Let's throw open our office doors to people who want to discuss things that we could care less about today.

Hi, you're listening to The West Wing Weekly. My name is Joshua Molina, and I'm Rishikesh Hereway.

We are here to discuss season one, episode five, the crack pods and these women.

It originally aired on October 20th, 1999. This episode was written by Aaron Sorkin.

It was directed by Anthony Drazen, who among other things directed the 1998 film version of David Raib's Hurley Burley,

the play on which it was based, having been mentioned in episode one of our podcast. We're coming full circle.

Our guest today is writer and producer Eli Addy. Eli joined the staff of The West Wing in its third season,

but before his gig in fictional DC, he worked as a political operative in the real White House,

serving as a special assistant to President Bill Clinton, and then as Vice President Al Gore's Chief Speechwriter.

He's also written for Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, House, and Rosewood. Eli, welcome to The West Wing Weekly.

It's a great pleasure to be here. I'm a little bit under the weather, but Lady Podcast is a cruel mistress, and she waits for no man's cold.

So if I sound congested, it's because I'm congested. And Eli, I'm curious actually, this little background on you.

How did you make the jump from real politics to The World of The West Wing and the staff?

As you mentioned, I was Al Gore's Chief Speechwriter, and the Florida recount happened, which was this crazy, demoralizing grind.

The recount ended. Gore didn't become the president. I really needed to leave town and figure out something new to do with my life.

How did you help things sourd you on politics, generally?

Well, it's the old phrase, I didn't leave politics, politics left me. That was definitely how the recount felt.

Some of it was having the election stolen. You know, certainly that's how I viewed it. And some of it was just the grind.

I mean, the average White House staff person is there for 18 months, and I was there for close to five years.

All of us unemployed democratic staffers were going out to bars and restaurants every night, and kind of drinking away our sorrows, and everyone saying, are you going to move to New York, are you going to stay here?

And whenever anyone asked me what I wanted to do, I would say, you know, I'm thinking of moving to LA and becoming a TV writer.

I didn't know what that meant, really. But every single person said, the West Wing, you should go work on the West Wing.

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