"I do not know what 'frumpy' is but onomonopoetically is right"  A great guest spot by Ian McShane in the middle of a lovely episode.

I was thinking the same thing. I'm going with it being an intentional Buffy reference, so good on you HIMYM for layering the allusions to other shows.

Rare nexus to argue television and constitutional law
Let me preface by saying, I absolutely love these two episodes and frequently turn to them when I need a quick West Wing fix.

First, I want to defend the Will Bailey in the rain moment. Yes it's a bit absurd that it actually starts to rain, but I like the desperation. You take someone who's been fighting what for all accounts should be a losing battle for weeks, add in the sheer exhaustion that has to be going on, and the political geek…

Fun music related trivia which I think is discussed in the commentary: When Yo Yo Ma (one what an awesome guest star) came in to film the Christmas Party concert he was told he could just lay down the music once and then they'd go in and get all the coverage they needed. But being a bad ass he said no, that he'd play…

I totally agree on the 5 votes down moment, and also would like to high light (vague SPOILER) pretty much every interaction he has with Cliff Calley, there is also a nice moment, I forget what episode entirely but I think it's early on where on the phone with a powerful Senator he says "You can take your legislative…

Well explained, Midget, plus that whole Sam yelling at her then realizing he's being a petty child because she kicked his ass on television is a nice way to bring his character around as (incredibly minor and obvious spoiler) I really like their future interactions.

Details Details
I understand entirely you wanting to gloss over some of the day to day details stuff, but the write-up includes a couples errors that IMHO are of sufficient gravity to note:

Frequently, the political savvy of Bartlett is forgotten in moments of rhetorical flourish, but he's not a straight idealogue. There are distinct times when he compromises things for political purposes, but isn't happy about it. For example (just one that comes to mind, I'm sure there are others) SPOILER . . . the…

Um, weren't Ted and Robin a Couple for a while
In general I agree with the critique of this episode. My only beef is in the setup and the idea that Robin at least had not been exposed to Marshall and Lily couple dating attempts. Ted and Robin were together for a long time and if Marshall and Lily were searching for…

SPOILER to Banmar

Also, he was still you know The Mayor, and if the mayor disappeared the majority of Sunnydale (you know all the people who don't know vampires are real) would probably have something to say about that.

touche miles, obviously moving from sunnydale mayor/snake to sec'y of agriculture was a nice back up plan for him

Quibbles
Just a couple of notes on the review:

Continuing praise of CJ
Good job on the review on CJ's action in Trash Day, but I would also like to mention her role in Sabbath. I was always very hit by her soliloquy on the death penalty where she begins by saying she really doesn't have an opinion, but in talking about her duties is upset that it is her job to…

Hipster-

miles—you've got a timing issue, not completely definitive, but pretty close

i'm pretty sure it wasn't the juming down that they were worried about but the getting back out again with the box, that said it does seem excessively high tech and both angel and buffy seem remarkably unable to pull/climb on the escapge