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This week's show revolved around four main storylines: "big block of cheese" day at the White House, World Trade Organization protests, pardon requests, and the establishment of the Presidential library. Before discussing these themes, however, viewers may be curious to know more about the very last segment of the opening scene of the show, where a staff assistant is portrayed as arriving early at the White House Office of Communications. Before even removing her overcoat, the first thing she does is pick up the telephone, and say to the person she called, "this is {stating her name}, the communications office is open." The telephone call was to a Secret Service office that maintains security in the West Wing, and is an accurate portrayal of a real activity that takes place in the real West Wing. In fact, every morning, and anytime staff are in the office on a weekend day or holiday, that call must be made to inform the Secret Service that someone is in the office. If the call is not made, an alarm will go off somewhere, and a uniformed agent will show up at the office to investigate.

The "big block of cheese day" is a reference to an action that took place during the Andrew Jackson administration when, according to the show, President Jackson had a big, 2-ton block of cheese placed in the White House for anyone to eat. Evidently, the gesture symbolized that any organized group that desired to have their position heard by the government would not be discriminated against. The Bartlett White House uses this historical reference to describe an organized event where all White House staff members are required to meet with certain groups that normally would not have access to the President. This "big block of cheese day" is not an official White House event and is not something that this reviewer recalls happening during the time he spent in either the Bush or Clinton White Houses. There may have been outreach efforts whereby the staff was encouraged to meet with groups that otherwise would not have access to the President, but there was never any organized "big block of cheese day."

The interesting thing about the "big block of cheese day" is how it portrayed a very unruly staff meeting being run by the Chief of Staff. The meeting is simply out of control, with staff members constantly interrupting the Chief of Staff and making jokes. It is unlikely that any staff meeting run by the Chief of Staff in the Roosevelt Room of the West Wing is ever that unruly. In fact, the papers recently reported a story on President Bush's Chief of Staff, Andy Card, commenting on the very organized and efficient meetings that he runs every morning with the President's senior staff. It is unlikely that Mr. Card would ever permit or preside over the type of meeting portrayed on this television show.

The second storyline of this week's show depicted the World Bank and World Trade Organization protests taking place in Washington, DC. This portrayal was ripped from the news headlines, as such protests actually did take place in Washington. In the show, Toby is portrayed as meeting with the protestors. Although it is unlikely that a senior staff member to President Clinton would have taken time out of their day to meet with the real protestors, the scenario is possible.

The third storyline involves a request by one of Donna's old friends to have a pardon for her grandfather considered. Donna has her friend talk to Sam, and Sam eventually learns that the friend's grandfather was in fact a spy. In reality, pardons are reviewed and handled by counsel's office, but the show uses Sam, the Deputy Communications Director, for the job. The pardon scenes were interesting not only because the pardon topics are timely in light of today's current events, but also because they portrayed several interesting real life aspects of the real West Wing.

In the first pardon scene, Donna greets her friend and informs her that she can have a tour of the West Wing after 10:00 p.m., when the President leaves the Oval Office. This is a true statement. The real White House staff is allowed to give tours of the West Wing to small groups of people after the President leaves for the evening.

When Sam meets with the National Security Advisor to learn that the grandfather of Donna's friend was indeed a spy, Sam says to the National Security Advisor that he has clearance to see "classified" information. This was an interesting statement, because although White House staff (including staff assistants) handles all different types of secure information, until recently, there was no system to determine which staff member had clearance and which did not. Now, a staff member's identification badge is marked with little yellow starbursts to indicate whether or not they have clearance, and the kind of clearance they have.

One last comment on the pardon scenes: the last scene shows Sam sitting in the mess sulking. Behind Sam are two or three large windows. The real White House mess is located in the basement of the West Wing and there are no windows.

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The final storyline in this episode has to do with the proposed location of the President's library. In reality, a President's library is planned before the President leaves office. The interesting things about these scenes however, where not the discussion of the library, but two other real-life portrayals. First of all, the President is shown walking to his office through halls in the West Wing. As the President walks past a desk where a uniformed Secret Service agent is sitting, the agent stands up. In the real West Wing, the agents posted at those desks will tell you that they only stand for certain people, not just anybody who walks by. Secondly, the President is having difficulty with the telephone at his desk and exclaims, "can't something be done about these phones!" In the real West Wing, when President Clinton first took office, he was known for referring to the phones in the Oval Office as "horse and buggy" phones, because they had not been replaced for several years. The phones were changed shortly thereafter.

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