Now we've seen this words-as-weapons thing before - usually in scenes when it's Bartlet versus Religius Fundies, like in the pilot or the scene with the radio talk show host later, and it always has that kind of devastating precision - so it's not that we didn't know he could do that. But I don't think there's a precedent of him doing it to a friend.

I think this is behind why I both abhor it (how could you not, it's an awful thing to say) and adore it. There are a lot of people in and outside the fandom who liked to believe that Bartlet was their dream President, without flaw. Whereas I always thought he was far more interesting when he was both that dream President, and a President a little more like the ones we have: occasionally prone to extreme fits of petty behavior.

Are you asking me to jump from a cliff?

Yes, I believe I am.

Also, I don't think that could work on a Watsonian level as opposed to a Doylist one, because while the WW writers knew they had to keep Josh free to work for Santos later, at the point of the s6 third episode when Leo tells Jed his choice Josh hadn't met Santos yet (I think he does in the next episode, or the one after that), and nobody knows Santos could be a contender in the primaries.

Well, Leo is the one who sends him out on the quest to find his own thing. And it would not be stretching canon in any sort of Watsonian way to say he considered Josh his heir apparent. It would be giving Leo Machiavellian powers to plot that he hadn't exactly shown in the show... on the other hand, maybe not surprising to suggest that even drugged he knew an election cycle was coming up and that it would be shocking if the administration could keep him. I always saw CJ as the choice because she would be stable. (One thing I like in that episode is the Toby-Josh frission, with Josh not exactly wanting the job but thinking Toby is plotting against him, only for Toby to reveal he was trying to maneuver for Josh. Hah.)