"As we did in the time when our eyes looked to the heavens and with out stretched fingers we touched the face of God." wow that is such an awesome line and that Martin Sheen has the gravitas to pull it off.

@johnmh1000

3 жыл бұрын

For God's sake get the next series written and on the block will ya!

@funguy4273

2 жыл бұрын

This line is an adaption of the last stanza from the poem "High Flight" by John Magee. kzread.info/dash/bejne/g6xnudeeerrSkg.html

@gabe2349

Жыл бұрын

It was an allusion to the Challenger tragedy. In President Reagan’s address to the nation that evening he said “they slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.” It is one of, if not the, single greatest televised addresses from the Oval Office in American history.

@fifthbusiness1678

Жыл бұрын

It’s from a poem, written by a former test/fighter pilot (or about a test fighter/pilot. Not Aaron this time.

@nancykaminski8600

Жыл бұрын

@@fifthbusiness1678 the poem is “High Flight” and I believe it was written by a British fighter pilot in WWII.

I like to think that Josh continued the Big Block of Cheese Days under Santos.

@kelvinktfong

5 жыл бұрын

zamira rahim he’s kept a list too

@Esperi74

4 жыл бұрын

@@kelvinktfong Nothing happens on the list.

@SmashCubeGaming

3 жыл бұрын

And every time he gives Leo's speech

@jkrasney1

2 жыл бұрын

As a tribute to Leo.

TV has never reached this quality since... I've started countless series and they've never come close. This is perfection...

@jackfruitbananas

4 жыл бұрын

The Newsroom is another... Same writer!

@Reel___

4 жыл бұрын

@@jackfruitbananas is it as good as the West Wing?

@Reel___

4 жыл бұрын

Have you seen any show that comes close?

@a.m.hofmeister725

4 жыл бұрын

Try Mad Men

@MotownGuitarJoe

3 жыл бұрын

Rob French : it is very close. Sadly it didn't run long enough (3 seasons) but TOTALLY worth the effort, which is no effort at all because it too is great.

The dialogue of the West Wing is like music.

@ktoliman

3 жыл бұрын

I think Bartlett argues that very point in an episode.

@hindenburg2006

Жыл бұрын

@@ktoliman that episode when they're getting back from church, and Mrs Bartlet calls him an oratorical snob?😄

When Bartlett started talking about eradicating small pox, they ever so subtly introduced into the music "Ave Maria" played by (what I think is ) an oboe. It just perfectly accents the line in that moment.

@samsonguy10k

3 жыл бұрын

Got me wistful thinking about Josh's sister. She is a big reason why Josh is who he is today.

@mayankshrivastava3554

3 жыл бұрын

Ave Maria also played during Will and MacKenzie's wedding in The Newsroom. I guess Sorkin really likes that song.

This was the moment in the series that hooked me. Beautiful scene

@jacksonwidaman8261

4 жыл бұрын

Same

@daviddeis6613

3 жыл бұрын

For me it was the first episode where he all but tells Mary Marsch to not let the door hit her on the way out

I cannot imagine memorizing this speech and then giving it so perfectly.

The music in this moment is just sublime. This series often makes me cry at moments like this, and I think the music is a big part of it. The main theme transitioning into Ave Maria... just perfect.

Martin Sheen was born to play this role. The whole 7 series were almost perfection, I loved this more than anything else on TV at the time and that said as a Brit.

@sunshinegran

7 жыл бұрын

I am a first generation American from Scandinavian parents. This is now my favorite series, ever, not because I believe this is how Washington works but because I wish it was. I have now watched and streamed this series more then half a dozen times and when I need hope, this is where I come.

@ryanlkelly

4 жыл бұрын

Alwayssunshine You and me both on watching it several times over, when I need hope in this country after November 2016. I’m just about to start Season 7 again.

I'm not a religious person myself, but this speech simply is on another level.

That drop of the head from Josh at 2:42 is so poignant. He is struck by the sheer weight of emotional and academic intelligence of his boss in a way that the rest of us can only dream. Because it is a dream. This is the calibre of leader we must yearn for and work to become.

The music transitioning into Ave Maria right as Bartlet begins talking about smallpox is such a beautiful reference to the moment where Josh is explaining that the real catastrophe is going to be nothing more than a vial with a deteriorating rubber cap thrown on the streets in Times Square- all while Ave Maria plays in his office.

Bartlett never ceases to put a lump in my throat.

never noticed before today but when President Bartlet speaks of two nations boldly racing to the stars...the music becomes very reminiscent of Apollo 13s music...it put a smile on my face.

Truly, a beautiful series. Must watch it again soon. " Here's to absent friends, and the ones who are here now."

Never noticed Charlie right next to Zoey in her first episode….and the frame of Jed, Zoey, and Charlie is great

With outstretched finger we reached out and touched the face of god. It give me chills just thinking it. This show had some great dialogue.

Wow, a President who can convey a coherent thought. If only

@Dabhach1

5 жыл бұрын

He's an actor. He's not the president. He gets fed lines by great scriptwriters and doesn't come out with this stuff himself. Somebody probably should have told you that before now.

@MalakianM2S

5 жыл бұрын

@@Dabhach1 On the other hand presidents, and so many politicians, don't have a fully staffed group of writters, media training people, and so on, right? Not being a babbling, anacoluthon abusing, incoherent speaking mess has little to do with not being an actor.

@Dabhach1

5 жыл бұрын

@@MalakianM2S Or , to put it another way, Trump couldn't do right in your world if he voted for motherhood and apple pie.

@MalakianM2S

5 жыл бұрын

@@Dabhach1 Not at all, just pointing out that actors and politicians are fed lines by scripwriters. And don't get me wrong; the babbling mess is a well orchestrated style, what it lacks in clarity and articulation makes for it in gesticulation, allowing the likeminded listener to get his message; if you just listen to him and don't pay attention to the physical cues like gazes, posture and gesticulation his speeches usually make little to zero sense, but if you do it's way easier to develop an emotional connection to the point of view he's conveying.

@hibob418

5 жыл бұрын

@@Dabhach1 Golly Joe, you think I don't know Martin Sheen is an actor? You think I don't know this is an idealized version of an American television president? Watch this clip again, and ask yourself if Donald J Trump is capable of speaking in a complete sentence in an inspiring way without insulting or belittling someone. And while you're doing that remember that this scene talks about big dreams and even mentions eradicating smallpox, while your president believes the debunked conspiracy theory that vaccines give kids autism. What a dazzlingly brilliant choice you made in the voting booth...

Anybody else get goosebumps and tear up?

@tumbleheart4664

3 жыл бұрын

Every time

He's actually quoting a poem called "High Flight", by John Travis McGee, an RAF pilot of the Second World War. Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark or even eagle flew -- And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

@BodaciousWench

5 жыл бұрын

It's nice that they backed it with Ava Maria

@Serai3

5 жыл бұрын

Every Baby Boomer knows those words from the TV signoff every night.

@SharpLady53

5 жыл бұрын

Thank you for sharing that. Beautiful.

@ATma943

5 жыл бұрын

This line from High Flight was also quoted in Ronald Reagan's address about the Challenger disaster

@simonpotter7534

4 жыл бұрын

One of my favorites to be sure. All the more poignant that the young man who wrote it gave his life while fighting tyranny. It makes you wonder what else he would have written if he has lived.

That was beautiful. The West Wing was truly a special series.

Outstanding! The background music and the speech! Just perfect television

@borednow5838

8 жыл бұрын

+MrShubhy I really agree!

Simply one of the greatest shows of all time. I knew even from the previews that it would be a timeless classic.

I wish this world was our reality....

@justiceforall3739

4 жыл бұрын

Amen!

I love the Ave Maria. This show introduced me to it and it is just so beautiful.

@samsonguy10k

3 жыл бұрын

I hope you had the opportunity to see the movie Fantasia. Not only is Ave Maria performed beautifully in it, but it follows another beautiful piece of art, Night on Bald Mountain, and the two accentuate each other fantastically.

Slipped The surly bounds of Earth poem. Lovely piece of work High Flight. RIP John Gillespie Magee, Jr 1922 - 1941

"I have good words. I have the best words" - our enlightened, intellectual, esteemed leader, his Majesty, Donald. J Trump.

@spoda81

4 жыл бұрын

Frump wouldn't make a pimple on Martin's ass

@theinvisiblequeen

3 жыл бұрын

You are joking, right?

This speech is just so inspiring and gorgeous.

The president got my crying in the club over here..what a beautiful scene❤❤

Sorkin is such a great writer.

I MISS THIS SHOW!!!!!

LoL is that Mandy? Best disappearing act Ive ever seen.

The moment I knew I was in love with this show

I hope our nation will one day dream again.

What will be he next thing that challenges us, Toby? That makes us go farther and work harder?

I feel like we needed this speech during the Covid Crisis.

@carllandsness9416

4 жыл бұрын

Yes Without blame or arrogance

Goosebumps. Every single time.

They used to show this in re-runs...why oh why cant they still! Even in re-runs it would still do better then half the crap they got on now..

"What will be the next thing that challenges us, Toby?" "Surely we can do it again." "Here's to absent friends and the ones that are here now." So many great lines in this speech. If only we had vision like this coming from the White House now.

god damn i love this show

GOD!! I love this......WOW!

Fantastic Speech, bloody touching. So well said.

Absolutely correct “Oh I Have Slipped The Surly Bonds of Earth... Put Out My Hand And Touched the Face of God ”

best show ever on the tube

Aaron Sorkin should have been a politician the way he can write

@edmccambridge3319

7 жыл бұрын

Peggy Noonan took that line from John Gillespie Magee Jr.'s poem 'High Flight'. You should probably brush up on your own history before pointing the finger.

@singledatapoint

6 жыл бұрын

liverpoollishgirl And Reagan got it from John Magee who wrote High Flight in 1941. It was such a well known phrase when Reagan said it that I didn’t think he needed to give a citation.

@yokie52

5 жыл бұрын

@liverpoollishgirl See above regarding origin of "touched the face of God"..

@yokie52

5 жыл бұрын

Didn't he write for Clinton? I am getting older and may have imagined it...

The music playing behind him...there was a bit of Ave Maria in it..perfect.

Wow!! Brilliant!!

Touch the face of God - lovely words and also from President Reagan's Space Shuttle speech. At the end of this monologue I swear I heard "Ave Maria"

it always makes me laugh and then it always gives me the chills

and with outstretched fingers, we touched the face of god I'm not sure there has ever been a better said, or written line, in the tv history

@calkris5285

6 жыл бұрын

it was taken from a poem, apparently by Magee -- Sorkin apparently hoped the audience would not be well-read enough to notice

this was the moment i completely fell in love with the west wing

With the recent hearing and debate about UFO's in the US Congress the past days, I was reminded of the simple explanation Sorkin wrote and Martin Sheen delivered of objects that get identified.

I have a great love of, and a vast command of, language myself and so I very much like to see it in others. Partly for the cue to the speaker or writer's intellect, partly for the sheer joy of it, and partly as a personal reminder and goad to attention and action. I like to remind myself as well that it can be used by those thus gifted for terrible manipulation and purpose as well however.....

Absent friends who are here now... 🎶unchained melody

My favorite West Wing scene ever.

I'm an atheist, and this show never fails to give me a religious experience.

Netflix has them all.

I wish I could live my entire life during a Bartlet administration....

Ahhhh High Flight. A favorite of mine.

@SGMD84 My sentiments EXACTLY!!! The first four seasons - before the departure of Aaron Sorkin were astoundingly good - then from season five on it was like watching a bad Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie!!!

Didn't later on in the series President Bartlet said it was bad luck to toast with water? I just noticed that in this scene.

@amolchan001 Andrew Shephard is the US president played by Michael Douglas in "The American President," which is another one of Aaron Sorkin's written works. Ironically, Martin Sheen played his chief of staff in the movie.

@trooper707 that is, it is from John Gillespie Magee, killed in a mid air collision in WW2 during a training run. To be fair, Magee was a real life hero, Reagan played one in the movies.

Wow!

I can't say much more than wow, Wow!!!!!!!!

Just the last five words, and I think you mean the Challenger disaster. Also, Peggy Noonan (Reagan's primary speechwriter, and likely the woman who wrote those words for him in the first place) was a consultant for this show, so I suspect it was a nod to her as well. Anyway, you know what they say - great writers steal from the best.

@calkris5285

6 жыл бұрын

Noonan, the conservative speech-writer, ridiculed this show.

@paulwagner688

2 жыл бұрын

She got it from the poem entitled "High Flight", written by a RAF pilot in WWII

I never noticed that "Ave Maria" played in the background of that speech before.

@jfallas The line you're thinking of from Regan's speech was "They slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of god"

@SatyaVenugopal Yeah, Sheen is really amazing in this role.

As we've all asked...WHERE are the real politicians like this today?? Don't you think they should be out there, somewhere, ready to actually lead?

@GargoyleZoo3

7 жыл бұрын

i think at this point it is up to us to become those leaders. to take the anvil away from the old system and with weight of the peoples voice behind our hammers, forge a new one. A new system for a new age

@Tahkaullus01

7 жыл бұрын

Call me a cynic, but until the people who run the system acknowledge the need for the system to change I don't think we'll be seeing it any time soon. Better that we break away entirely and begin a new system ourselves than try to convince those stuck in their ways to see the light.

I AGREE WITH YOU.

Rather than the West Wing Theme. You can hear Ave Maria play.

High Flight. Didn't one of the Astronauts quote parts of it during the Apollo 1 Congressional investigation into the accident?

lol Josh "yeah, right!"

The crackpots and these women episode. LEO How could you possibly remember that ten years ago there was a 188 million dollar debt increase off a 22 billion dollar deficit? BARTLET [hand in chest] God, I was right? LEO Ah, see, that’s what I thought. Bartlet laughs and LEO smiles. The senior staff walk in. BARTLET Everyone! Come in. Come on in. Hey, listen up everybody. Zoey’s down from Hanover. I’m making chili for everyone tonight.

After every time I hear Trump's press conference on T.V., I have to watch a snippet from West wing to stop my head spinning. I need the fiction to reduce the suffering inflicted by the reality.

I miss the Civility and leadership of this presidency

Yeah, I immediately thought "Challenger?" when he said that.

@cubswin3838

6 жыл бұрын

The touched the face of God was used by Reagan after Challenger. Written by speechwriter Peggy Noonan, who was an advisor on the show.

This inspired me more than the current 2020 Whimp we got at the whitehouse

Season 5 is a bit unfocused but Season 6 and & 7 are great

it is true with everyone of them the inspiring part

@BelieveIt1051 Our Nation's Public School System is testament to the fact that, not only is free education a right, but is our nation's greatest responsibility... WE don't EVER want to be a country where only the rich can afford education.... ..

The line “… touched the face of God.” a paraphrase of the last line of High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr.

@fatman123526

Жыл бұрын

With the follow up of "here's to absent friends" it comes across as a bit of a callback to Reagan's speech after the Challenger explosion.

I wonder what staff level you had to be to get to go to this exclusive president's chilli club

@alexandraicobii I AGREE WITH YOU THE END OF THE SPEECH GETS ME EVERY TIME.

you said it right ... never had

0:43 - Always thought Josh saying "Yeah right!" was incredibly offensive. Like he's saying "Your daughter's gonna be bangin' EVERYONE , sir!"

@eleanorabdo5583

Жыл бұрын

No I literally gasped out loud and said "Josh no"

What song was playing at the end of this? I mean, I know....do you?

Hey! People are sitting while the President's standing! Call Dr. Jacobs!

Is that "Ave Maria" @2:25?

Something to think that Zoe is the first member of Jeb's family to appear in the series.

What season is?

This is one of a couple scenes (along with them in the kitchen earlier in this episode) that makes me wonder about the back story between Josh and Zoey. I don't think anyone else would have the moxie to say "Yeah, right, about her celibacy in front of her dad. Jed and Leo have been friends for a long time. Josh's dad and Leo were friends for a long time. Seems like Josh has known Zoey since she was little, sort of in a big brother role. What do you think?

@Sylvander1911

3 жыл бұрын

Josh did not know Jed before he went to New Hampshire at the start of the campaign. He would have met Zoey, Elizabeth, and probably Ellie during that campaign

it won't be nbc, but it will be aaron sorkin...

Didn't like seasons 5-7?

We need to touch the face of God once again. We have to look beyond ourselves. Postmodernism is a soulless philosophy.

@BelieveIt1051 YES, they're investments in our future.... and although FINANCIAL investments (like stocks & bonds. your house, etc) CAN fail to pay off financially (as evidenced by the current recession...), I think they pay off in other areas instead then, through life experiences, lessons learned, etc You have my sympathies if your degree isn't currently helping you with employment... The recession has been hard on a lot of us (me too!!) , but education is never wasted, in the long run.

now here's the ultimate question: President Josiah Bartlet or President Andrew Shephard?

@SatyaVenugopal literaly never had

Music at 2:27?

@eleanorabdo5583

Жыл бұрын

Ave Maria