Chapter 151: The Rose Garden of Hell

Tuesday, July 16, 2002

Unsurprisingly, several of the networks ran excerpts of my speech during their graduation speech highlight reels. They seemed to run about evenly between some of the last few laugh lines, and the section about zipping up a body bag. Comedy or drama, you pick. For his part, John McCain returned to Annapolis like a conquering hero. A decorated combat aviator who spent five years in the Hanoi Hilton, he gave a nicely rousing speech, and then ordered that Navy had to beat Army in December. We had won last year, so I was going to have to bust John’s chops when we beat his team again.

Marilyn got into the act, too. Some early birds began requesting the First Lady speak in 2003. Plattsburgh State, her alma mater, got to her first, requesting that she speak at their next graduation, the 25 ^th anniversary of her graduation. When she asked me what to do, I told her to go for it. She could tell all the other graduates how high they could climb if they married well. That cost me an elbow to the ribs and a lot of squawking and a very nice diamond bracelet. I should have learned by now to keep my mouth shut. It’s like Oprah said, groveling is good, but groveling with diamonds is even better.

After the graduations, it was back to Washington. Marilyn and the girls moved down to the White House. We had their 18^th birthday party there, and brought a bunch of the Lefleurs down, as well as the Rottingens. We kept it private, and I don’t think the media ever twigged to the fact that they had a birthday.

I also had to sign some bills into law. It was an election year, so the summer recess was extra-long, so that everybody could go home and get about their regular job of running for reelection. I had about three weeks at the end of June, and about three weeks at the end of July to sign stuff, otherwise kiss it off. I spent a lot of time kissing Congressional ass getting stuff out of committee and through the voting process, so that I could sign it. Fortunately, if you schedule the signing ceremony in the morning, you can do it in the Rose Garden, and it won’t be too warm. Summer in Washington can be damn hot and muggy, and heavy perspiration on camera is not photogenic.

Tuesday morning the 16^th I was signing the Safeguarding the Sea Frontiers Act into law. This was a massive recapitalization of the Coast Guard. For years they had gotten fuck all for respect from the other services, and fuck all for funding from Congress, and an ever-increasing number of jobs from the Commander in Chief. Their ships were so old their bottoms were rust held together by paint, their aircraft were ancient and held together by baling wire and chewing gum, and their sailors and officers were overburdened and as tired as their equipment. Yet despite all that, they still managed to perform magnificently at an endless and varied string of jobs.

Never let a good crisis go to waste. In the name of protecting our maritime borders from crazy Islamic fanatics (which needed to be done, not being cynical about it) we were going to massively recapitalize the Coast Guard. New cutters, new helos, additional authorized personnel, upgraded facilities and electronics, even a brand-new half billion-dollar heavy ice breaker - billions were being authorized.

It was supposed to be warm, mid to high 70s and dry, so we wanted to do it before lunch. Later in the week was even hotter, up into the 80s or higher. It was a typical Rose Garden Ceremony, with a podium to speak from, a table to sign the bill at (a simple wooden table with the Presidential Seal on the front), and a semi-circle of VIPs behind me, while another semi-circle of cameras and reporters faced me.

The VIPs included the usual suspects, like the Commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Tom Collins, and the Secretary of Transportation, Norm Mineta. They had an obvious interest in increasing funding and had been happy to cooperate. The real powerhouse behind the bill, however, had been the Vice President. Senator McCain had been the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation before the Dems took back the Senate, and he knew everybody involved, their strengths, their weaknesses, and where all the bodies were buried. If it was legal to let John sign the bill, I would have let him do it. Since it wasn’t, he was going to be standing right behind me, and would be getting the first ceremonial pen.

That was part of the weirdest of the Presidential ceremonies, the signing ceremony. I had to sign the bill, but nowhere was it specified whether I did it with a pen or pencil or even a goose feather quill. For almost a century and a half, Presidents were content to simply sign the bill and be done with it. FDR decided to spice things up, by using more than one pen and giving them to supporters. The worst was LBJ, who when signing the Civil Rights Act used 75 different pens to sign the bill. It is beyond me how he managed a stunt like that, since even at a pen per letter he was way, way short of 75 pens. As for me, I was quite incapable of writing my signature in a fashion even remotely legible, so I had developed a different trick. I would use the first pen to sign my name and set it aside for my own collection, and then initial at appropriate places throughout the bill (my initials - CB with a circle drawn around them). Those would be the pens I would give away.

At 11:00 I was waiting in my office when Will Brucis stuck his head in the door and said, “Mister President, everyone is ready.”

I stood up. “Thank you, Will. Now, watch me go out the door and trip over the door jamb on national television.”

“Just try to do it gracefully, Mister President.”

I went out the door and around the corner to exit the West Wing towards the Rose Garden. Thankfully, I didn’t trip going through the door. I walked over to the podium, where everybody was arrayed properly. There was a microphone at the podium, but I could see several more, long range and parabolic, over the heads of the audience and reporters. “Can everybody hear me?” I asked. A couple of technical types gave me a thumbs-up, and I nodded to them. Showtime!

“The United States Coast Guard dates back to our first President, George Washington, and our first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton. It was then known as the Revenue Cutter Service. Since then, it has grown, and is now rightfully considered the finest lifesaving and maritime law enforcement service in the world. In that time, they have developed two mottos. The official one is Semper Paratus , Always Ready. The unofficial one is ‘You have to go out, but nobody said anything about coming back!’ Both mottos are equally true.

Today it is my great privilege and pleasure to sign into law the Safeguarding the Sea Frontiers Act. For too long the sailors and airmen of the Coast Guard have been laboring under the burden of overworked ships and aircraft, and a need for improved facilities in port. Now we can give them the support they deserve, and that they earn every day they protect us. Now we can ... What in the world?”

That was the end of the carefully crafted presentation. Normally I would give a few more minutes of wonderful speechifying, and then move to the table. I would sit down, and with everybody hovering over me, would sign my life away. I had 20 pens today, each of which were Parkers which bore the Presidential Seal and were engraved with a serial number to prove they were not just some knock-off from the gift shop. After each signature or initial, I would set a pen into its case, and move on to the next. Afterwards, I would personally present each of the recipients with their pen, and shake their hand and smile for the cameras, all while saying something wonderful, warm, and personal to them. Politics 101.

Except for the fact that my eyes were drawn to a commotion at the far end of the Rose Garden, on the lawn behind all the cameras and reporters. I stopped and stared in disbelief at the interruption. Stormy had somehow gotten loose and made her way into the ass end of the Rose Garden and was now playing a spirited game of keep-away with a pair of Secret Service agents trying to corral her. After a few seconds, nobody was watching me, and everybody was watching her! It got worse when one of the agents tried a flying tackle and Stormy jumped out of the way, leaving the agent sprawling on the grass. I decided to get my dog under control, so I stepped away from the podium and said,