Author's Note: This story is a combination of three different methods, each of which is denoted differently. There are two different timelines flowing through the story, and they merge at the end. The sections in italics take place in the 'present', or in the year that the book is published. The sections in bold are excerpts from the book, High Flight. And the sections in normal text are 'flashbacks'. Dividers are placed between sections for further clarity.
This story runs from eight years after the end of Bartlet's second term until twenty years after his second term. The flashbacks make up the greatest part of the story and lead us up through that twelve-year period. Time gaps between each successive flashback are variable, from a few days up to a few years. Hopefully enough clues exist for the reader to place most important events in a time scale.
'High Flight' is a poem written by John Gillespie McGee. Alluded to during the episode 'The Crackpots and These Women', it is the title of both the book referred to throughout the story and the title of the story itself. The full text of the poem is provided at the conclusion of the story.
High Flight
He ran his hands reverently over the smooth binding, inhaling the overwhelming scent of fresh ink and knowing that the paper beneath his fingers had never before been creased. The book in his hands hadn't yet had the chance to become dog-eared or well read. It had never been thumbed through or referred to. No one had ever heard this story in this way.
This was his book. It had taken him most of his life so far to write it. He had been writing it before he even realized it. The story had begun years before his birth and would continue for years after his death. But it was a story that had to be told now, before its characters were forgotten, relegated to dusty shelves beside the history books that they had helped re-write.
Breathlessly he opened the cover. The black words jumped out at him from the snow-white page.
'Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the sky on laughter-silvered wings…'
The opening lines of a poem penned by a young pilot during the Second World War, their original purpose was to describe the delirious joy of flight. Here, in this book, they are being put to quite a different purpose. Here they are being used to tell the story of what has become known as the 'Bartlet Legacy.' They will attempt to tell what this means and how it endures, even long years after the man himself succumbed to the illness that ravaged his presidency and his life. They are going to be used to tell of a remarkable man and the equally remarkable group of men and women that he gathered around him.
Superficially, this may appear to be merely another overview of politics and government. But it is much more than that. It is a story of ties so strong that they transcended deep partisan lines to reshape the nation. It is the story of a group of men and women who never shied away from the good fight, who felt the only way to hit walls was running at full speed, who never gave up asking 'What's next?' But it is still far more than remembrances of a past president. It is a reflection of what is still to come.
I was privileged enough to be one of the final initiates into what we affectionately refer to as the Legacy. The word is always capitalized, somehow even in speech. It is a word that means we will hold our ideals above pettiness. It means that we are men and women of honour above all else. It means that we will fight tirelessly for those things we have deemed just. It is a word that means we are part of a select few.
Josiah Bartlet was many things. But it must be remembered that first and foremost he was a man. He was born. He lived. He died. But it is not those simple facts that make him a man worth remembering. It is the manner in which he lived the life he was given. That way of living would have made him worth the notice, even if he had never set foot in the Oval Office. That is the sort of man that Jed Bartlet was.
It is all we can hope that we should someday aspire to that level of devotion and determination. It is a miracle that this one man, never groomed to be president, rose to the head of our country and managed to ride out the storms that threatened to sink his presidency. It is my privilege to say that I was a student of this man. It is my pleasure to say that he was my friend. And it is my honour to say that he led my country.
Oh, and Josh Lyman was right in the end; I am a Republican.