Signing Statement

Signing Statement

Signing Statement

This is good, Joshua Lyman thought to himself with only a hint of sarcasm as he took a minute to survey his situation. He was scheduled for a conference call in ten minutes--the beginning of which he was sure to miss, considering that the senator he was currently on the phone with had a chronic habit of changing any subject into a chance to rave about his grandchildren. Josh's desk was piled high with documents, most of which were marked 'urgent,' and he was trying valiantly to finish up a report for Leo in between speaking the expected responses of 'yes, sir' and 'I understand, sir' into the phone. This is good--I can do this, he repeated to himself encouragingly, having just finished up writing out the last of his points in the report for the Chief of Staff. As long as nothing else--

"Josh? You know you have a conference call in ten minutes, right?" Donna Moss said briskly from the doorway. Josh groaned when he saw that she was holding a four-inch thick stack of folders in her arms.

"I stopped myself!" he muttered indignantly to the ceiling, momentarily forgetting that he was still on the phone in his frustration at being caught tempting fate. Luckily, the man on the other line was now proudly relating what sounded like some sort of sports play-by-play, his voice so loud that the Deputy Chief of Staff had to hold the receiver a few inches from his ear.

'Who is it?' Donna mouthed to him as she settled the newest stack of paperwork onto the only clear area left on his desk. When he'd scrawled out the man's name on a scrap of paper, his assistant glanced quickly at her watch and walked around the desk to speak to him.

"Senator Stanton has a lot of respect for Leo--if you mention that Mr. McGarry is a part of the upcoming conference call…"

Josh barely heard the rest of her explanation as he carefully interrupted the senior senator and dropped his boss's name; Donna had been right--he was off of the phone in less than a minute. He was about to vault out of his seat and take a victory lap around his office for managing to extricate himself from such a sticky situation without having to send one of his colleagues the heads-up that someone important was probably pissed--but Donna was still standing next to his chair, looking expectant.

"You're welcome," she said cheekily, the minute he looked over at her and opened his mouth to speak.

"I wasn't going to thank you," he lied, scooting his chair farther back from his desk to distract her from looking at his face. She could always tell when--

"You're lying," the blonde woman said, matter-of-factly. Something told him she hadn't even bothered to look at him to gauge his reaction to such an accusation.

She knew him too well.

"Well, now you know I'm not gonna say it," Josh said, turning his chair to get up on the other side as it didn't appear that she'd be moving anytime soon. As he did so, he reached over and rescued his report for Leo out from under a toppled stack of folders. Josh stood; he was in the process of checking his watch to find out just how late he'd be to the scheduled call when he saw that Donna was again standing in front of him. He raised his eyebrows at her.

"What's a signing statement?" she asked, without preamble.

"Don't I have a conference call I'm late for?" he countered, "--and don't you have… things to do with all this paper?" Josh added as an afterthought, remembering vaguely an image of Donna standing in front of his desk saying something similar. Her only response was an icy silence, however. He attempted a weak smile, knowing that if he made any attempt to glance at his watch, he'd completely miss his appointment.

"You should have stopped at the conference call," she told him earnestly.

"Do you think so?" he asked with mock seriousness, leaning against the window and crossing his arms. He was totally unwilling to cede her any victory by walking around his own desk to get past her.

"Did you really want to be on the phone with the proud grandfather of Caleb, Simone, and Jayson?" she questioned, raising her own eyebrows at him in an expression he recognized all too well--and then it dawned on him.

Donna had a problem with something, and she wasn't going to let him leave until he cleared it up or someone dropped by with a national emergency.

"What's wrong with the signing statement?" he asked in a resigned voice. She didn't appear to be finished making her current point, however.

"I'm sure you know all about Caleb's sports stats and how Jayson is getting a new baby sister this year," she went on, clearly ignoring his question as she warmed to her subject. "Yet, Instead of leaving you in the lurch to listen to a bunch of irrelevant facts--"