If you were alive and out of diapers in the late 1990s, you’ll remember The West Wing. Created by Aaron Sorkin, the series aired for seven seasons starting in 1999 and told the story of stalwart White House staffers solving problems for – and with – President Josiah Bartlet, the hard-nosed and idealistic commander-in-chief played by Martin Sheen.

There was an episode late in the first season – early in Bartlet’s first term – which saw the Bartlet administration flagging in the polls and floundering amidst a series of political and public relations setbacks. In the climactic scene, the gruff and grizzled chief-of-staff, Leo McGarry (played by the great John Spencer), scrawls on a legal pad the phrase: “Let Bartlet be Bartlet.”

That was the beginning of McGarry’s strategy for dealing with the unenviable – and inevitable – rough-and-tumble of Washington politics and global leadership.