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Scene: Early morning at the White House. The President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, is seated in an easy chair in his private study adjacent to the Oval Office. He has on blue pajamas with a L'il Red Devil motif and a Gore 2000 baseball cap. A tray laden with orange juice, coffee, chocolate-glazed Krispy Kreme donuts, soft-scrambled eggs, and a half-pound of Irish bacon is on the groaning coffee table in front of him. He flips on CNN and almost immediately is convulsed with laughter.
GOP Vice-Presidential hopeful Dick Cheney: Are the Dems tickled to to see him?
At the sound of his laughing and choking, his executive assistant, Betty Currie, rushes in (her hearing has improved):
"A-ha. A-ha. A-ha-ha-ha."
"Mr. President, Mr. President."
"A-ha. A-ha. A-ha-ha-ha."
"Mr. President, are you all right?"
"Whew!" he says wiping his eyes. "I'm fine, Betty. It's just...a-ha, a-ha, a-ha-ha-ha."
"Now what on earth could be that funny?" asks Currie, hands on her hips.
The Prez, coughing into his starched linen napkin, can only point at the TV, which keeps repeating video clips of a portly, avuncular-looking man who seems even shorter than his companion, George W. Bush.
"It's...a-ha, Ch, Ch, Cheney, a-ha, a-ha, Dick Cheney, a-ha, a-ha-ha-ha."
"For goodness sake, what's wrong with Cheney? He worked right here in the White House as Chief of Staff. He was in Congress, he was Defense Secretary during the Gulf War, he ran a giant oil company. Lots of people might think he has plenty of experience."
"Oh, he does, he does. Only we couldn't have done a better job writing his resume for him. I mean, he was Chief of Staff in the White House all right, but, a-ha, it was when Ford was trying to clean up after Tricky Dick, a-ha, Nixon. Not exactly days the Republicans want to be reminded of. Hey, maybe we can have the boys do one of their TV spots. You know, a-ha, deep voice-over: 'Do you remember the last time there was a Dick in the White House?' A-ha."
"Mr. President!"
"Oh, sorry, Betty," he says. "That might not be such a great idea."
"What else?"
"I hear Bush is going to be talkin' inclusiveness at the Convention in Philly -- open up that big tent and bring in all the little folks who aren't tradin' high-tech stocks and driving Land Cruisers. But a-ha, but he's going to be standing beside a man who voted against Head Start and a resolution calling on South Africa to free Nelson Mandela from jail. It's not gonna take a lot to drop that big tent right on Junior's head."
"I did read in the Post that he had a pretty bad environmental record."
"Bad? A-ha, worst ever. He was practically against oxygen. We can beat that drum with the greenies all day long. Besides, that's gonna make it tough for Nader to go attacking Al as a bogus environmentalist. If he does, we can just say, 'See there, Ralph is just out to get Al, 'cause if he really cared about God's green earth, he'd be talkin' about Governor Bush's running mate, Dick, a-ha, Cheney.'"
"He does look vulnerable, but all those votes were a long time ago, and when he worked for young Bush's daddy, he was in charge of the war against Iraq. I'm sure you recall, Mr. President, where old George's ratings went after that."
"Lord, yes. He looked, a-ha, unbeatable, a-ha-ha-ha. As for the Gulf War, that might help a bit. But Icky Dick (write that down) didn't finish off the job, and we can talk about the billions Uncle Sam had to spend since then to keep Saddam in his box. Then Cheney went off and used his contacts to bag the top job at Halliburton."
"So that gives him executive experience, too."
"Hey, you gas up the Lincoln lately, Betty."
"Why just yesterday."
"Make you mad?"
"I must say, it did. Forty dollars it cost me."
"Well, a-ha, Al and I thought prices at the pump were going to be a big problem going into November. You know, folks still steamin' from summer vacation. A-ha, but then along comes Cheney."
"I don't get it."
"Gasoline. Oil. Halliburton. Big ol' oil-services company, and Cheney is buds with the OPEC crowd raisin' prices. And if Junior tries to say he's got just the guy to jawbone down oil prices, we can say, 'Sure, you do. Cheney helped raise prices, he damn well ought to be able to help talk 'em down.' I bet Bush won't be sayin' diddley anymore about gasoline."
"There he is again," Currie says, gesturing toward the TV.
"Look at that, a-ha-ha-ha. Looks like they sent over the family lawyer to hold the boy's hand. A-ha, a-ha, a-ha-ha-ha."
"Now you stop that right now, Mr. President. You're going to give yourself a heart attack."
Copyright 2000, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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