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Abu el Banat" is episode 97 of The West Wing.

Plot

The entire First Family gathers for the White House Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. Though Ellie (Nina Siemaszko) is late as usual due to her medical research work, Zoey has arrived, as have Elizabeth (Annabeth Gish) and her husband, Doug Westin, and their son Gus. It's revealed that Liz's daughter, Annie, has been challenging her parents and they left her home from this trip due to her most recent facial piercings. President Bartlet has chosen Gus to flip the switch and light the tree, but when he ignores Elizabeth's advice to spend time rehearsing the simple task with the child, Gus has stage fright at the last minute and must be replaced in the task by Zoey. Doug has decided to run for US Congress in New Hampshire without consulting the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) or the county chair. Early attempts by Josh and Leo fail to discourage Doug from running, as they and the President consider him a poor candidate whom they could not support. When Doug angrily lists for Josh the early campaign networking he's done, the President hears about it and realizes that Elizabeth has done a lot of leg work. He confronts her with his conviction that she has more political talent than Doug and should run instead, but she replies that she has decided to put her family above any political aspirations of her own because she believes that her own mother's medical career impaired her parenting.

Christian aid workers are arrested in Sudan for proselytizing and the government in Khartoum's actions generate negative press attention in the US. Leo McGarry first bashes the Sudanese government for falsely harassing Christians, then finds out that two of the twelve missionaries possessed multiple Bibles and religious videos and aimed to convert others. Leo arranges a payoff to local officials to get them safely out of the country.

Meanwhile, the DEA has suspended the license of a doctor who assisted with the suicide of a terminally ill patient in Oregon, a state whose laws permit the practice. The Administration seeks the help of the Attorney General (Dylan Baker), but he agrees with the DEA. Bartlet notices that Attorney General Fisk is leaking the story to his home state of Mississippi and threatens to fire him. White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler raises the question of assisted suicide to the President, pointing out that 1 in 5 of those requesting euthanasia have Multiple Sclerosis (MS), as does the President. Toby also pushes Will Bailey, Chief of Staff to the Vice President to get the new Vice President (VP) Bob Russell to speak out about assisted suicide, and punishes Will by moving his office out of the West Wing when the VP declines. C.J. Cregg, White House Press Secretary, has personal end-of-life concerns regarding her own father whose early-onset Alzheimer's is deteriorating. The President later broaches the issue of his MS and euthanasia with the First Lady Abbey Bartlet, and comes down against any medical intervention, saying "No syringe in the nightstand, it'll get ugly and that's that." He then asks the First Lady if she'll be there with him as it happens, alluding to their recent estrangement over his decision to assassinate a foreign leader who was a threat to the United States and the consequences of that decision, most notably their youngest daughter Zoey's abduction in retaliation. There is a pause before Abbey then nods and says, "Yeah." She then kisses his forehead, implying she has forgiven him for Zoey's kidnapping.

The title refers to a visit the President paid to Egypt with his family, where the tour guide constantly introduced him to everyone they met as "Abu El Banat." When asked, the guide told him it meant "father of daughters." The people to whom he was introduced then paid for the future President's tea out of sympathy for the special difficulties faced by a man raising three girls.

External links

• The West Wing Episode Guide

• Articles lacking sources from October 2008
• The West Wing episodes
• Christmas television episodes
• 2003 television episodes