A Proportional Response

"A Proportional Response" is the 3rd episode of The West Wing.
Plot
An angry President Josiah Bartlet seeks vengeance after Syrian operatives blow up a jet carrying his personal physician and dozens of American passengers. The Pentagon comes up with what they call a "proportional response" to the attack, which involves air strikes on three low-level targets in Syria as well as one against the Syrian intelligence agency headquarters. However, President Bartlet wants a stronger response, and the Joint Chiefs respond with an attack plan on a much more prominent target: the international airport in Damascus. The subtext of the story involves the President's unease around the Joint Chiefs of Staff and his worries about receiving their respect despite never having served in the military. Leo McGarry talks to Admiral Percy Fitzwallace who tells him the President is doing fine. Despite this, Fitzwallace earlier told the President that his desired response is disproportionate, saying that he "will have doled out five thousand dollars worth of punishment for a fifty buck crime." Leo confronts the President about the disproportionate response and says that he will stand up against him if he continues to insist on it. President Bartlet confesses he has personalized the terrorist attack because his physician, a good man with a newborn daughter, was among the victims. He then authorizes the proportional response and gives a televised speech in which he explains the situation to the American people.
In other story lines, Charlie Young applies for a White House job and C.J. Cregg talks reporter Danny Concannon out of writing a story about Sam Seaborn's relationship with a call girl. Charlie, who was applying for a messenger job, impresses Josh Lyman enough that Josh insists on hiring Charlie as the President's personal aide, or "body man."
Episode title
The military option offered to the President is a proportional response but he calls for a disproportionate response. The issue of the virtue of a proportional response was also touched on by Aaron Sorkin in his 1995 movie, The American President when after being told attacking the Libyan Intelligence Headquarters is a proportional response to Libya's attack on C-STAD in Israel, President Shepherd asks, "Someday somebody's going to have to explain to me the virtue of a proportional response." Martin Sheen was part of both scenes, as he played the White House Chief of Staff A.J. MacInerney in The American President.

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