Chapter 8: Kingmaker

2015

By about 8:01 we knew things were changing in Washington, but just how much we weren’t sure of. That was when the first race was called, in New York’s upstate 23^rd District. Historically the area, centered along the Mohawk and the Erie Canal in Western New York, was predominately Republican, so much so that in some years they couldn’t even find a Democratic candidate to run. In 2012, the Dems had managed to squeak out a slim victory. I had met the winner, a moderate fellow who got into politics by being a successful local district attorney. Still, he was as much an aberration in the rural upstate district as I had been in the Maryland 9 ^th. Now he was gone, and a Republican mayor found himself with a promotion and the need for a replacement.

We weren’t running a white board, but the networks were, and Brewster was keeping a separate tally on a spreadsheet on his laptop. By 9:00 it was apparent that we were in the midst of a major shift, and by 11:00 it was all over except for the champagne. The House had reverted to the Republicans, 225-210, and while the Senate was still Democratic, they were now 54-45-1 (Bernie Sanders, the Independent, was still there, and he was a Democrat for all intents and purposes) which put them below the level they could ram something through without a debate or filibuster. Hillary was going to have a much more difficult time getting anything done in her next couple of years. She was probably throwing the dishes in the White House.

Which was not to say she wouldn’t get anything done. Her husband had been faced with this exact same sort of scenario back in 1994, when Newt and the Gang of Eight (including me) had rammed a Republican House in, upsetting Clinton’s plans. He had been a canny politician, as I had forecast to the others. “They don’t call him Slick Willie back in Arkansas for nothing!” I had said. He had co-opted several Republican plans, modified them, and made them into bipartisan bills. Granted, on a moral level he was the embodiment of slime, but he was also one hell of a politician!

From everything I had seen so far, Hillary was not as smooth or talented as her husband. In addition, he wasn’t around to tell her how to do it correctly. The Clinton family dynamic was strange, and I wasn’t the only person who didn’t understand it or follow it. Bill primarily lived at their home in Chappaqua, New York, in northern Westchester County. Hillary spent her time in Washington. He devoted most of his time to his Clinton Global Initiative program, occasionally commuting to Washington. It was almost like they were divorced but hadn’t gone through the paperwork yet. In addition, now that she had made it to the White House on her own, she almost didn’t need him, and seemed to resent being compared to him, which was perfectly understandable. For his part, Bill resented Hillary, since before she became President he had managed a very lucrative speaking career. He was a highly sought-after speaker, in the top ranks, and commanded engagement fees of $50,000 to $100,000 a night. That money went to the Global Initiative, but for all the charitable good he did, a significant portion laundered itself and found its way tax-free into his pockets. Now, with Hillary as the President, Bill found himself limited as to what he could speak on and where, and how much he could charge. There were some serious concerns that if you hired him to speak and paid a big fee, you were paying the President! Hillary supposedly had ordered Bill to cut way back, which cut sharply into his paycheck.

Let’s be fair about it. I probably got at least as many speaking opportunities as Bill did. The same could be said of Carter, Bush 41, and McCain. Ex-Presidents are a top-tier attraction and speaking fees can pay a lot of mortgage payments. George was getting rather frail and rarely spoke any longer. Jimmy Carter, pain in the ass that he could be, funneled most of his fees into his charitable works, as did I. John also donated a healthy chunk to charity, and Cindy had plenty of money to pay the bills in any case. While I couldn’t say for sure without checking the books, I suspected Bill was pocketing a much larger chunk than any of the rest of us, or maybe even all of us! Now that was all on hold, by orders of his wife.

Over the next few days, I took several calls from some of the other Republican powers about what had happened. The Democrats seemed to be in a state of shell shock about the change of events. I spoke to John McCain several times, Reince Priebus, Brewster, John Boehner, and several other Congressional and Senate leaders, and the topics were all the same. How do we limit the damage Hillary can do in the next two years, and how do we send her packing in 2016?

There were some limits on what we could do in the immediate term. Between now and the beginning of January there was a lame duck session of the old Congress. Hillary came out fighting, vowing to rush through any damn thing she could while she still had a tame Congress and Senate on her hands. Theoretically she could pass anything she wanted during that time and run an extended session to cram in even more. Realistically, she would get some stuff, but not what she wanted. Quite a few of the surviving Democratic Representatives and Senators knew that they would be in the minority soon enough, and that if they were assholes now, the tables would be turned on them in a matter of weeks. They still had to get along with their new neighbors. Meanwhile, if the current Minority Leadership had some smarts, they would drag their heels on everything to run out the clock. Better to start things fresh in a new Congress, right around the corner. All Hillary was going to get were a few finance-industry friendly regulation bills that she had already been working for.

Thanksgiving proved to be a marvelous day for giving thanks. We had everybody over to the house on 30^th Street, since our Washington address was closer to the kids than the Hereford address. Holly came, not too happily, since she looked like she was ready to explode. The baby had dropped a few days before, and while most of us thought she shouldn’t travel, none of us thought she should be alone. She had resolutely refused to name the father of the child and was living in a town house in College Park. Midway through the day, my eldest daughter began complaining of cramps and back pain and other miseries, and the women quizzed her and determined she was having contractions.

Suddenly dinner became much less important. We made her call her obstetrician, though she didn’t want to. (“It’s just cramps!”) He told her to get to Prince George’s Hospital in Cheverly, so Marilyn and I got one of the drivers to bring around a car and we went with her. Charlie was put in charge of the Thanksgiving dinner and was told to save us some turkey and stuffing for later. We left, and Holly’s water broke halfway to the hospital. Suddenly our proud and headstrong daughter, who was able to handle anything on her own, reverted to being a scared little girl. I held her hand and tried to keep her calm on the rest of the drive. Once we got to the hospital, we loaded her in a wheelchair and headed inside. I was about to become a grandfather all over again.

Miguel Manuel Buckman was born at 10:05 that evening, 7 pounds and 9 ounces of squalling male infant, with a complexion dark enough to have driven my mother crazy! I made a silent promise to figure out who the father was.

Marilyn had been calling the house every hour or so to fill them in, and Charlie and Megan were taking care of Hamid at their place, so we both spoke to him as well. His English was good enough now for some broken conversation, enough to at least tell him that we loved him and would see him the next day and to behave for Charlie and Megan. We went home after that and spent the night alone, and then went back to the hospital on Friday to help get Holly and Mickey home. The family regathered at the house to see the new grandson-nephew and finish off the rest of the turkey that didn’t get eaten the other night. Black Friday shopping was put on hold. For the next week or so, Marilyn, Megan, and Molly spent huge amounts of time with Holly and Mickey, and Charlie, Bucky, Hamid, and I were left to fend for ourselves. As I told the others, it was actually a lot quieter that way.

Holly was taking the rest of the semester off for maternity leave and wouldn’t go back to teaching until the spring 2015 semester. Granny Marilyn would help with babysitting duties, but I warned them both that wasn’t a long-term solution. At some point the remodeling of the house would be finished, and we would move back there. In addition, Hamid would be starting school at Fifth District next fall, and no way could Marilyn commute to College Park to babysit. Still, if we were in Washington for any reason, Granny was going to be an easy touch for babysitting detail, which she already was with Ashley and Carter. (I was a little more hesitant because Gramps didn’t do diapers!)

One day when Marilyn was with Holly, I got together with the head of my security detail and tasked him with figuring out who my grandson’s mystery daddy was. While I didn’t expect him to do the figuring, his firm had an investigation unit. Holly still wasn’t talking, so the clues were limited. He was probably somebody she met through work, which meant he might be associated with the University of Maryland, and the name Miguel Manuel and a darker complexion suggested that the father might be Latino. If they could find out something, great, but discretion was important, and Holly couldn’t find out.

A couple of weeks later I received a report that was suggestive but not conclusive. A Chilean physicist had done some research at the University of Maryland on an international fellowship, and his name was Miguel Manuel de Figueroa. He had left to return home at the end of the school year and was now involved with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array, a gigantic radio telescope high in the Andes. He was also married with three children, though his family hadn’t traveled to the United States while he was doing his research. I knew enough about Holly’s field (quantum cosmology) to know that it was quite probable that she had met him during his research tenure. I was guessing that radio astronomy wasn’t the only thing he had been researching at night. Did Holly know about the family in South America? Was she in love, or lust? The picture they obtained didn’t really look like Mickey, who looked a lot closer to a Mexican Winston Churchill. On the other hand, the picture did show a guy who looked devastatingly handsome. He was the only obvious choice, but short of DNA testing, we couldn’t be sure. I stuffed the file into my desk and swore everybody to secrecy. Neither Holly nor Marilyn would appreciate what I had learned.

John Boehner was elected as Speaker of the House again, and immediately went into war mode against Hillary. The overall goal was to send her packing in two years. There were several avenues open to him, and he sat down with me and a few others to review them. One possible tactic was total obstruction. Nothing, and I mean nothing, would get voted out of the House. Nothing would get out of committee, nothing would go to the floor, nothing would get to a vote. We were talking complete and utter Congressional gridlock, and more than a few of John’s colleagues looked at this as a great idea. I wasn’t as hopeful. By now, John Boehner, John McCain, and I were practically the only members of this little group who remembered 1994, when Newt Gingrich took control of the House and managed to ultimately shut down the government.

“John, do you remember when Newt pulled that back in the ‘90s? He shut things down so tight that he shut the government down. Do you remember how that backfired on us? Bill Clinton came out a winner on that, and Newt looked like a fat dork! If we go the complete shutdown route, Hillary will be able to point her finger at you and Congress and blame everything that happens on you,” I argued.

“I remember that, Carl, but there are an awful lot of new guys who think 1994 is the Dark Ages. There are only a handful of us left from those days,” he replied.

“This is why you get the big bucks. You have to convince them that there has to be a smarter way to do this. You have a bunch of young bucks who think they are smarter than you, so figure out a different tactic. That one is a straight loser, and you’ll have to deal with her another four years.”

“So, give me a few suggestions.”

Now it was my turn to scratch my head. Some of the ideas we had were obvious winners, but insufficient. They were the simple and standard techniques of scandal mongering. Every time somebody in the government screwed up, every little scandal and misuse of funds, every mistake would warrant a full-blown investigation and Congressional hearing. Put the Somali disaster under a microscope. It was used on me and John, and it would work just fine on her. Everything she did would be examined and the odds were pretty good that we’d find something.

On the legislative front, we needed to be creative. Pay some lawyers and lobbyists and slip a few ‘stealth riders’ in, tiny little bits of legislation that would slip through the cracks and force her to do something she didn’t want to do. As for major legislation, don’t shut it down, but take a few plays from the Bill Clinton playbook. Don’t stonewall but appropriate the legislation for your own purposes. Put forth bills and budgets that would make her the bad guy, vetoing needed legislation and hurting innocent Americans with her radical ideas. The Senate was another field of battle. The Republicans only needed six Democratic Senators to cross the aisle to pass a bill, and there were several Democratic Senators who were eyeing difficult reelection bids in 2016 who might be counted on to try and look tough. Put Hillary on the defensive.

Hillary didn’t get much out of the lame duck session, and I heard through the grapevine that she was grumbling loudly about Republican obstructionism. Welcome to the big leagues, honey! Now you know what your husband and I had to put up with! It’s easy to be the President when you have a Congress in your pocket.

She had backed off on some of the personal attacks on me, once she realized that I was back in the States and talking to reporters. That was part of why she had tried to ‘divert’ me before then. I didn’t think she would have ever gotten anybody to go along with hurting me, but the detain order to the 47^th in Kurdistan, the repeated attempts to get me inside the American embassy there, and the attempt to get me into some form of custody at Andrews when we flew home hadn’t boded well for me or my family. I probably wasn’t in any danger ... probably. On the other hand, a long delay and separation wouldn’t have been out of the question. There had been some real concerns that she might have had Hamid seized and forcibly returned overseas, which would have had Marilyn chasing after him, and me chasing her.

Still, I had managed to get back home, and John Boehner had one more use for me in 2015. He was going to crank up my ‘hero’ status with as neat a little trick of legislative legerdemain as I had ever seen. Buried in a spending bill that had to be passed in the spring of 2015, he had a little rider. It required the Department of Defense to ‘review the records of all active duty and former service members who had directly served with any allied military service and determine appropriate actions to bring their service records current.’ That was all, a simple one sentence innocuous-sounding item. I mean, what could be the harm, right? It got slipped in and I doubt anybody even noticed as it passed.

It was like slipping a stiletto into her heart. Thousands of active-duty service members, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard were doing training duty with dozens of allied services around the world, but their activities were already being recorded in their service records. Likewise, several thousand retired service members were working around the world for various defense contractors like Boeing and General Dynamics, and with private military contractors as mercenaries, but they were not serving directly with any allied military service. They were a step removed and the rule didn’t apply. Finally, about a thousand Americans served in foreign allied militaries (Israel, South Korea, and several countries where dual citizenship made you vulnerable to conscription) but almost none of them had previous American service. No, the number of former service members who had directly served in a foreign allied military since their retirement could probably be counted on one hand, with fingers left over, and I was heading that list!

Unfortunately, nobody thought to tell me.

I learned about all of this in early March, when I received a phone call from somebody over at the Pentagon asking if I would be able to debrief them on my activities with the Peshmerga in Syrian Kurdistan. I didn’t have any problems with that, since it wasn’t like it was a secret or anything. I put him on the line with Paige and had him make an appointment. To be perfectly honest, I thought that it was some kind of oral history project, maybe for the Army Times, or maybe something for G-2 or the DIA. Maybe they wanted an appreciation of Kurdish capabilities or something.

I hadn’t gone back since we brought Hamid back. I had been too busy working for the RNC last fall, and both Marilyn and I were nervous about taking Hamid back overseas. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, or something like that, and right now he was in the United States. As long as Hillary was in power, he was in danger of being sent back. If the Republicans took power in 2016, the odds that I could get him permanent status went up dramatically! I had received several invitations, and would probably make a trip in the spring, but Marilyn planned to stay in Hereford with Hamid.

I met with an Army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hunter Tolliver, in my office at the American Impact Project in Washington. By then we were living in Hereford, in our remodeled home, and I was helicopter commuting as needed, like in the old days. At the time of our appointment, Paige announced him and ushered him into my office, where he came to attention and saluted. I returned the salute, but smiled and said, “Welcome, Colonel, but I’ve been a civilian for a long time now, and I don’t stand on ceremony. Please, be seated.” I directed him to an armchair near a coffee table in a conversation area.

“Thank you, sir.” He took his seat and opened an attaché case and pulled out several files, which he set on the table, along with a legal pad.

I sat down across from him in another armchair. “Now, how can I help you? You’re looking for some form of oral history or something?”

He gave me a bit of an odd look at that. “No, sir, I am here to update your service record.”

“My service record? What in the world for? I left the Army ages ago when I blew my knee out, in 1981,” I exclaimed. What in the world was the Army up to now?

“Yes, sir, I understand that. However, you are still an army officer, though on medical retirement, correct?”

I shrugged. “Sure. I never resigned my commission. Don’t tell me you guys are desperate enough to call up a fifty-nine-year-old captain.”

He smiled at that, “No, Colonel, I don’t think that’s the case. I’m actually with G-1, personnel, and have been tasked with updating your service records. I obtained a copy of your 201 file and wanted to go through a few things with you.”

“Okay, I am officially mystified. I can’t imagine what in the world you want to ask me that for, but I’ll play along. Ask away.”

For a couple of minutes Tolliver asked me some standard questions, such as current address, final rank, date of separation, and qualifications. All of this is in the 201 and my 214 discharge form, and he had to tell me most of it, since I didn’t remember specific dates that far back. Then he came out of left field with, “You trained with the Rangers from Tuesday, November 5, 2009, through Friday, November 13, 2009, isn’t that correct?”

“Huh? Yeah, sure ... what in the world?”

“And you were awarded the Ranger tab at the completion of an abbreviated training course, correct?”

“What? Son, they gave me the tab to humor an old fart they got saddled with for a week. The only reason I ever wore it was so that I wouldn’t insult those soldiers. I’m no Ranger,” I protested.

It was his turn to shrug. “President McCain told them to record it in your qualifications, Colonel.”

“That’s another thing. I’m no Colonel. I was a Captain.” What in the fuck was going on?

“I was getting to that next, sir. May I continue?” He didn’t wait, but skipped ahead a few years to 2014, and began by asking me when I had begun serving with the Peshmerga and what my roles had been.

I answered for the dates as best I could but warned him, he was going to probably have to go back to the newspapers from that time and get the dates correct. Then we got into the meat of what I had done. “It started with their requesting that I accompany the 1^st Artillery as an observer in their headquarters battery.”

“Were you serving as a member of the American military at that time?”

“No, of course not. I was an observer.”

“Were you in American uniform at any time?”

“No. I don’t have any American uniforms. I have some old jump boots that I wear on occasion, and I have a DCU jacket, but that’s it. I didn’t wear that. I got some Kurdish DCUs when we went out. Why?”

“Did the Kurds treat you as an observer at that time, or did you have a military rank and title?” he asked.

I was on the verge of protesting, but the question stumped me for a moment. “The Kurds knew I had been a captain in the U.S. Army, and they gave me that rank out of courtesy, I suppose. There’s a lot of countries around the world that do that, you know.”

“My understanding, Colonel, is that you took command of the battalion following the Syrian bombing.”

I made a wry face at that. “That’s stretching it a bit. The headquarters battery got hammered, and we lost a lot of officers. I simply got together with the remaining battery commanders, and we divvied things up. We knew we would be getting a new battalion commander in a day or so, so I simply helped the remaining officer in the headquarters battery, a very green lieutenant, get things organized. It really wasn’t being placed in command.”

“You were wounded during that attack.”

I touched my left cheek, where the scar was still prominent. “Do you know if the Kurds have a Purple Heart?” I quipped.

He didn’t answer that. “And you were formally given command of the battalion afterwards? And promoted to full colonel?”

“Yes, but that was more political than anything. The thing was really being run by the major they brought in to take over,” I answered.

“But you were placed in formal command, and you were promoted to full colonel, is that correct?”

“Okay, yes, that is technically correct. And the day after we, I mean we the Americans, stomped on Assad and shut him down and combat was over, the Kurds gave me a hearty handshake and sent me on a one-way jeep ride back to Erbil. Like I said, I was more figurehead than anything else. What is this about, Colonel?”

“Sir, did you at any time take an oath of allegiance to the Republic of Kurdistan?”

“WHAT! What in the hell is going on, Colonel? Is this some stunt by Hillary to throw me out of the country?”

“Please answer the question, Colonel, did you at any time take an oath of allegiance to the Republic of Kurdistan?”

“No, by God, I did not! Now get the hell out of here!”

The bastard stayed seated. “Did you ever renounce your American citizenship, to either a consular officer or any other person?”

“That’s what it is, isn’t it? She’s trying to get rid of me! No, I have never and would never renounce my citizenship, and I have never taken or been asked to take an oath of allegiance to another country! I would never have done such a thing! Now you get the hell out of my office, you puppy, or by God I will kick your ass out of here!” I popped up from my chair and went to the office door and yanked it open. “Get the hell out of here! This meeting is over. Now you can leave on your own accord, or I swear I will kick you out myself!”

By now Lieutenant Colonel Tolliver was beginning to look a little flustered. He stuffed his files back into his briefcase and left, moving quickly through a lobby of people staring at us. After he left, I stormed back into my office, and Mindy slipped in behind me.

“What in the world was that all about?” she asked.

“Hillary’s trying to get me thrown out of the country! She had the Pentagon send somebody over to quiz me about my time in Kurdistan, to see if she has grounds for revoking my citizenship!”

“WHAT?”

“You can lose your citizenship if you take an oath of allegiance to another country or serve in somebody else’s army. They must be lining up the ducks to revoke my citizenship or something, maybe grab my passport.” I was really stewing at this. That was last year, for God’s sake! “Get my lawyers on the phone! I am going to sue her ass off about this, sovereign immunity or not!”

“I don’t know, Boss, that’s not what they told me when they set this up.”

“Then you were lied to, just like me! Get me those lawyers!” I threw myself into my chair behind my desk and stewed, while she left. I would be damned if I took this shit from Hillary and her shitweasel husband! He’d already tried this stunt once before, and it was just like them to try it a second time.

The only thing that saved me from a complete and total disaster was that my lawyer happened to be out at lunch when this all came down. His secretary promised to have him call me back as soon as he returned. Instead, Mindy put through a call from John McCain of all people. “What’s up, John? We’ll need to make this quick. I’m expecting a call from my lawyer. Hillary’s trying to deport me!”

“You know, Carl, you can be a real horse’s ass when you put your mind to it!” he replied disgustedly. “Nobody’s trying to deport you!”

“John, you weren’t here! Some young asshole was just in here looking to see if I had sworn allegiance to the Kurds or some such nonsense! She’d only be looking for that to see if she could yank my citizenship!”

“Oh, for the love of God, will you settle your ass down! Hillary hasn’t done any such thing. She doesn’t even know this is happening!”

“John, like I said, you weren’t here! This guy wanted to know everything about me in Kurdistan, and whose uniforms I was wearing and all. Of course, she’s behind it! How did you find out, anyway?”

“You’re not a three-star asshole! You’re a four-star asshole! Jesus Christ, Carl! Hillary isn’t setting you up! We are!”

“WHAT?”

“That light bird was tasked by the Chief of Staff himself, who got the word directly from the Speaker of the House, your old buddy John Boehner. Hillary has nothing to do with this!” he repeated.

“How did you get involved in this?” I asked.

“I’ve been involved since Day One!

“What in the world for? Somebody planning to give me a medal or something?”

“Yes, Godammit, that is precisely what we are trying to do!”

I had to stare at the phone for a couple of seconds after he said that. “Excuse me? You want to explain that?”

“Christ but you can be thick! John Boehner slipped a rider into a routine farm subsidy bill that requires the Pentagon to try and track down any retired service members who served under an allied military in order to have their records updated. That’s you, old buddy! You’re going to get promoted to full Colonel, O-6, and get a bunch of medals on prime-time TV, and Hillary can’t do squat about it since she signed the bill into law herself.”

“You have got to be shitting me! She is never going to let that happen!” I answered.

“Fine! Let her try! Then Boehner and his buddies in the House will roast her for failing to properly recognize our service heroes and give her even more grief over Somalia. She is skating on thin ice there already,” he replied.

“It doesn’t matter. Officer approvals have to pass muster through the Senate, and she still owns the Senate.”

“Yes and no. They took away Senate approval of officers below the rank of colonel. The Senate still has to approve promotion to colonel or higher. Besides, do you think we can’t find a half dozen Democrats who don’t want to be seen playing partisan politics with a popular hero? Again, we win either way.”

“All it takes is one hard core asshole to put a hold on promotions to shut this down, and you know she can find one,” I argued.

“Again, so what? This is publicity. We win either way. People are really getting unhappy with her. This is just more of the same. We’re just going to keep throwing gasoline on the fire, and sooner or later she is going to burn down!”

“Oh, Christ! Marilyn is going to divorce me for sure now! She wasn’t in favor of that little jaunt to begin with! I sure wish you guys had told me about this ahead of time!”