TOBY ZIEGLER

'Tobias Zachary 'Toby' Ziegler', is a fictional character played by Richard Schiff on the television serial drama ''The West Wing''. For most of the series' duration he is White House Communications Director.

Contents

Character background and family

At the White House

The military shuttle leak

Toby and Bartlet

See also

Character background and family

Toby was born December 23, 1954. His childhood and family details are not fully known; he was from a lower-class background, and grew up in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, New York City. His father, Julian "Jules" Ziegler, who, according to one episode, "needed the G.I. Bill," probably fought in World War II or the Korean War, and made women's raincoats, probably in the Garment District of Manhattan. At some point prior, however, he worked for Murder Incorporated and served time in prison, complicating their relationship somewhat.
Toby's other relatives were less visible on the show and references to them are not always consistent. In the first-season episode "Five Votes Down," Toby speaks of his mother in the present tense. But in the third-season episode "H. Con-172", he says, "She's been dead for 12 years." In the second-season episode "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail," he says that his sisters took him to protest rallies in the mid-1960s. In season 3, in "The Indians in the Lobby", he cites "nieces and nephews" as a reason not to have a drink with Bruno on the Wednesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. In the fifth-season episode "Separation of Powers," he mentions a grandfather who lived to be 96 years old, but said, "The last twenty years, he thought the Habsburgs still lived in a big palace in Vienna." Toby also had a younger brother, David, who was a mission specialist at NASA and who later committed suicide after learning he had terminal cancer.
Toby was once married to Andrea Wyatt, who served as a Congresswoman from a district centered on Baltimore, Maryland. They divorced in the first year of the Bartlet Administration after unsuccessful attempts to have children. Toward the end of the Bartlet re-election campaign, however, they had reconciled to the point where Andi became pregnant with twins, and Toby was the father. (It was not made clear whether this was through sex or in-vitro fertilization.) Andi was later sued by a conservative group on the grounds that her nondisclosure of her pregnancy during her campaign for re-election constituted election fraud.
The twins, named Huck and Molly, were born during the crisis surrounding the kidnapping of Zoey Bartlet: Huck was named for Andi's grandfather, and Molly for Molly O'Connor, the Secret Service Agent who was killed in the line of duty trying to protect Zoey. At the time, Toby had just asked Andi to remarry him, but she refused, saying he was too sad.
Toby is rather morose, a characteristic that is reflected in his typical wardrobe, usually dull shades of grey and brown. He is something of an idealist, often less willing than his colleagues and the president to compromise on his political values.
A devout Jew, Toby regularly attended synagogue on Saturdays. He once suggested to Josh Lyman that, because Josh was from the well-off town of Westport, Connecticut, far from the current and former Jewish neighborhoods of New York City, that he was more Jewish than Josh.
Toby's education was less well-established than that of his colleagues, although he often seemed to know more than almost every other cast member except the President. He seems to have a particular fondness for grammatical correctness: he is able to name all types of punctuation from memory, and claimed to have discovered a possible typographical error in the Constitution which, he believes, could change the interpretation of the document. He attended City College of New York. The diploma on the wall of his office indicated that he had a doctorate in Communications, though the issuing school is unknown, and maybe a school other than CCNY.
Toby is a fan of the New York Yankees. He claimed to have attended 441 games at Yankee Stadium as of May 2002. If he began attending games at the age of 7, in 1961, this works out to an average of about 11 games a season, although it's not clear whether he could keep up this pace while working at the White House, located 235 miles from Yankee Stadium.
Although Josh is a fan of the crosstown New York Mets, the show never showed Toby and Josh arguing about baseball. The sport was, however, a topic mentioned in Toby's arguments with Andi, as she was a Baltimore native and an Orioles fan, and following their divorce dating an official in the Orioles' front office. "Can't you just date the National League?" Toby asked. Late in the show's run, Andi dressed the three-year-old twins in Orioles paraphernalia on Halloween, but Toby bought them little Yankee caps, saying, "You'll thank me later."

At the White House

Before joining the Bartlet for America presidential campaign, Ziegler was a political consultant who worked for various political campaigns such as New York City Council seats, Bronx borough president and U.S. House and Senate races. Toby claims that he had never worked for a winning campaign prior to the Bartlet campaign.
Toby's role in the office was often as a gruff, older brother, particularly to Josh and Sam Seaborn, often treating both with hostility unless they're in trouble (although both Josh and Sam seem to recognize the hostility as nothing more than "Toby being Toby.") In particular Toby seems to support Josh, even supporting him as Leo McGarry's replacement as Chief of Staff, despite Toby being considered a candidate for the position at the same time. When Josh left the White House towards the end of Bartlet's second term to run a Presidential campaign, Toby viewed this as a betrayal and was extremely hostile to Josh until long after. His reaction is explained in ''Drought Conditions'' with the revelation that his brother David committed suicide rather than live what time he had left: "He could have had years. But instead he just dropped everything and walked away." Toby felt "walking away" was what Josh had done also. Josh would later (successfully) move to keep their friendship alive, and Toby keeps advising Josh as he tries to get Santos elected president.
Toby accomplished much in his tenure as Communications Director including writing both of Bartlet's Inaugural addresses as well as his State of the Union Addresses. His most notable accomplishment was "fixing" Social Security during the 5th season of the show, the 6th year of the Administration. He thought of it early one morning, almost resigned after it was leaked by the Congressman who was participating in it, but then, tumultuously, fixed it at the end of the show with the help of Josh Lyman. After C.J. Cregg's promotion from Press Secretary to White House Chief of Staff in early Season 6, he also served as the de facto White House Press Secretary in addition to his role as Communications Director. Toby initially had trouble facing the press in the new role and made several major gaffes, but learned to perform the duty well with the help of new Deputy Press Secretary Annabeth Schott.

The military shuttle leak

The end of Toby's tenure at the White House came when he revealed classified information about a secret military space shuttle to Greg Brock, a reporter for ''The New York Times.'' He took these actions when the International Space Station developed a fatal oxygen leak while three astronauts were on board. No civilian space shuttles were available to perform a rescue mission in time and the military appeared unwilling to use its secret space shuttle to rescue the astronauts. Toby knew that if the military shuttle's existence became public knowledge, the public would demand the safe return of the astronauts. His leaking the story resulted in the successful saving of the astronauts.
After heading the White House investigation to find the source of the leak, Toby eventually confessed to C. J. Cregg that he had been the leak. Bartlet would not accept Toby's resignation and fired him instead. Toby attended Leo McGarry's funeral, but decided to sit in the back of the church to avoid press coverage. He was similarly unable to attend Leo's burial at Arlington National Cemetery because of the press circus his attendance may have caused. Despite strong mixed emotions, Bartlet's final official act as President of the United States was to pardon Toby and thus spare him from having to serve his prison sentence. The precise nature of Ziegler's possible trial and sentencing is unclear. He appears to have been ready earlier to plead guilty in federal court; later, he states that he will serve his sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Petersburg, Virginia. (Though the maximum length of the possible sentence is six years, C.J. Cregg later refers to Toby's own sentence as a five year term.) However, the pardon signed by President Bartlet on his final day in office contains the sentence, "His [Ziegler's] trial is pending."
It was revealed that, at the time of the dedication of Bartlet's presidential library three years later, Toby was again living in New York City, and was associated in some fashion with Columbia University.

Toby and Bartlet

Toby is the only member of the West Wing staff other than Leo McGarry to have been with Bartlet since the beginning of his first campaign for the presidency. On the night that Josh Lyman came to hear Bartlet speak in New Hampshire in late October 1997 , Leo fired everyone on Bartlet's staff except for Toby, contrary to the expectations of all parties involved, including Toby himself. This incited the ire of then-Governor Bartlet, who protested that Leo had fired everyone but the only staffer whose name he hadn't learned yet.
Toby's relationship with Bartlet was intense and often strained; Toby was seen as the most critical of the staffers, and the most willing to challenge the President's judgment and question his actions. Their biggest personality clash (prior to aforementioned shuttle leak) was when Bartlet revealed to Toby that he had multiple sclerosis, Toby was outraged and Bartlet was affronted by the fact that Toby didn't seem to care about him, only the politics (Toby was the second White House staffer to find out after Leo). Toby was also one of the most liberal staffers. In season one, it was revealed that Toby was not the President's first choice for Communications Director, though the President confided in the same episode how grateful he was that his first choice turned down the job.

See also

★ List of characters on ''The West Wing''

★ List of politicians on ''The West Wing''

★ List of ''The West Wing'' episodes