘right’ prevails; there is a
distinction.
Mr. Lyman works tirelessly, as does the rest of the White House staff, particularly the
senior staff, seven days a week to try to improve the lives of all Americans. It is a very
noble goal, sir, and shouldn’t be mocked as something trivial. Yes, Mr. Lyman does
enjoy ‘winning’ is there someone who doesn’t? But his primary motivation has always
been helping others and thinking about what’s best for them.
Former White House staffer
P.S. Mr. Lyman has NEVER engaged in any inappropriate behavior with his staff, not on
campus or off, not verbally, emotionally, or physically. If you can find ONE SINGLE
PERSON to dispute that fact, I will eat this letter. But since you can’t offer that kind of
proof I think everyone would be better served by you sticking to the facts instead of the
yellow, tabloid journalism you resorted to with your allegations.