{"id":388,"date":"2014-09-16T14:30:02","date_gmt":"2014-09-16T18:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/?p=388"},"modified":"2014-09-16T14:28:12","modified_gmt":"2014-09-16T18:28:12","slug":"our-definitive-ranking-of-the-west-wing-characters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/?p=388","title":{"rendered":"Our Definitive Ranking of The West Wing Characters"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re huge fans of The West Wing, we\u2019ve seen every episode at least twice, and quotes from the show often work their way into our everyday conversations. So we were appalled last week when The Wire gave their terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad \u201cDefinitive Ranking of Every Character on ‘The West Wing’\u201d<\/a>. We ranted on Twitter, we bitched over gchat, we argued every single miniscule point about the list (HOW DO YOU PUT JOSH LYMAN IN 17th PLACE? OR DONNA MOSS AT 39!?).<\/p>\n

And then we figured, why not put that rage to good use and write our own? So here it is. Our better, more accurate ranking of the characters on The West Wing. We figure it\u2019s pretty ridiculous to do everyone that\u2019s ever had a moment on the screen (how are you going to differentiate between one guest star and another?), but a top 20 should cover the major players.<\/p>\n

\"200920. Simon Donovan<\/h3>\n

Played By:<\/strong> Mark Harmon<\/p>\n

Best Episode<\/strong>: The Black Vera Wang<\/p>\n

Best Quote:<\/strong> \u201cBy the way, I can’t guarantee anything, except to say that if you’re dead, chances are I am too.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

19: Ron Butterfield<\/h3>\n

\"Ron<\/a>Played By<\/strong>: Michael O’Neill<\/p>\n

Best Episode<\/strong>: In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen (Parts 1 & 2)<\/p>\n

Best Quote:<\/strong> \u201cWe got the President in the car. We got Zoey in the car, and at 150 yards and five stories up, the shooters were down in 9.2 seconds after the first shot was fired. I would never let you not let me protect the President. It was the act of madmen. Anyway, the Secret Service doesn’t comment on procedure.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

18: Kate Harper<\/h3>\n

\"KatePlayed By:<\/strong> Mary McCormack<\/p>\n

Best Episode:\u00a0<\/strong>Running Mates<\/p>\n

Best Quote: “<\/strong>Ambassador, listen carefully. An hour ago, I reviewed the United States contingency plan to invade your country. 1789, amended in 1815. The calligraphy is beautiful. And if one more deal is floated in this room, I’m gonna ask DoD to reactivate it.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

17: Debbie Fiderer<\/h3>\n

\"Deborah_Fiderer\"<\/a>Played By<\/strong>: Lily Tomlin<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> 20 Hours in America<\/p>\n

Best Quote:<\/strong>\u00a0(TIE) \u201cI had a tempestuous affair with a rodeo cowboy during the Summer of Love that the Hollies played a significant role in.”<\/p>\n

“That come with tights and a cape?”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

16: Mallory O\u2019Brien<\/h3>\n

Played By:<\/strong> Allison Smith\"Mallory_OBrien\"<\/p>\n

Best Episode: <\/strong>Pilot<\/p>\n

Best Quote:\u00a0<\/strong>Sam: You’re asking me out on a date.
\nMallory: No, I’m asking you to accompany me to see an internationally renowned opera company perform a work indigenous to its culture.
\nSam: Right, and in what way will it distinguish itself from a date?
\nMallory: There will be, under no circumstances, sex for you at the end of the evening.<\/p>\n

15: Will Bailey<\/h3>\n

\"Will<\/a>Played By<\/strong>: Joshua Malina<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> Red Haven’s on Fire<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>\u201cI heard once – I don’t know if this is true – I heard once that you convinced the President to let you rewrite a section of the State of the Union with less than twenty-four hours to go. It was the second year and everybody was a Republican, whether they were or not, and people at the DNC had convinced him to include the line, ‘The era of big government is over.’ And you couldn’t live with it. Because government should be a place where people come together and no one gets left behind. An instrument of good. And that’s exactly what we heard in the State of the Union the next night.\u201d<\/p>\n

14: Dolores Landingham\"Delores_Landingham\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Played By<\/strong>: Kathryn Joosten<\/p>\n

Best Episode:\u00a0<\/strong>18th and Potomac<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>\u201cYou know, if you don\u2019t want to run again, I respect that. But if you don\u2019t run \u2018cause you think it\u2019s gonna be too hard or you think you\u2019re gonna lose \u2014 well, god, Jed, I don\u2019t even want to know you.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

13: Joey Lucas<\/h3>\n

\"Joey_Lucas\"<\/a>Played By:<\/strong> Marlee Matlin<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics<\/p>\n

Best Quote:<\/strong> \u201cYou should be afraid of me, pal. I can create problems for you you’ve never even heard of.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

12: Danny Concannon<\/h3>\n

Played By:<\/strong> Timothy Busfield\"Danny<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Episode:\u00a0<\/strong>Commencement<\/p>\n

Best Quote:<\/strong> “I’m going to give you a couple of hours to sit down with Leo and figure out what you can tell me to convince me I shouldn’t print what I have. Otherwise, comment on it or don’t comment on it, but it’s the lead in tomorrow’s paper. And by the way, that’s the brand of courtesy that you have never extended me.”<\/p>\n

11: Ainsley Hayes<\/h3>\n

\"Ainsley_Hayes\"<\/a>Played By:<\/strong> Emily Procter<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> And It\u2019s Surely to Their Credit<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>\u201cI said don’t say that. Say they’re smug and superior. Say their approach to public policy makes you want to tear your hair out. Say they like high taxes and spending your money. Say they want to take your guns and open your borders, but don’t call them worthless. At least don’t do it in front of me. The people that I have met have been extraordinarily qualified, their intent is good. Their commitment is true, they are righteous, and they are patriots. And I’m their lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n

10: (TIE) Percy Fitzwallace\"fitzwallace\"<\/h3>\n

Played By:<\/strong> John Amos<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> We Killed Yamamoto<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>\u201cThe problem with that is that’s what they were saying about me 50 years ago – blacks shouldn’t serve with whites. It would disrupt the unit. You know what? It did disrupt the unit. The unit got over it. The unit changed. I’m an admiral in the U.S. Navy and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff… Beat that with a stick.”<\/p>\n

\"NancyNancy McNally<\/h3>\n

Played By:<\/strong> Anna Deavere Smith<\/p>\n

Best Episode:\u00a0<\/strong>The Women of Qumar<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>\u201cI’m the only woman on a conference call. Delaney can’t tell when it’s me talking. Do I have a bizarrely androgynous voice?\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

9: Sam Seaborn<\/h3>\n

P<\/strong>layed By:<\/strong> Rob Lowe<\/p>\n

\"Sam_Seaborn\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> Celestial Navigation<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>\u201cMallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defense. That’s my position. I just haven’t figured out how to do it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

8: Donna Moss<\/h3>\n

\"donna-moss\"<\/a>Played By:<\/strong> Janel Moloney<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> The Stackhouse Filibuster<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>(TIE)\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cIf you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for red lights.\u201d<\/p>\n

“No, I’m very upset. I don’t know the words to my national anthem. I’ve been throwing out Canadian pennies my whole life. I’ve been making fun of the Queen! We don’t do that. ”<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

7: Charlie Young<\/h3>\n

Played By:<\/strong> Dule Hill\"Charlie<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> Shibboleth<\/p>\n

Best Quote:<\/strong> \u201cThis is Ms. Cregg. She’s the White House Press Secretary and senior counsel to the President. And if she wasn’t, she would still be Ms. Cregg! I don’t mind you not respecting people. I mind you doing it out loud. I mind you doing it in this building. You wanna be a punk, fine, but I don’t think you’ve got the size for it. You wanna go to juvey, get out, deal, and kill cops? Okay, but every time you do a crime, you get caught, so I think you’re gonna have to do something else. 9:00 on Saturday mornings, I eat breakfast at Cosmo’s on Delaware. I come here for an hour and do office work, and then I go to St. Jude’s for an hour to play basketball. You can go to juvey, or you can be at Cosmo’s 9:00 on Saturday morning. It’s entirely up to you.”<\/p>\n

6: Jed Bartlet<\/h3>\n

\"Jed<\/a>Played By:<\/strong> Martin Sheen<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> Two Cathedrals<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong><\/strong>\u201cI was watching a television program before, with a sort of a roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends – apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends’ mothers. Then they brought the boyfriends out, and they all fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don’t vote, do they?\u201d<\/p>\n

5: Abby Bartlet<\/h3>\n

Played By:<\/strong> Stockard Channing\"Abbey_Bartlet\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> Dead Irish Writers<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>\u201cYou kicked off your re-election campaign and I’m sitting here eating a sandwich ’cause we had a deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

4: Josh Lyman<\/h3>\n

\"Josh_Lyman\"<\/a>Played By:<\/strong> Bradley Whitford<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> Noel<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>(TIE)\u00a0<\/strong>“I want to be a comfort to my friends in tragedy and I want to be able to celebrate with them in triumph. And for all the times in between, I just want to be able to look them in the eye.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI drink from the keg of glory, Donna. Bring me the finest muffins and bagels in all the land.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

3: Toby Ziegler<\/h3>\n

Played By<\/strong>: Richard Schiff\"tobyziegler\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> In Excelsis Deo<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>\u201cWhen you think of Afghanistan, think of Poland. When you think of the Taliban, think of the Nazis. When you think of the citizens of Afghanistan, think of the Jews in concentration camps. A friend of my dad’s was at one of the camps. He used to come over to the house, and he and my dad used to shoot some pinochle. He said he once saw a guy at the camp kneeling and praying. He said, \u2018What are you doing?\u2019 The guy said he was thanking God. And my dad’s friend said, \u2018What could you possibly be thanking God for?\u2019 He said, \u2018I’m thanking God for not making me like them.\u2019 Bad people can’t be recognized on sight. There’s no point in trying.\u201d<\/p>\n

2: Leo McGarry<\/h3>\n

\"leomcgarry\"<\/a>Played By<\/strong>: John Spencer<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> Let Barlet Be Bartlet<\/p>\n

Best Quote:<\/strong> (TIE) \u00a0<\/strong>\u201cListen up \u2014 our ground game isn\u2019t working. We\u2019re gonna put the ball in the air. If we\u2019re gonna walk into walls, I want us running into \u2018em full speed.\u201d<\/p>\n

“All right! Shut the hell up everybody. I’ve fired more people than you before breakfast”<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n

1: CJ Cregg\"CJ_Cregg\"<\/a><\/h3>\n

Played By<\/strong>: Allison Janney<\/p>\n

Best Episode:<\/strong> The Long Goodbye<\/p>\n

Best Quote: <\/strong>“You know what, I’ve spent the last 14 hours being snickered at by US Senators, being ostracized on the world wide web, and having my own colleagues question my ability to do my job. So I don’t think it really matters whether I’m gay or straight, or just the best damn basketball player in Ohio Valley history. No one should be treated this way.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re huge fans of The West Wing, we\u2019ve seen every episode at least twice, and quotes from the show often work their way into our everyday conversations. So we were appalled last week when The Wire gave their terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad \u201cDefinitive Ranking of Every Character on ‘The West Wing’\u201d. We ranted on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-television","tag-the-west-wing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.avengingforce.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/the_west_wing.jpg?fit=720%2C400","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Vfwz-6g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":475,"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.avengingforce.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}