Variation on the standard Disclaimer: Good evening, from Los Angeles, I am not Dan Rydell, nor am I Casey McCall. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a million times: the Power Rangers are the property of Haim Saban, Disney, and whoever else may or may not be in charge of them now. Portions of the plot (and some dialogue) are straight out of The West Wing, which was created by Aaron Sorkin.) And with that, you're watching WWPR on CSC, so stick around!

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4:15 p.m., Mural Room

"Mr. Bicknell, if you will all wait in here, Mr. Park and Mr. DeSantos will be here in just a few moments," an unknown staffer instructed the three congressmen. It was almost game time.

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4:25 p.m., Adam's office

"You understand he's going to try to bait you, right?" Kat asked Rocky as the two of them, accompanied by Adam, left the speechwriting offices and headed for the Mural Room.

"For the last time, yes" Rocky told her. "That's only the tenth time you've reminded me of that in the last half-hour."

"Just smile, apologize, and then let me do the talking," Adam admonished him.

"That would be a first," Rocky pointed out. Adam had become much more outspoken over time, a far cry from his reticent teenage years. Whenever one of his friends would point this out, he would simply inform them that, as a guy who writes what other people say for a living, he had simply started thinking out loud more, needing to hear how his ideas sounded.

Before Adam could remind Rocky of this point for the hundredth time, they had reached the room, with to find Billy and Tommy already waiting inside with three very somber-looking members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Adam, Rocky, Kat, I believe you know Aaron Bicknell, Sgt. Todd Roberts and Dr. Ann Fischer," Billy asked the trio, wanting to dispose of the introductions so the six of them could get to the reason they were all gathered here.

"Yes, we have," Adam informed his boss, then turned to shake Roberts' hand. "Thank you all for coming."

"Our pleasure," Roberts said back as the six took their seats on the pair of sofas facing each other in the center of the room. Billy and Tommy, not having a role to play in the discussion, drifted back against the wall off to the side and availed themselves of the refreshments that had been set out.

"Before we begin, I would like to say something," Aaron said. "While the armed forces of this country tend to have a love-hate relationship with the citizens they defend, they are at least treated by most Americans with the respect their job, if not they themselves, deserve. Now, yesterday on the television program Washington Weekly, the outspoken opposition to that standard was given a voice, and a face, and a name."

"Which brings up our first issue, and thank you for doing so, Aaron," Rocky interjected.

"I'm surprised at you, Rocky. I've always considered you a friend."

"And I'm honored by that, sir." Rocky plunged ahead, figuring it was now or never. "Congressman Roberts, let me first say that when I said what I said, I was not speaking for the President, nor for any other member of the administration. Second, I apologize. I was going for the cheap laugh, looking to score a few points, and anyone willing to come out and debate ideas deserves more than a political punch line. So, again, sir, I apologize."

Congressman Roberts just sat there, like a statue, not moving, not speaking. It took a few seconds for everyone to make sure he was even breathing. He finally broke his silence, but not in the way anyone in the room was hoping. "Good, then." With that, he turned to Adam. "Let's deal."

"Excuse me?" Adam asked to anyone within earshot.

"What do we get?"

"For what?"

"For your guy insulting millions of Americans."

"Well, like Rocky said…"

"I heard what Rocky said, Adam. I want to know what we get."

Adam looked dumbfounded for a second, but responded calmly. "An apology."

"I think we'll need a little more than that. I've got an intelligence bill that could use an endorsement from you guys."

"Well, that's a problem."

"And why is that?"

"Because I've seen this bill, and it makes the Patriot Act look like a phone survey."

"We've got a war on terror to fight, as well as a role as the moral leader of the world."

"There's a catch to being a moral leader; you have to exercise morality to do it."

"Adam," Kat admonished him with a single word, urging him to keep his cool.

"That's the offer on the table, so what's it going to be?" Roberts summed up.

"We're not prepared to make any sort of deal at this point," Adam told the congressman.

"Sure we are," Rocky pleaded, desperate to resolve the situation. "Todd…"

"Rocky, my understanding of the situation is that you're cleaning out your desk at the end of the day, so I'd just as soon negotiate with Adam if it's all the same with you."

"Todd…" Aaron tried to reign in his fellow congressman, but to no avail.

"Let me work, please. You always had this coming, Rocky. That smug smile, the New York sense of humor…"

"Todd…" Aaron again tried to restrain the man from running his mouth off, but Adam's ears had already perked up at that comment, as he realized that the honorable congressman had just committed an even greater screw-up than Rocky had. Rocky may have been of Hispanic ethnicity, but everyone remembered from that one holiday season back in Angel Grove that he also celebrated his Jewish heritage, and that had just been trampled on by a mere aside. The only question was whether Rocky noticed.

"I was actually born in Los Angeles, but that's beside the…" Clearly he hadn't, so Adam decided to bring it to his attention.

"He meant Jewish." Again, you could have heard a feather drop. And in Billy's case, the glass he was holding did drop, shattering on the floor. A steward quickly ran off to get a broom and dustpan to clean up the mess, as the conversation in the center of the room started up again. "When he said, New York sense of humor, he meant Jewish."

"You know what, Adam, let's not even go there," Rocky told his longtime friend, wanting more than anything else for this meeting to get back on track.

"There's been an apology," Aaron said, thinking along the same lines as Rocky. "Let's move on."

"I'd like to know," started Dr. Bicknell, who had remained silent through the whole meeting until now, "why you guys spend so much time defending the First Amendment, but nothing on the First Commandment."

"I don't like what I've been accused of," Roberts fumed.

"Well, hard luck," Adam blurted out.

"The First Commandment says, 'Honor thy Father…'"

"No, it doesn't."

"Adam…" Rocky tried to intervene, while Aaron rolled his eyes toward the heavens, also recognizing Fischer's theological error.

"It doesn't!"

"Listen…"

"No! If I'm going to make you sit through this preposterous exercise, we're going to get the names of the damn commandments right!"

"Okay, here we go," Roberts muttered, mentally preparing for battle.

Turning back toward the congressional delegation, Adam verbally lashed out at them. "'Honor thy father and mother' is the Fifth Commandment!"

"Then what is the First Commandment?" Fischer demanded. The response came, not from Adam, but from a voice that thundered into the room and caused everyone inside to stare in the direction of the speaker.

'"I AM the Lord your God. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.' Boy, those were the days," uttered the voice of President Jason Lee Scott at he hobbled into the room on crutches.

"Mr. President," Mr. Bicknell and Rocky were the first ones to regain their senses and quickly stood up. The rest of the room followed suit.

"Aaron, Rocky," Jason greeted the two of them, shaking their hands in succession. "What do we have here, Kat?"

"A roomful of hot tempers, Mr. President," she responded.

"Todd," Jason continued, working his way down the line.

"Ann Fischer," the congresswoman introduced herself. "And I have a question."

"Of course."

"If a terrorist attack were to occur because of our country twiddled its collective thumbs arguing over alternative solutions, isn't that too high a price to pay for free speech?"

"I don't think so. Theodore Roosevelt once said, 'To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.' Admittedly, he may have said that after Wilson had moved in and was expressing his resentment of the man, but, there you go." Turning to one of the stewards in the room, the President asked him to pour a cup of coffee for him. He then turned back to Dr. Fischer and asked her about her title. "Dr. Fischer?"

"Yes."

"Are you, by any chance, a medical doctor?"

"No, sir, I have a Ph. D."

"Ah. Too bad, because I could probably use a third opinion on the sprained ankle. Tell me, is this degree in Psychology?"

"No."

"Theology?"

"No, sir."

"Social work?"

"I have a Ph. D. in English Lit.erature."

"Really?"

"Really.

"Okay, because I've heard you go out there on television and occasionally on radio call-in shows, and was wondering if your listeners were confused and assumed that when you called yourself "doctor" you had advanced training in psychology, theology or health care."

"I don't believe they do."

"I mention this because you spend a decent part of that time on those shows grandstanding like Archie Bunker against anything that makes you uncomfortable, from whether the government has abused its power, which I would agree with you on from time to time, to the always touchy issue of gay rights, which you've said you consider an abomination."

"I don't consider it an abomination, Mr. President, the Bible does."

"Yes, it does. Levitiicus"

"22:18."

"Chapter and verse. The only problem I have with that is that my brother-in-law, Kevin, came out a couple years ago and had been living in relative anonymity, which is a remarkable achievement given who his sister is married to. But he has always preferred, for obvious reasons, to stay out of the limelight and so I've always respected that. But last night, my wife, Kim, was crying almost uncontrollably last night when I got to the hotel room. When I asked her why, she said it had to do with a phone call she got from Kevin's boyfriend, telling us been found in a dumpster, beaten, with a slur I'd rather not repeat freshly spray-painted across the lid. I lost my temper and went down to the exercise room to try to vent, and the free world knows the rest. Now, I've read my Bible from cover to cover, so would you mind telling me what part of Scripture Kevin's attackers drew their inspiration from when they assaulted a defenseless man in an alley?"

The congresswoman was speechless at this revelation, so Jason hammered home the point. "Until you can answer that question, you can all, as Billy here would say, 'extricate your gluteus maximii' from of my White House. Katherine, would you show these people out?"

As Jason headed for the door that led to his office and everyone else started to gather up their things, Mr. Roberts muttered under his breath, "I think we can find our own way out."

"See that you do," Jason snapped back. When one is in the home of the President, one usually does not get to have the last word.

Aaron, who seemed to be the only person in the room who hadn't stuck his foot in his mouth yet that day, tried to offer some assurance to the staffers on his way out. "We'll fix this, Bill."

"See that you do," was the genius's stern reply. With that, the congressmen and Billy all left the room, leaving four former rangers trying to sort out what had just happened.

Rocky spoke first, choosing, as was his wont, to break the silence with a one-liner. "Okay, can I just say that, as it turned out, I was the calmest person in the room?"

"I am not empowered to auction off the Bill of Rights!" Adam exclaimed.

Rocky was on a roll, redirecting his fire. "Yeah, and you, Kat, were particularly impressive. I especially liked the part where you said nothing at all."

"I'm sorry," Kat told him, "but I was busy glancing over at the good Doctor here and trying to figure out where he's been for the last three hours!"

"Trust me, you don't want to know," was all Tommy was willing to say on the matter.

"So what happened to those missiles we were supposed to be talking about?" Rocky asked Adam.

"Don't know, I mean, they changed the subject, and once religion entered the debate, the thing got as formulaic as a Britney Spears song."

This conversation/argument continued as the foursome wandered down the hall and into the Oval Office. They probably hadn't even realized where they were, until Jason interrupted them. "Welcome home, Mr. President. How was the trip, sit? How's the ankle, sir?"

With the room silent and all attention on the guy standing behind the desk, Jason continued. "Seems to me we've all been on a break. Taking time to think about our personal lives (he was glancing at Tommy as he said this part, then turned to Rocky), or thinking about keeping our jobs. Breaks are good. Lord knows with as much as we've been through over the last fifteen years, we could all use a break or three."

Billy came in, just then, holding a note that he gave to Jason. "Thanks, bro." Jason looked over the note, then informed the rest of the room of the contents thereof. "Naval intelligence reports that approximately 1,200 Cubans left Havana this morning. About 700 of them turned back due to severe weather. Roughly 350 are missing, and presumed dead. 137 have been taken into custody in Miami and are seeking asylum. 'With the clothes on their back, they came through the storm,' and the ones who survived want a better life and they want it here. Pretty impressive, if you ask me. My point is this: break's over."

"Thank you, Mr. President," Billy said, and the rest of the ex-Rangers quickly followed suit. As they filed out of the Oval into Billy's office, Rocky was the last one to leave, but Jason stopped him before he got to the door.

"Just don't let it happen again," Jason told the man he had passed on his first legacy to.

"Yes, sir." Rocky responded, then left the way the rest of them had

Jason just stood there in front of his desk for a second, heeding his own advice about breaks. Then, he turned to the other door and spoke to his secretary, whom Tommy had recommended to him a while back. "Miss Viktor," he called, as Hayley walked into the room, "what's next?"

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Well, that's the end of episode one. As Sorkin himself claimed, each episode of The West Wing was a four-act play. I broke up the first couple acts in an effort to get something out there. And I apologize if I drifted a little too far to the left for some folks' taste there in the middle. But individual freedoms are something I'm pretty passionate about. I'm not sure how quickly I can do another one of these, since school's starting up in another week, plus I've got a gig singing in a small opera company. Any fans of WW who have requests for storylines they'd like to see redone are encouraged to send me a message. Thanks for tuning in!