Headed by President Josiah Bartlet, demonstrates that office politics are the same everywhere; things just have greater repercussions when your office happens to be the White House. Stories surround the President; his deputy communications director Sam Seaborn; his beleaguered press secretary, C.J. Cregg; the chief of staff, recovering boozehound Leo McGarry, who sacrifices his marriage to his career. Among the global crises Bartlet must finesse are a nuclear showdown between India and Pakistan, an American plane shot down by terrorists, and another downed U.S. plane in Iraq.