The State Dinner

BY STEPHEN LEE /November 1, 2005

 ‘The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.. . .’ Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution

The President tries to focus on key problems—a hostage standoff, a hurricane, and an impending truckers' union strike—all while trying to prepare for an important state dinner with the Indonesian President.

White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler and Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman are attempting to work out a deal with one of the Indonesian President's aides to release a French national who is being detained in Jakarta for working for democratic reforms. Staff assistant Mandy Hampton is arguing for a negotiating stance in a hostage standoff in Idaho because she thinks the FBI entrapped the white separatist suspects on gun charges before it began. Speechwriter Sam Seaborn is assigned to meet with Carl Everett, a huge Democratic Party SuperPAC fundraiser, at the reception, and Chief of Staff Leo McGarry is trying to bridge the labor-management differences with the truckers which center around a "two-tiered" plan that withholds pay and benefits from truckers who end up working nearly full-time hours at a significant deficit to their colleagues.

Meanwhile, Press Secretary CJ Cregg has to inform the President that a hurricane is bearing down on Georgia, and may be headed directly toward the USS John F. Kennedy carrier group, with about 12,000 sailors and marines aboard.