West Wing Wounded (a look back at a previous election)
Well, there's jubilation in the nation, not to mention the White House. The closely watched election had a Hollywood ending when the the President's party stormed back to win. Of course, it was a literal (and yet at the same time figurative) Hollywood Ending because it was the Democrats who won and election night was on The West Wing.
I'll recap some of the campaign.
I'm not good at names, but here's the cast near as I can remember:
President Pear: the Brilliant President of the United States. He's won six Noble Prizes (Peace, Physics, The Economics Of Taxation, Social Chemistry, Election Engineering -- plus The Noble Prize in Nobility). The rubes in the heartland find his brilliance irritating and are threatening to vote for someone really stupid and let the country's future go hang!
Gov. Filth E. Rich: The really stupid person they are threatening to vote for.
Leotardy: The Brilliant President's Brilliant Chief of Staff.
Joshington: I haven't quite figured out this guy's job. The Brilliant Chief of Staff of the Brilliant Chief of Staff of the Brilliant President, I think. Important thing to remember: He's Brilliant.
The Future Mrs. Joshington: I'm just calling her that cause I think it would upset her. The important thing to remember: She's Brilliant.
The election is close and too close to call. The nation is at war. Admirably, President Pear and Chief of Staff Leotardy are keeping politics out of it by not telling anyone. Of course the whole Middle East knows, the Israelis know, but as a matter of national security it's important the voters not find out. So when San Francisco woke up for Rush Hour one day and discovered the Golden Gate Bridge had gone missing, the administration announced it was having a make over. Good Morning America said it was about time that rusty old, "art deco thang" was replaced. All over the Bay Area the call went up: we want a new bridge with more je ne sais quoi! Gov. Davis called on all the bay areas available ferries -- boats that carry passengers and cars -- to help see them through.. Then he blamed Enron.
Meanwhile, the Romance is back on! Joshington fell for a powerful lady lobbyist who is in the pay of Big Oil and the Petrochemical Industry. (This is after she sold her soul to groups pressuring for a lower capital gains tax!) Unfortunately, Joshington doesn't know any of this (it's revealed here for the first time). He thinks she's working for child safety caps on condom packages, so the little tikes won't fit them over their heads when they find them on the playground. Of course her real job is to encourage Joshington to push a stupid policy agenda. This sounds so not-nice of her, but remember: She gets paid more than he does so who should sacrifice for whose career?
So imagine her chagrin when he tries to do something politically smart. He pushes an administration proposal that would encourage marriage without asking her first -- if he'd asked, she would've accepted his proposal. But like many men he's for marriage in general but for living in sin in particular. So she storms out and, in the manner of a scorned woman, works to promote a left candidate who will steal votes from President Pear. She hopes this will cause President Pear to lose and force Joshington to accept a job with ABC News, were he will lose his credibility and his reputation for integrity. Of course she tells Joshington the real reason she left has to do with back alley abortions. It doesn't make sense but that's the only way she knows how to sound like a liberal.
She can't wait to have him come crawling back to her, which explains why she crawls back to him. Besides, the evil financiers have paid her to be a mole, and how can she be a mole if she isn't weasel enough to get into the inner sanctum? So she has to be a mole-weasel. (By the way, I don't mean to degrade animals when I compare them to certain humans). In furtherance of her career she wants him to advocate replacing the bubble gum in sports trading cards with "child proof packaged" condoms. This is an obvious public health measure since condoms don't rot the teeth. As part of this effort, she blows up a condom like a child's balloon, ties it, and hands it to Joshington. Depending on how he holds it, it resembles either an erect penis or a cute and cuddly animal with an extremely elongated (Huge! Enormous! twelve inch!) nose.
She's already earned a large bonus. Filth E. Rich was surely pleased when she maneuvered the Pear campaign into advocating giving out free hypodermic needles to drug addicts. She made it sound humane and good. But she knows when their voting base realizes this will happen in their neighborhoods they will ask the sorts of questions small minded people ask, such as: will the addicts break into my house before they pick up the needles or after?
The following week President Pear is "down on the farm" to practice for the upcoming debate. The President is at a disadvantage because he is brilliant and articulate. His opponent Filth E. Rich is all to willing to take unfair advantage of being a stupid, bumbling, tongue-tied oaf. "He's the automatic winner of the expectations game," is how Ms. Press Release (or is it Bull Slinger?) puts it. "Everyone thinks he's too dumb to tie his shoes so if he ties his shoes he wins!" But her real fear is Filth E. Rich will hire Noami Wolfe and she'll advise him to wear loafers.
So President Pear and his folks have their debate practice and immediately run into a problem. First, they have a brilliant staffer playing the stupid opponent and he don't know how stupid is stupid. Should he knock over the podium now? Then he can say, "I did not trip on my shoe laces!" Or Maybe: "This is my podium, Mr. President. I paid for it! And I will knock it over if I want to!" But instead he waits, and to start off makes a remark about families, how maybe the nation could do with few more of them. Right away this shows how Filth E. Rich could take unfair advantage of his stupidity to strip away all complexity from Social Policy.
President Pear gets over the top upset at this breathtaking lack of nuance. "Doesn't my opponent realize there are families," says Pear, "and then there are families? We dare not label, we cannot pick and choose between them! This is a question of real morality and I don't mean your simplistic grandmother's morality -- unless she's raising the illegitimate child! Point is we must make room for all families. Families where the parents are of different sexes, families were the parents are the same sex. Families where the parent are different sex, become the same sex, and maybe become different sexes again -- point is, we should help them. Often these are close families. Families were the sister is also an aunt and the brother is the father! How dare Filth E. Rich suggest we pick and choose who the government gives money too! What is the guy, some kind of Mormon?"
His staff is aghast. First, you should keep the answer to ten words. Second, instead of "illegitimate child" he should have said "child born out of wedlock" or perhaps "future adult not bound to a father at birth" or maybe "cute little free agent". His staff agrees with him, but wonder if he could talk around his position and spring it on the nation after the election? Or, put another way, could he put it another way? Maybe a third way?
So the quest begins. Find the third way...and put it in ten words.
Meanwhile, President Pear's secret war in the Middle East heats up. The United States and Israel ( real nations) are locked in deadly conflict with Qumar (a fictional one, I think). Qumar is feisty. They are determined to fight until President Pear is forced to call press conference. The President is wisely determined not to let news of the conflict slip: for Jimmy Carter will immediately fly to Qumar and offer them economic aid and help with their missile program in return for a pledge to "talk nice."
Meanwhile his White House Aid Joshington calls his girl friend. Their romance blossoms whenever they're separated by at least two states. Joshington still thinks she is lobbying for child safety caps on condoms, but actually she's a "Big Oil" mole.
So Joshington, who believes she is an authority on Women's issues, asks her how she'd handle government aid to families? "Hey, I'm a woman and I just want the government to give me the money and then get out of my life. And I mean it. Butt out buster!"
"That is brilliant," says Joshington. "We take a position of extreme Socialism before the check is cashed, and combine it with an extreme Libertarian position after the check is cashed, and achieve real political balance! That's the third way: combine the Benefits of Socialist state with the life style of a Libertarian one!"
"Exactly," says the future Mrs. Joshington.
"Now, can you put that in ten words."
"Best I can do," she said, "is sixteen."
The election spun on spin and the spin swung on the hinge of the debate. But it was the debate that unhinged Filth E. Rich.
It happened at the end. Rich was winning as long as he kept the simple, well, simple. It was his inability to make the simple complex that did him in. Rich says, 'The government can't spend your money better than you can."
That was all the opening that President Pear needed. He looks at his grinning opponent and says, "There it is! That's what my staff has been searching for. The perfect ten word answer! But, Governor Filth E. Rich, tell me -- do you know the next ten words of that answer?"
This, of course, was a brilliant come back. You could see Rich trying to work it out. He looked not only perplexed, but confused. Problem is if you add ten words to the perfect ten word answer is it still the perfect ten word answer? It would have twenty words, wouldn't it? And would it be the perfect twenty word answer? Wouldn't you then have to remove ten words? Rich just froze on stage while his brain went into an endless loop, much the way Windows does when it's trying to convince me that my next computer should be a Mac. In the Rich case, you could see him short circuit with sparks flying out his ears. There was nothing left to do but concede.
This was a great relief to the nation. They like things simple, and nothing simpler than having one guy to vote for. Ask Saddam.
