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{{Person
{{improvement}}
 
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|name =
{{Officeholder |
 
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|image = 3toby.png
name = Toby Ziegler |
 
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|birthname = Tobias Zachary Ziegler
image = [[Image:Toby_Ziegler.jpg|240px]]|
 
  +
|dob = December 23rd 1954<ref name="holy">[[Holy Night]]</ref><ref>[[Enemies Foreign and Domestic]] — Despite Toby's birthday being the subject of the Season 4 Christmas episode, he mentions here that he is 44 years old, which would make his birth year 1957</ref>
job = [[White House Communications Director]]|
 
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|dod =
dates = January 20, [[1999]] - September 4, [[2006]] |
 
  +
|profession = Politics
predeccessor = ''unknown'' |
 
 
|jobs = <small>'''[[1999]]—[[2006]]'''</small><br/>[[White House Communications Director]]
successor = [[Will Bailey]] |
 
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|affiliation = [[Democratic Party]]
}}
 
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|nickname =
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|hometown = Brighton Beach, NY
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|family = [[Jules Ziegler]]<br/><small>(father)</small><br/>[[David Ziegler]]<br/><small>(brother)</small><br/>[[Huckleberry Ziegler]]<br/><small>(son)</small><br/>[[Molly Ziegler]]<br/><small>(daughter)</small>
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|romances = [[Andy Wyatt]]<br/><small>(ex-wife)</small><br/>[[Tabatha Fortis]]<br/><small>(flirtation)</small><br/>
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|haircolor = Dark brown
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|eyecolor = Dark brown
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|actor = [[Richard Schiff]]
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|seasons =
  +
|first = [[Pilot]]
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|last = [[Tomorrow]]
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|only =
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|mentioned =
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|total = 142
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}}'''Toby Ziegler''' works for seven years as the [[White House Communications Director]] under [[President of the United States]] [[Josiah Bartlet]].
   
  +
==Biography==
  +
Tobias “Toby” Ziegler was born and raised in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City. His father, Jules “Julie” Ziegler, was involved in organized crime since before Toby’s birth. He has a brother, David, who is a NASA astronaut. Toby grew to be a diehard fan of the New York Yankees, at one point claiming to have seen 441 games at Yankee Stadium, and often expresses disdain at their rivals in the American League East division.
   
  +
== Character ==
'''Tobias Zachary Ziegler, Ph.D.''' was the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House| White House] [[Communications Director]] for seven years under [[President]] [[Josiah Bartlet]]. (''[[Here Today]]'')
 
  +
Toby is close friends with the other senior staff members and has a good working relationship with assistants [[Ginger]] and [[Bonnie]]. His prickly, dour personality is sometimes unsettling to strangers, but endearing to friends. Toby often throws a rubber ball at the window separating his office from Sam’s to get Sam to come quickly; he continues the tradition when Sam leaves and is succeeded by [[Will Bailey]] — who, trying to work out his frustration with the second inaugural address, accidentally shatters the window with a throw of his own.
: ''Toby Ziegler was portrayed by [[Richard Schiff]].''
 
   
  +
Toby has no trouble ‘speaking truth to power’ and frequently confronts the President and all team members on what he feels are examples of political cowardice or moral failure — the sole exception being [[Dolores Landingham|Mrs. Landingham]], whom Toby went out of his way not to fight or offend.
==Professional Life==
 
Toby has been a professional political operative all of his life. His political experience includes work on: one city council campaign, two Congressional races, a Senatorial and a gubernatorial race and a national campaign. Toby had never won an election until the Bartlet campaign. [http://b4a.healthyinterest.net/char/toby.html]
 
   
  +
== Career ==
In addition to being in charge of the message for the Bartlet administration as the Communcations Director, he is a Senior Domestic Policy Advisor to the President.[http://b4a.healthyinterest.net/char/toby.html]
 
  +
A longtime professional political operative, Toby worked on a Bronx borough president race, a city council campaign, two Congressional races, Senatorial and gubernatorial races and the two Bartlet presidential campaigns. The 1998 Presidential Election was his first win.
   
  +
===Bartlet Administration===
Near the end of Bartlet's second term, Toby leaked classified information to the press regarding the existence of a military space shuttle. His reasons for doing so stemmed from both a crisis in space involving trapped orbiting astronauts and his own reluctance at using space for military purposes. In any case, it is unclear from where he learnt this information. It is possible that he learned it from CJ Cregg, or from Leo McGarry, neither of whom were authorised to reveal it to him. It is also possible that his late brother David told him of its existence. Regardless, Toby has never revealed who told him about the shuttle's existence, although he has intimated that it was not his brother.
 
  +
Toby is hired as White House Communications Director for President [[Josiah Bartlet]] — later learning he hadn’t been The President's first choice.<ref>[[The Crackpots and These Women]]</ref> His primary responsibility is to coordinate the administration’s “message” and ensure its proper delivery by administration officials and allies in Washington. He is also the President’s primary speechwriter, sharing responsibility for the highest-priority speeches with [[Sam Seaborn]], such as the State Of The Union, and serves as a senior domestic policy advisor.
   
  +
Toby, along with the rest of the senior staff, is in Rosslyn, Virginia when white supremacists open fire on the crowd. He is unhurt but worried when he can't see [[Josh Lyman]]; he finds Josh slumped against a wall with a critical gunshot torso wound and yells for help.
This leak causes Bartlet to fire Toby, and the president's anger and sense of betrayal is massive. Toby is also indicted for leaking the information, and faces a lengthy prison sentence should he be convicted. He refuses to cut a deal and name his source, however.
 
   
  +
Toby is the first senior staff member (after Chief of Staff [[Leo McGarry]]) to suspect Bartlet suffering from multiple sclerosis, figuring something is wrong when Vice-President [[John Hoynes]] holds an event in New Hampshire (a critical state in presidential primaries). As Bartlet reveals the disease and his concealment, Toby grows angry and confrontational, but cools down and offers support to his colleagues when it is their turn to learn the truth from the President.
After leaving the West Wing, Toby seems to spend most of his time preparing his legal defence and giving depositions. However, he does find time to covertly and effectively advise Josh on the Santos campaign. He also attends Leo McGarry's funeral, although he must sit in the back and wait to leave until the president has left.
 
   
  +
Toby is heavily involved in the 2002 reelection campaign, which he makes about “smart or not, engaged or not”; he calls Bartlet “a heavyweight” and urged him to focus the campaign on it. Along with Josh Lyman and [[Donna Moss]], he is left behind by the Presidential motorcade during a campaign stop in Indiana; they spend 20 hours trying to make their way home, constantly running into obstacles along the way. Early in the day Toby loses a bet with Josh, forcing him to follow his introduction to strangers with ''“I work at the White House”''. That evening Toby strikes up a conversation with a bar patron who has taken his daughter to visit Notre Dame, but worries about how he’ll pay for her education. This inspires Toby and Josh to advocate a plan making college tuition tax-deductible for Americans under a certain income threshold.
As Bartlet's final act in office, he signs a presidential pardon for Toby, which both saves Toby from prosecution, and at least partially heals their fractured relationship.
 
   
  +
During the final year of Bartlet’s second term, classified information on a military space shuttle is leaked to New York Times correspondent [[Greg Brock]]. As staffers are subpoenaed and intense scrutiny begins to fall on Chief of Staff, C.J., Toby confesses to her to be the source of the leak. He is fired and becomes the target of federal prosecution; because of this, he sits in the back of the church during the funeral of Leo McGarry. His relationship with Josh, already strained after Lyman’s resignation to run [[Matthew Santos]]’s presidential campaign, is tested again by the shuttle scandal but, despite several tense exchanges, he unofficially advises Josh during the final weeks of the [[Santos/McGarry for a Brighter America|Santos Campaign]]. Toby is pardoned of his crime by President Bartlet in what turns out to be the latter’s final official act before leaving the White House.
By the time of the dedication of the Bartlet Presidential Library, they have clearly reconciled. At this point, Toby teaches at [[Columbia University]] and considers it "not a bad place to spend time."
 
   
==Personal Life==
+
===Post-Bartlet===
  +
A “flash-forward” reveals Toby has become a professor at Columbia University at the time of the Bartlet Presidential Library’s dedication, his relationship with his colleagues and the President seeming quite repaired.
Toby was born December 23, 1954. His childhood and family are not fully known; he is from a lower-class background, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York; his father, [[Julie Ziegler]], who, according to one episode, "needed the G.I. Bill," probably fought in the Korean War, and also worked for Murder Incorporated and later served time in prison, complicating their relationship somewhat (Note: [[411|Holy Night]] suggests that Julie Ziegler was still involved with Murder, Inc. at the time of Toby's birth - however, in reality, Murder, Inc. had largely disappeared by the end of the 1940's). Toby's other relatives are less visible on the show; he mentions at one point that his sisters took him to protest rallies in the mid-sixties. Toby also had a younger brother, David, who was a mission specialist at NASA and who later committed suicide after learning he had a terminal illness.
 
===Education===
 
Toby's education is less well-established than that of his colleagues. He attended the [[City College of New York]], but his undergraduate major or any postgraduate degrees are unknown.
 
===Hobbies===
 
Toby is a fan of the New York Yankees baseball team. In [[Posse Comitatus]], the show's third-season finale, first airing on May 22, 2002, he claimed to have attended 441 games at Yankee Stadium. If he saw his first game there at the age of seven, in the 1962 season, and the show progresses in real time, this works out to about eleven games per season, though it is not clear if he could keep up this pace once he began working at the White House.
 
 
===Relationships and Family===
 
Toby's ex-wife, [[Andrea_Wyatt|Andrea 'Andie' Wyatt]], is a U.S. Congresswoman and liberal Democrat from Maryland. During the fourth season, it was revealed that Toby and his ex-wife had conceived twins together. His ex-wife is later sued by a right wing group on grounds that her nondisclosure of her pregnancy during her campaign for re-election constituted election fraud. She has repeatedly turned down Toby's proposals for re-marriage. Toby and Andrea's children were born the same day [[Zoey Bartlet]], President Bartlet's daughter, was kidnapped. They are named [[Huckleberry Ziegler|Huckleberry]] and [[Molly Ziegler|Molly]]. Huck is named after his maternal great-grandfather, and Molly is named after the Secret Service agent who was killed attempting to prevent Zoey's kidnapping.
 
 
===Religion===
 
Toby is a committed Jew, who regularly attends synagogue on Saturdays. Some details, including the presence of a female cantor and an organ, suggest he attends a Reform temple.
 
 
==Quotes==
 
:'''Toby Ziegler:''' ''(Talking about his newborn children)'' Yeah, they're great. And if somebody was hurting them, I'd drop napalm on Yellowstone to get them to stop. Letting some prisoners out of jail wouldn't be nothing, and I've known my kids for forty-five minutes.
 
 
==Trivia==
 
When he writes, especially when he writes important speeches, Toby apparently likes to have pie on hand at all times. [http://b4a.healthyinterest.net/char/toby_e.html]
 
   
 
==Resume==
 
==Resume==
  +
'''EDUCATION'''
===Education===
 
  +
*He attended the [[City College of New York|City University of New York]], but his undergraduate major is unknown. It’s known that amongst his postgraduate degrees is a law degree<ref>[[And It's Surely to Their Credit]]: Sam Seaborn points out to Leo that everyone present in the room at that time is a lawyer, including Toby.</ref>, although his alma mater is unknown.
* Undergraduate degree - [[City College]]
 
* [[Doctorate]] in [[Communications]]
 
   
  +
'''POLITICAL CAREER'''
===Political History===
 
 
* Political Campaign Consultant for the [[New York City Council]]
 
* Political Campaign Consultant for the [[New York City Council]]
 
* Political Campaign Consultant for the [[Bronx]] [[Borough President]]
 
* Political Campaign Consultant for the [[Bronx]] [[Borough President]]
 
* Political Campaign Consultant for the US [[House of Representatives]]
 
* Political Campaign Consultant for the US [[House of Representatives]]
 
* Political Campaign Consultant for the US [[Senate]]
 
* Political Campaign Consultant for the US [[Senate]]
  +
* Political Campaign Consultant for the New York Gubernatorial race
* [[1997]]-[[1998]] : [[Communications Director]] for the "[[Bartlet for America]]" presidential campaign
 
* [[1999]]-[[2006]] : White House Communications Director and Senior Domestic Policy Advisor
+
* [[1997]]-[[1998]]&nbsp;: [[Communications Director]] for the “[[Bartlet for America]]” presidential campaign
  +
* [[1999]]-[[2006]]&nbsp;: White House Communications Director and Senior Domestic Policy Advisor
  +
 
== Relationships ==
  +
'''[[Andy Wyatt]]'''
  +
  +
Early in Bartlet’s first term, Toby separates from, and later divorces, his wife Congresswoman [[Andy Wyatt]] of Maryland. They had clashed over her desire to keep trying to conceive a child, while he wanted to consider adoption (“a stop date” he said, before correcting himself). Three years later they conceive fraternal twins, named Huckleberry (“Huck”) after Andie’s grandfather, and Molly after [[Molly O'Connor|a Secret Service agent]] gunned down during [[Zoey Bartlet]]’s abduction.
  +
  +
'''[[Tabatha Fortis]]'''
  +
  +
Toby at one point has, in [[C.J. Cregg]]’s words, a “touch of the poet” or crush on U.S. Poet Laureate [[Tabatha Fortis]].
  +
 
==Trivia==
  +
* In Clement Rollins’s list of subpoenas, his name is given as "Toby Zachary Ziegler".<ref>''[[Ways and Means]]''</ref> However, while being deposed by Freedom Watch regarding a lawsuit brought against Andrea for failing to disclose her pregnancy during the 2002 election, he states his full name as “Tobias Zachary Ziegler”.<ref name="holy"/>
  +
  +
== Media ==
  +
:'''[https://decider.com/2017/05/02/10-best-toby-episodes-of-the-west-wing/ “The Wrath From On High Atop The Thing”: The 10 Best Toby Ziegler Episodes of ‘The West Wing’]''' (May 2017)
   
===Work History===
+
==Notes and references==
 
{{References}}
* [[Lawyer]]
 
* [[2009]] : [[Professor]] at [[Columbia University]]
 
   
==References==
 
[http://b4a.healthyinterest.net/char/toby.html| Bartlet4America.org]
 
   
 
{{succession box|before=''unknown''|title=[[White House Communications Director]]|current=[[1999]] &ndash; [[2006]]|after=[[Will Bailey]]|}}
==See Also==
 
  +
[[Category:Main Characters]]
*[[Office of the President|Bartlet White House]]
 
 
[[Category:White House Staff]]
*[[Toby and Bartlet|Conflict between Toby and President Bartlet]]
 
  +
[[Category:Doctors]]
*[[Josh-Toby|Conflict between Josh and Toby]]
 
{{Connections|family=[[Andrea Wyatt]] - [[Huck Ziegler]] - [[Molly Ziegler]] - [[David Ziegler]] - [[Julie Ziegler]]|friends= [[C.J. Cregg]] - [[Josh Lyman]] - [[Sam Seaborn]]|jobs=[[Communications Director]] - Senior Domestic Policy Advisor to the President - Professor|aff=[[Democrat]] - Childhood Leukemia Foundation - Columbia University }}
 
{{succession box|before=(''unknown'')|title=White House Communications Director|current=1999-2006|after=[[Will Bailey]]|}}
 
[[Category:Democrats|Ziegler, Toby]]
 
[[Category:White House staff|Ziegler, Toby]]
 

Revision as of 20:14, 24 January 2020

Toby Ziegler works for seven years as the White House Communications Director under President of the United States Josiah Bartlet.

Biography

Tobias “Toby” Ziegler was born and raised in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in New York City. His father, Jules “Julie” Ziegler, was involved in organized crime since before Toby’s birth. He has a brother, David, who is a NASA astronaut. Toby grew to be a diehard fan of the New York Yankees, at one point claiming to have seen 441 games at Yankee Stadium, and often expresses disdain at their rivals in the American League East division.

Character

Toby is close friends with the other senior staff members and has a good working relationship with assistants Ginger and Bonnie. His prickly, dour personality is sometimes unsettling to strangers, but endearing to friends. Toby often throws a rubber ball at the window separating his office from Sam’s to get Sam to come quickly; he continues the tradition when Sam leaves and is succeeded by Will Bailey — who, trying to work out his frustration with the second inaugural address, accidentally shatters the window with a throw of his own.

Toby has no trouble ‘speaking truth to power’ and frequently confronts the President and all team members on what he feels are examples of political cowardice or moral failure — the sole exception being Mrs. Landingham, whom Toby went out of his way not to fight or offend.

Career

A longtime professional political operative, Toby worked on a Bronx borough president race, a city council campaign, two Congressional races, Senatorial and gubernatorial races and the two Bartlet presidential campaigns. The 1998 Presidential Election was his first win.

Bartlet Administration

Toby is hired as White House Communications Director for President Josiah Bartlet — later learning he hadn’t been The President's first choice.[3] His primary responsibility is to coordinate the administration’s “message” and ensure its proper delivery by administration officials and allies in Washington. He is also the President’s primary speechwriter, sharing responsibility for the highest-priority speeches with Sam Seaborn, such as the State Of The Union, and serves as a senior domestic policy advisor.

Toby, along with the rest of the senior staff, is in Rosslyn, Virginia when white supremacists open fire on the crowd. He is unhurt but worried when he can't see Josh Lyman; he finds Josh slumped against a wall with a critical gunshot torso wound and yells for help.

Toby is the first senior staff member (after Chief of Staff Leo McGarry) to suspect Bartlet suffering from multiple sclerosis, figuring something is wrong when Vice-President John Hoynes holds an event in New Hampshire (a critical state in presidential primaries). As Bartlet reveals the disease and his concealment, Toby grows angry and confrontational, but cools down and offers support to his colleagues when it is their turn to learn the truth from the President.

Toby is heavily involved in the 2002 reelection campaign, which he makes about “smart or not, engaged or not”; he calls Bartlet “a heavyweight” and urged him to focus the campaign on it. Along with Josh Lyman and Donna Moss, he is left behind by the Presidential motorcade during a campaign stop in Indiana; they spend 20 hours trying to make their way home, constantly running into obstacles along the way. Early in the day Toby loses a bet with Josh, forcing him to follow his introduction to strangers with “I work at the White House”. That evening Toby strikes up a conversation with a bar patron who has taken his daughter to visit Notre Dame, but worries about how he’ll pay for her education. This inspires Toby and Josh to advocate a plan making college tuition tax-deductible for Americans under a certain income threshold.

During the final year of Bartlet’s second term, classified information on a military space shuttle is leaked to New York Times correspondent Greg Brock. As staffers are subpoenaed and intense scrutiny begins to fall on Chief of Staff, C.J., Toby confesses to her to be the source of the leak. He is fired and becomes the target of federal prosecution; because of this, he sits in the back of the church during the funeral of Leo McGarry. His relationship with Josh, already strained after Lyman’s resignation to run Matthew Santos’s presidential campaign, is tested again by the shuttle scandal but, despite several tense exchanges, he unofficially advises Josh during the final weeks of the Santos Campaign. Toby is pardoned of his crime by President Bartlet in what turns out to be the latter’s final official act before leaving the White House.

Post-Bartlet

A “flash-forward” reveals Toby has become a professor at Columbia University at the time of the Bartlet Presidential Library’s dedication, his relationship with his colleagues and the President seeming quite repaired.

Resume

EDUCATION

  • He attended the City University of New York, but his undergraduate major is unknown. It’s known that amongst his postgraduate degrees is a law degree[4], although his alma mater is unknown.

POLITICAL CAREER

  • Political Campaign Consultant for the New York City Council
  • Political Campaign Consultant for the Bronx Borough President
  • Political Campaign Consultant for the US House of Representatives
  • Political Campaign Consultant for the US Senate
  • Political Campaign Consultant for the New York Gubernatorial race
  • 1997-1998 : Communications Director for the “Bartlet for America” presidential campaign
  • 1999-2006 : White House Communications Director and Senior Domestic Policy Advisor

Relationships

Andy Wyatt

Early in Bartlet’s first term, Toby separates from, and later divorces, his wife Congresswoman Andy Wyatt of Maryland. They had clashed over her desire to keep trying to conceive a child, while he wanted to consider adoption (“a stop date” he said, before correcting himself). Three years later they conceive fraternal twins, named Huckleberry (“Huck”) after Andie’s grandfather, and Molly after a Secret Service agent gunned down during Zoey Bartlet’s abduction.

Tabatha Fortis

Toby at one point has, in C.J. Cregg’s words, a “touch of the poet” or crush on U.S. Poet Laureate Tabatha Fortis.

Trivia

  • In Clement Rollins’s list of subpoenas, his name is given as "Toby Zachary Ziegler".[5] However, while being deposed by Freedom Watch regarding a lawsuit brought against Andrea for failing to disclose her pregnancy during the 2002 election, he states his full name as “Tobias Zachary Ziegler”.[1]

Media

“The Wrath From On High Atop The Thing”: The 10 Best Toby Ziegler Episodes of ‘The West Wing’ (May 2017)

Notes and references

  1. 1.0 1.1 Holy Night
  2. Enemies Foreign and Domestic — Despite Toby's birthday being the subject of the Season 4 Christmas episode, he mentions here that he is 44 years old, which would make his birth year 1957
  3. The Crackpots and These Women
  4. And It's Surely to Their Credit: Sam Seaborn points out to Leo that everyone present in the room at that time is a lawyer, including Toby.
  5. Ways and Means



PREDECESSOR
unknown
White House Communications Director
19992006
SUCCESSOR
Will Bailey