Bruce DeSilva - A Scourge of Vipers

Only the wiser heads at The Daily Show and The Colbert Report exercised restraint, directing their mockery at the journalism feeding frenzy.

To stir the pot, Fiona directed an underling to phone Channel 10’s Logan Bedford with a not-for-attribution tip that I’d gotten her pregnant and that she had sneaked off to Trenton for a secret abortion. The reliably unreliable Bedford went right on the air with it. Laura Ingraham, the syndicated talk-radio shrew, and Reverend Crenson, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, promptly denounced Fiona as a baby killer. Devereaux, the GOP front-runner, declined to comment, preferring to let the press do the dirty work for her.

According to a new Providence Dispatch /URI opinion poll, the governor’s previously record-high approval rating had plummeted to a record-low 22 percent.

Shortly before ten A.M., the governor’s administrative assistant stuck her head in the door to tell us that the stage was set. Reporters for The Providence Dispatch , The Pawtucket Times , the local Associated Press office, and eight Rhode Island radio stations were present. Others from The Boston Globe, The Washington Post , The New York Times , Time , Newsweek , The Huffington Post, and The Drudge Report had shown up from out of town. And CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the four local network TV affiliates would be broadcasting the press conference live.

“Ready for the show?” Fiona asked.

“You bet.”

I took her arm, pushed the door open, and escorted her toward a lectern that had been placed in front of the State Room’s dominant feature, a life-size Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. TV lights clicked on. The lectern bristled with microphones. We walked slowly through the room, giving the reporters ample time to shout their questions:

“Do you admit the affair?”

“Is it true that you had an abortion?”

“Are you going to resign?”

“What’s your boy-toy doing here?”

And a cacophony of others I couldn’t make out.

Fiona took her place behind the lectern with me at her side. She didn’t speak, letting the questions wash over her. And then she beamed, looking at once chic and businesslike in a forest-green tailored suit. After a minute or so, she finally bent to the microphones and said, “Shhhhhhhh.”

The shouts gradually subsided.

“Thank you all for coming,” she said. “It’s especially gratifying to see so many members of the national press here this morning. We don’t often get this much attention in Little Rhody.

“What’s not gratifying is that none of you are asking the important questions. You ought to be asking when the legislature is finally going to pass my gambling bill, which is essential to restoring the financial stability of our state government. You ought to be asking who illegally bugged the governor’s office and distributed the infamous audio file to the media.

“But it is apparent that you have something else on your minds.” She smiled slyly and paused for dramatic effect. “So, since you asked-and because you are plainly obsessed with the subject-let’s talk about sex.

“I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your salacious news reports over the last five days. They’ve been more entertaining than an entire season of my favorite TV show- Scandal. The saga of Olivia Pope’s affair with the president of the United States is riveting fiction, and the show deserves its huge following. But lately, the fiction about my affair with a newspaper reporter has been giving it a run for its money, driving up both newspaper circulation and TV news-show ratings. I’ve always been a strong supporter of a vigorous press, so I’m sorry to be the one to spoil your fun, but perhaps you are ready to hear the truth.”

Another pause.

“Liam Mulligan and I have been close friends since high school, and we’re both big kidders. What you heard on the audio file was me joshing him about his choice of underwear, which, frankly, I find mystifying. I understand why a guy would wear a Red Sox cap or Bruins jersey, but darned if I get why he’d wear his favorite teams’ colors where only that special someone gets to see them. After all, nobody who gets that close is thinking about baseball or hockey, so what’s the point?

“Mulligan? Would you care to explain?”

I bent to the microphones and delivered my line: “I’ve been supporting my teams for years, Governor. Seems to me it was time they gave me some support where I need it most.”

That drew some laughs. It also prompted an indignant shout from Iggy Rock.

“Do you think this is a joke, Governor?”

“I do,” she said. “Just not as big a joke as you are, Iggy.”

With that, reporters started shouting questions again. Again the governor shushed them.

“Mr. Mulligan I and do not have, never have had, and never will have a sexual relationship.”

“ Never will?” I said, ad-libbing a line and pouting in mock disappointment.

“Sorry, darling, but I am immune to your boyish charms.”

I gasped, my feigned shock drawing more chuckles.

“For the record,” the governor continued, “Mr. Mulligan did not get me pregnant, and I did not recently have, and have never had, an abortion. Any more questions?”

More shouts.

“One at a time, please. Mr. Bedford?”

“We’ve all seen the photo and heard the audio. Why should we believe your denial?”

Fiona paused again for dramatic effect.

“Because I’m gay,” she said.

That stunned the room into silence.

“At the conclusion of this press conference,” Fiona said, “my administrative assistant will distribute notarized copies of a medical examination that was conducted yesterday afternoon by Dr. Martin Philbin, the chief of staff at Rhode Island Hospital. It will confirm that I have never been pregnant. And to satisfy your impertinent, prurient, and entirely inappropriate obsession with my private life, it will also confirm that my hymen is intact.

“I trust that when you report this earth-shattering news, your stories will be accompanied by the appropriate apologies to me and to Mr. Mulligan. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to turn to some matters of actual importance.

“Two weeks ago, a routine, monthly sweep of my office by statehouse police uncovered several listening devices. These devices illegally intercepted the infamous conversation that was subsequently edited to remove its innocent context and then e-mailed to dozens of news outlets. The Rhode Island State Police traced the IP address and discovered that the e-mail was sent from a computer in the reading room of the Providence Public Library. The state police then examined video from a surveillance camera mounted beside the library entrance and observed Cheryl Grandison, vice president of the Stop Sports Gambling Now super PAC, entering the library just ten minutes before the e-mail was sent. That alone would not be sufficient evidence of guilt. However, the state police also interviewed two witnesses who observed Mrs. Grandison using the computer in question and five witnesses, including me and Mr. Mulligan, who saw her take the photograph that was included in the same e-mail.

“At six o’clock this morning, Mrs. Grandison was arrested at her room in the Omni Hotel. She has been formally charged with violating Chapter 11, Section 35-21, of the Rhode Island General Laws, which prohibits both the willful electronic interception of oral communications and the disclosure of the contents of such communications to third parties. The crime is punishable by five years in the state prison, where the accommodations, I assure you, are not up to the Omni’s standards. Mrs. Grandison was arraigned in Providence District Court and released after posting a thirty-thousand-dollar bond.