Chapter 146: A Special Broadcast

Monday, December 10, 2001

We had flown back on a Thursday, so I took a long weekend back home to get to know my daughters again. Charlie was at sea again, deployed on the U.S.S. Fort McHenry, which I thought was nicely poetic, since Fort McHenry was in Baltimore. She was a Whidbey Island class ‘gator, short for alligator, an amphibious ship that went from sea to land and back, just out of dry dock and a lengthy refit, and was going to be at sea for a good six months. He had left right before we flew to England, and we wouldn’t see him again until late spring.

We had talked before he went to the ship. He had been in now for about two years, and he still didn’t know if he wanted to make it a career. It was interesting, and he did like the sense of purpose it gave him but floating around on a boat with nothing but a bunch of guys was getting old. Also, he was smart enough to know that as my son, he would be limited in his assignments. He still thought himself more an action and outdoors guy than a college kid, and if he left the Corps, he would probably go full time pro in bike racing. He wasn’t a little kid anymore but was talking like a young adult. I asked how it was going with people knowing who his dad was, and I got a grin and a shrug. “It is what it is, Dad. I mean, people know, but nobody makes it a big deal. Nobody is trying to suck up to me, in any case. I’m kind of glad you got me to go in under my middle name, though. At least then I really wasn’t known.”

“Well, we’ll see you again when you get back. Try and call or write your mother! She worries about you-”

“And you don’t?” he teased.

I ignored him and went on. “-and she misses you. When you get back, if you wanted to bring some friends, that would be fine. If you don’t want to stay here, you can stay at the place on 30^th Street.”

The day before we flew home from Tel Aviv, I called Norm Mineta and Greg Paulson and relented on United Airlines. Hopefully they had learned their lesson. Shutting them down had been like a thunderbolt from Mount Olympus, and I had pointedly refused to take any calls on their behalf from any Congressmen or Senators. Once home, however, I gave everyone the go ahead on the Airline Safety and Security Act of 2001, which would provide some loan guarantees and indemnifications. Everyone expected two things, that it would get watered down, and that it would pass quickly. I could deal with that if it left the FAA able to demand safety related changes. If that was left intact, I could live with a lot of other Congressional horseshit thrown in.

At Thanksgiving I took a small break and spent a long weekend at home. We still had the girls with us, for at least this year, so we did the big turkey and stuffing routine with all the fixings. I commented to Marilyn that this might be the last time we did this. Next year the twins would be in college and might not even want to come home. At the same time, once they were out of the house, Marilyn would be moving full time to the White House with me, which I much preferred. We were on the verge of becoming empty nesters in the biggest house in the world! (Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it would still be a big change.)

We were finishing up 2001 and it seemed the nation was still in turmoil about the events of three months ago. Congress had finally gotten around to announcing that hearings would be held after they reconvened in 2002, probably sometime in February. It would be a joint Congressional and Senate hearing, conducted by the Select Committees on Intelligence. I told the leaders that the Administration would cooperate, and that their first witnesses were going to be the Three Amigos. I also told the Three Amigos to make sure they had their report done by then, and I expected some suggestions for the future. I told John Ashcroft to see if he could get his Special Prosecutor in line with what was going on. If Congress started questioning people at the same time Fitzpatrick was questioning them, was there double jeopardy involved? If one team gave somebody immunity, did it apply across the board? I’m glad I never became a lawyer!

I told them that if they expected a statement from me, to let the White House Counsel’s office know. While I was perfectly willing to make a sworn statement and answer questions, under no circumstances was I going to let them swear me in and go on a witch hunt through my past. Before I ever gave any form of testimony, there were going to be some ground rules.

Meanwhile, while all this was going on, Enron collapsed. I had known it was going to happen, but I couldn’t remember the specific date. I also knew that it was just the first of several big-name business collapses that could be traced to inadequate regulation and supervision. I gave a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in which I laid the blame for the collapse at the feet of the unfettered laissez faire attitude prevalent among far too many businessmen and political leaders.

“Americans believe, just like you, that capitalism is the best economic system for them and their families. They know that the best chance they have to improve their lives, and the lives of their children and grandchildren, is through capitalism. Even more important to them, however, is a sense of fairness! People think of business as a great game, and they want to play the game! They also know that games have rules! If you throw away the rules, if you throw away the referees, it’s no longer a game that people will want to play, but a racket that people will avoid! If you want the respect of your fellow citizens, there must be changes. If you want to keep making money, there must be changes!”

That was just part of it, and the applause was underwhelming. If they didn’t like my speech, they were just going to hate the idea that I planned to increase funding for the SEC and the Justice Department. I wasn’t at all sure I was going to win this battle, but I was very sure that it was going to cost me and the American Renaissance Initiative a whole lot of money to fight!

Then again, this was going to be just the first of many salvoes across the deck. I had already told Alan Greenspan that I wanted the banking system tightened up. The Federal Reserve is independent, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have some influence. I told him that I felt that we needed to increase capital requirements on bank reserves, and to begin running some ‘stress tests’ on some of the bigger banks. That earned me a few raised eyebrows from the Fed Chairman, but I just reminded about him that the ‘irrational exuberance’ remark that he had used to describe the dot-com bubble, now applied to the housing markets and financial sectors. I would let him face the markets on that one. They liked and respected him; I was just a fucking zillionaire, so what did I know.

On Monday, December 10, we had a rather interesting day. Marilyn and the girls had been down to Washington for the weekend, and we kept the twins out of school for the day, and they stayed in town. We were approaching the mystical hundred-day mark in my Presidency, and there were lots of requests for a lengthy interview in the White House with me and the family. I don’t know how Ari made his selection, but he settled on an interview with Bob Schieffer of CBS. We would be interviewed in the White House on Monday the 10^th, and it would air in a two-hour special Sunday night the 16 ^th.

A lot of this was due to the way I became the President. The American system of selecting leaders is screwy, in that the character traits which are best suited to winning elections are not the character traits best suited for being the President. There is no chance in hell I would have ever actually run for President. George Bush pulled me and my $20 million out of total national obscurity and dropped me in the VP slot. If he had his way, after four years he would have put me back into obscurity. Now I was the President, and most of the country didn’t know that much about me.

There had been a flurry of reporting back after 9-11, but to most of the nation, they didn’t have a real sense of me. I had only hit the national stage four months prior to the election, and aside from the fact that I liked dogs and killed prisoners, they didn’t know me. A regular candidate would have been running for at least two years by now, and doing interviews morning, noon, and night to keep their name out there. The same could be said of the rest of my family. One of Ari Fleischer’s jobs was to let the world know who I was.

The CBS interview would take place in the Map Room, which was on the ground floor of the Residence just off the main reception area. From what I understood, it was named that because FDR used it to track the progress of World War II on maps. It hadn’t been used for maps since then and was now just one more of the innumerable cul-de-sacs around the joint. I wandered by on Sunday afternoon and found a few CBS technicians and White House technical types hanging some lights and mirrors on scaffolding. I just hoped they wouldn’t fall on us, which happened to Bill and Hillary Clinton once. They had already moved out the Chippendale furniture normally in there and brought in a few armchairs and a matching love seat.

We were to be ‘on the set’ promptly at nine the next morning and would be there most of the day. There would be times with just me, times with me and Marilyn, and other times with all four of us. Every thirty minutes or so we would break, so I could go back to my regular day job of solving the planet’s crises. If it was a big crisis, they would just do Marilyn and the girls. Ari was going to be hovering around nervously in the background the entire time.

I was wearing a light charcoal suit, and Marylyn had on a nice pair of designer jeans with a belted tunic over it. I gave her a little whistle before we got on camera, and she smiled at that. Holly and Molly were in jeans also, along with tank tops. They looked tight to me, but I was told that was the style. Thankfully none of their bra straps were showing. How that became stylish was completely beyond me.

When we showed up the twins decided that Stormy was part of the family and could watch. I wasn’t sure how that would work out; she was well behaved and used to being around strange people, but she never met a camera she didn’t like. She promptly lay down in a corner and curled up for a nap. We made it through makeup just fine, and we met and talked to Bob Schieffer (I had known him for years and Marilyn had met him at various dinners and parties, but it was the first time for the girls), and they wired us up with our microphones. Then we sat down in the chairs, with Marilyn and me on the love seat, and the twins in the armchairs on my left. Then the lights went on, and Bob began by thanking us for the interview. As soon as that happened, Stormy’s ears popped up and she looked around for the cameras. It was show time! She liked this game! It made the opening segment of the show.

Bob: “Mister President, I’d like to thank you and your family for allowing us this glimpse inside the Buckman White House.”

Me: “You’re quite welcome. It seemed a good time to...” (Stormy trotted over to us and jumped up on the love seat between Marilyn and me.) “Wait ... WHAT! Stormy, what are you ... Oh, Good Lord! Will you get out of here?”

Holly and Molly started laughing, while Marilyn and I tried to push the gigantic beast off our laps. We were noticeably unsuccessful, and Stormy ended up sitting between us facing the camera.

Me: “Idiotic mutt! Will somebody go get us a soup bone?” (I looked back to Bob.) “This thing really is a publicity hound, in every meaning of the phrase!”

We had to wait a couple of minutes while somebody scurried off to the kitchens and returned with a big bone, which the kitchen staff made sure we had plenty of. Stormy had made a lot of friends around the place, and they kept a stockpile for her. He handed the bone to Holly, and suddenly Stormy perked up and turned to look at her.

Holly: “Come on Stormy, go get the bone.”

Molly: “Go get your bone, girl!”

Me: “It’s a nice fresh bone, Stormy, from a nice juicy Democrat!” (Marilyn snorted at that, and Stormy hopped down and took the bone into the corner of the room, off camera.)

Bob: “You feed your dog nice juicy Democrats?” (He was laughing at that.)

Me: “Only when we run out of nice juicy reporters.” (Marilyn and the girls giggled at that.)

Bob: “I walked into that one, didn’t I?”

Me: “With your eyes wide open!” (More laughter.)

One of the cameras panned out a touch to show Stormy now gnawing her bone quietly in the corner. Then it was back to the interview.

Bob: “Just what kind of dog is Stormy?”

Me: “She’s just an American dog, a big hairy mutt. You know how we got her, right, down in that basement in Springboro? She’s as mixed a mixed-breed as you can ask for. She’s an All-American dog.”

Bob: “How do you mean?”

Me: “Well, it seems like every country has its own breed of dog. You have the English bulldog, the French poodle, the German shepherd, so what’s the American dog? I would argue that the American dog is a mutt, a mixed breed, because that is what Americans really are.”

Bob: “The melting pot as applied to puppies?”

Me: “Exactly! I mean, all I have to do is look at my own family. We’re as mixed as you can ask for. My father’s side of the family was English and Lutheran. My mother’s mother was of German descent and Lutheran, but her father was English, and half Anglican and half Jewish. Marilyn’s family is French Canadian and Roman Catholic, but somehow a Scotsman snuck in on her father’s side. At our generation it gets worse. My sister married a fellow with a Norwegian and Swedish background, and half of Marilyn’s brothers and sisters married Polish-Americans and Italian-Americans.”

Molly: “Don’t forget Aunt Kelly. She’s Irish-American!”

Me: (Nodding towards my daughter and smiling.) “See? Heaven only knows what our kids will end up dragging home someday! Let’s face it, all across the country there are families just like ours, with all sorts of heritages. We make it work, we really do, but you sure can’t call us pure blooded. We are a mixed breed sort of nation.”

Marilyn: “Carl, nobody wants to be called a mutt!”

Me: (I waved her off with a smile.) “I’ve had mutts my whole life. Good dogs, hardy, healthy, live a long life, loyal ... Lots of positive attributes. I like the melting pot. It’s a good thing.”

Holly and Molly looked at each other and barked out a couple of ‘Woofs!’ and we all laughed.

I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to end up being edited. Was it all going to be puff pieces, and then get serious, or was it going to be mixed somehow? We’d have to wait around until Sunday night to find out. I was told by somebody that they would be running ad spots on the special starting this evening.

While Marilyn and the girls were still there, Schieffer decided to ask them a few questions.

Bob: “So, how have you two been adapting to life in the White House?”

Holly: “Okay, so far. I mean, Dad’s been in Washington since we were like in the first grade or something, so we’ve been going back and forth between home and Washington for years.”

Molly: “It’s a pretty cool place. There are all sorts of different rooms and places. It’s like living in a museum. It’s kind of weird that way, too, I mean, who lives in a museum?”

Bob: “How much time do you spend here? You actually live in Maryland, correct?”

Molly: “Yes. During the school year we live in Upperco, that’s near Hereford, which is where we go to school. We really only come down here every other weekend or so. When Dad was in Congress, he came home most nights. Now it’s like every couple of weeks he comes home.”

Holly: “Yeah, Upperco is really our home. Once school is out, I know Mom plans to move down here full time. We’ll both be in college next year, anyway.”

Bob: (Looking at Marilyn.) “Is that the plan? You are going to move to Washington full time once your daughters have left home?”

Marilyn: “Yes. When Carl was in Congress, we lived close enough that he could commute, sort of. Carl was able to come home at least every other night and almost every weekend.”

Bob: “By helicopter.”

Marilyn: “It was a little unusual, but we were able to make it work. We like where we live and like having the kids in school there, and we didn’t want to change things too much for them. Things got more complicated when he became the Vice President, but he was still able to get home every few nights. We always had the idea that when the girls left home, I would be able to move down here full time.”

Bob: (To the twins.) “Where do you plan to go to college?”

Holly: “The University of Maryland, in College Park.”

Bob: “Why there? I would think you could go to any college in the country. Why not Harvard?”

Molly: “College Park is just outside of Washington and has a much better reputation for engineering and science than Harvard. I want to study engineering.”

Holly: “Physics.”

Bob: “Engineering and physics! Why those fields?”

Molly: (A bit of a perplexed look on her face.) “I don’t know why, exactly. Dad was a mathematician and could program a computer, and Charlie was always taking apart his motorcycles and we got to watch him do that. I don’t know, but I always wanted to see how things worked. That’s what engineers do.”

Holly: “Same here, but with a slightly different focus, I guess. I like the science part of it.”

Bob: “Somehow, I never pictured you two as, I guess you would be called nerds. Somehow it didn’t fit the cheerleader image, I suppose. How do you see yourselves?”

Holly: “You can call us nerds, I suppose. Why is that such a bad thing? Mister Gates is a nerd and he invented Microsoft and is the world’s richest man, right? Dad’s a nerd, and he ended up as the President!”

Molly: “If you think you can live without nerds, just turn off your television and your computer and your lights and your furnace, because without us nerds you are going to be sitting in the dark and being cold! Who do you think invented that stuff?”

Bob: (To me and Marilyn.) “Your daughters are real true believers, aren’t they? Did you push them towards the sciences because of your backgrounds?”

Marilyn: “Oh no, absolutely not. That’s really not my interest at all.”

Me: “No, not really. I’m happy they are interested in science and engineering. I think they are important fields, and I did well with them, but it’s really their lives, not mine. I just want them to pick something and do well at it, whatever it is. Charlie, for instance, didn’t want anything to do with going to college. We just wanted him to pick something and settle down and do the best he could at it. Marilyn and I can’t live their lives for them.”

Some of the questions were just for me, and Marilyn and the twins took off for a bit, with Stormy following.

Bob: “We are coming up on your first hundred days in office. For most Presidents that is when you start getting graded on how well you are doing. Is that going to be a good way to gauge the Buckman Presidency?”

Me: “I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it in that regard. I would have to say that most Presidents, when they get sworn in, they have an agenda and legislation already planned, and have been planning the transition for over two months. They can hit the ground running. When I got sworn in, I had none of that. I had a missing President, a nation under attack, a burning Pentagon, and a gigantic hole in lower Manhattan. My agenda has simply been to get things back up and running properly, and to prevent what happened from ever happening again. Do I have an agenda of my own? Yes, I would say that I do, and I’ve been working on it. I plan on laying out some of it next month during the State of the Union Address. Maybe you should count the hundred days from there.”

Bob: “What is that agenda?”

Me: (Smiling.) “Ask me in January.”

Bob: “Do you plan to run for reelection in 2004?”

Me: “Ask me next summer.”

At that point we took a break while I returned some phone calls. When I returned, Schieffer asked if I would lead him around with a camera on what would be a typical day. That was nothing but puff, so Ari happily agreed to it.

Bob: “So how does your day typically start?”

Me: “Well, I’m normally up sometime around 6:00 or 6:30. I don’t think you want to show pictures of me in my bathrobe brushing my teeth. It’s not a pretty sight.”

Bob: (Laughing.) “I think we can skip that.”

Me: “Good idea. Anyway, at that point I usually put on some workout clothes and head down to the basement.” (We headed over to an elevator and rode it down to the basement, where I showed the gym.) “I usually do a workout here every other day, and on the days in between I do some martial arts training with some of the Secret Service agents.”

Bob: “Do you ever beat them?”

Me: (Laughing.) “Only when they let me. Seriously, I’m good, but these guys are hard core. I would not want to meet them in a dark alley.” (Off to the side I saw a couple of agents smiling at that.) “Some days I head outside and use the pool and swim some laps. That’s good exercise for my leg.”

Bob: “So you work out every day? What about the First Lady?”

Me: “I certainly try. If I’m on the road, it can be difficult. Marilyn often joins me but she’s not quite as serious as I am. She’ll play hookie if she can get away with it.” (We left and I took him up to the Oval Office.) “After the workout I’ll go back upstairs and shower and shave and get dressed. Sorry, no filming that, either. Afterwards, I am down here in the office, and my schedule is pretty much whatever the secretaries and staff tell me I’m doing that day. Plus, whatever comes up I need to work on. It never seems to work out quite the way the schedule says it will.”

Bob: (Pointing to my desk, where a large metal box with a big red button on it was sitting in the center.) “Is that the button to launch the missiles?” (Laughing!)

Me: (Looking innocent.) “Push it and find out.”

Bob: “Seriously?”

I just looked innocent and waved him forward. He pushed the button and suddenly it lit up, flashing bright red, while the sound of a klaxon horn came from the bottom. Bob jumped backwards! I laughed and reached over and hit the button a second time, and the ruckus stopped.

Me: “Right after I got here, a buddy of mine, Marty Adrianopolis, sent me that to lighten things up a bit. The first time I showed it to Frank Stouffer, I told him it was a direct line to NORAD and he almost had a heart attack!”

Bob: “You’re a cruel man, Mister President.” (We both laughed for a moment.) “So, you spend most of your time working in here?”

Me: “A lot of time. If I don’t have a lunch meeting, I’ll grab a quick sandwich from the kitchen or the Mess. I try to meet with Congressional leaders and members at least once a week, but that’s a tough thing to do at times. It’s very easy to get caught up in things. I might also be meeting with Cabinet members or my staff. After lunch I’ll keep going until dinner. If Marilyn and the girls are here, I’ll knock off around six or so, but if I’m a bachelor, which is often, I usually come back here after dinner for an hour or two. After that, I go back up to the Residence.”

Bob: “You make it sound rather mundane.”

Me: “It is anything but mundane. Things can change, quickly. There’s always a problem somewhere. By the time you land in this job, you had better have learned how to prioritize and manage your time.”

Bob: “What’s the one thing you find most difficult getting used to about the Presidency?”

Me: “Hmmm ... interesting question. I think it’s the entire public fishbowl aspect to my life now. Everything I do now, no matter how mundane, has some sort of political aspect to it, and everybody has an opinion on it, and whatever I am doing is always wrong. It’s very strange at times”

Bob: “How so? Give me an example.”

Me: “Well, take Stormy, for instance. Earlier we were playing with the dog and gave her a bone and whatnot. You filmed it, and while I’m not a reporter, I know a human-interest piece when I see one. You’re going to run parts of that on Sunday night, right? Well, I can guarantee you that by lunchtime on Monday, the phones are going to be ringing off the hook and the emails and telegrams are going to be pouring in about how I am raising my dog the wrong way. By Monday night the news shows are going to be doing interviews on the subject. Tuesday is going to get worse! The purebred dog lovers are going to complain that the Presidential dog is a mutt, the cat lovers are going to want equal time, the hamster and guinea pig coalition will complain, and PETA is going to demand an end to interspecies slavery or some such nonsense!”

Bob: (Laughing.) “It won’t be that bad.”

Me: “You just watch! By Wednesday morning the New York Times will have weighed in, called it a scandal, and given it a cute name like Puppygate. By the end of the day, some Congressman is going to demand hearings, on Thursday there will be a call for a Special Prosecutor, and on Friday we’ll have the impeachment vote!” (I looked at the camera.) “Guys, give me a break! I’m just playing with my dog!”

Bob: (Still laughing.) “I think you are exaggerating a touch, Mister President.”

Me: (Smiling.) “Not by much. You’ve been in this town for a few years. Ask Ari sometime. One of these days he’s going to take some of the letters that get sent here and write a book and make a fortune!”

We broke for lunch, and I took Bob down to the Mess. It’s not glamorous but the cafeteria is available to staffers, though they pay. Marilyn joined us, since the next segment, after lunch, we were supposed to be together. After lunch, it was back to the Map Room. Thankfully Stormy was with the twins.