Charles Wheelan - The Rationing

The Secretary of State and the Strategist stepped off the small Air Force jet in Bahrain and were immediately belted with a blast of hot, dry desert air, like opening a hot oven. An officious two-star general met them on the tarmac, eager to be of assistance and excited to be involved in whatever was happening. One did not need to be a rocket scientist—though, coincidentally, the general in question was an aeronautical engineer—to recognize that the Secretary of State does not show up on short notice with the President’s chief strategist unless something interesting is afoot. The Secretary of State was traveling without a staff, which was also highly unusual. “We’re honored to have you here, Madam Secretary,” the General said earnestly. He ushered her and the Strategist toward a terminal where a handful of other officers were waiting awkwardly with cold drinks.

“Now what do we do?” the Secretary of State asked the Strategist under her breath.

“We know the Prime Minister is going to read the papers. We just wait for the phone to ring,” the Strategist answered.

The General said, “I know you have meetings with Bahraini officials, but might I be able to offer you a tour of the base?”

“That would be excellent,” the Strategist replied.

THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE STEPPED TO A PODIUM BENEATH the rotunda of the Capitol, the very same place where she had advocated strenuously for “the China option.” The Washington press corps recognized that the Speaker was violating protocol by making a statement before the President’s address. The bad chemistry between the President and the Speaker always made for good copy, especially now that the Outbreak had raised the stakes in their pissing match. “I will be brief,” the Speaker began. “Today I will introduce legislation guaranteeing every American access to Dormigen, irrespective of gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, or, most important, age. We do not live in a society where lifesaving drugs should be rationed. We should not have to pass legislation to guarantee such a basic right, and yet here we are. In less than an hour, the President, having failed to provide the nation with sufficient Dormigen, will announce a plan to deny that lifesaving drug to some of the most vulnerable members of society: the old and the infirm—the very people who need the nurturing hand of government most.”

The President and Chief of Staff were watching the statement in the conference room on Air Force One. “For fuck sake,” the President muttered. “Please tell me this is not happening.”

“It doesn’t make any sense,” the Chief of Staff said, genuinely perplexed. “We don’t have enough Dormigen. She’s not an idiot. What does she think we’re going to do? You can’t promise what you don’t have—”

“She thinks we’re going to avert the crisis,” the President said with a sardonic laugh. “It’s a backhanded compliment, actually.”

“I don’t follow,” the Chief of Staff said.

“You have to give her credit for creativity, if nothing else,” the President answered. “She thinks we’re going to come up with the Dormigen, or figure out the virus, or something. She doesn’t think we’re going to have to ration anything. So she introduces her grandiose bill—protecting the old, the infirm, the left-handed, and everyone else—right before we lay out our rationing plan. Then, when the crisis is averted, she’s the one who promised Dormigen to everyone and we’re the ones who planned to let old people die.”

“And if things don’t turn out all hunky-dory?”

“Then it doesn’t matter anyway,” the President explained. “We can’t give out Dormigen we don’t have. She’s taking a gamble here.”

“Unbelievable.”

“You don’t win the presidency without taking some risks,” the President said with what his Chief of Staff would later describe as “an admixture of respect and disgust.”

The Speaker finished her statement: “The President will soon tell the nation who will be excluded, who is too sick or too old to be saved. Congress cannot allow that to happen. I will not live in a country that turns its back on the most vulnerable. In my America, there is Dormigen for every one of us .”

She did not take questions. There was no way she could. The statement made no sense given the reality of what was going on; some members of the media were openly snickering. We had crowded around my laptop to watch the talk in the NIH conference room, which had grown warm and stuffy. “Is that woman crazy?” Giscard asked without a hint of sarcasm or irony. “I mean, really, does she understand what is happening?”

“She’s a politician,” one of the CDC scientists said.

“Yes, okay, I understand, but still: How can one promise Dormigen for all when there is no Dormigen?” Giscard asked, genuinely flummoxed. Several of us shrugged by way of reply. The Speaker clearly had better political antennae than the rest of us, because almost immediately social media exploded with what would become the #norationing campaign. Progressives organized rallies in D.C. and other big cities. One influential lefty blogger compared the President to a concentration camp guard who met the trains and sent prisoners “left or right.”

The President called the Acting Secretary of HHS just before he was scheduled to do the congressional briefing. “Thank you for doing this,” the President said.

“I’m too old for this shit,” the Acting Secretary said. “What was she thinking?”

“About the 2032 race,” the President said.

“Apparently. How should I respond?”

“Don’t. Just lay out our plan. Stick to the briefing materials. The important thing is that people realize how serious the situation might become. That’s our responsibility here. Everything else is just noise.”

“What about Q and A?” the Acting Secretary asked.

“You have to answer questions. It’s Congress. But you know the drill: act professional and say as little as possible, no matter what they throw at you. It’s like a congressional hearing; you’ve done it a hundred times,” the President assured him.

“Except this time it’s all of Congress and we’ve just been compared to concentration camp guards.”

“Right. Good luck with that,” the President replied. And then, after a pause, “Seriously, thank you for carrying the water on this one.”

“It’s an honor to do what I can, Mr. President.”

“Okay, then, good luck. I’m on right after you.”

In New Delhi, the phone rang—the phone call the U.S. Ambassador had been hoping for, or at least a step in that direction. A functionary in the Indian Ministry of Health called the U.S. Embassy, asking if perhaps the U.S. Ambassador would have time for a short chat with someone in the Prime Minister’s office regarding the American Dormigen shortage. As soon as possible.

THE U.S. AMBASSADOR IMMEDIATELY RELAYED THE NEWS TO the Secretary of State and the Strategist, who cut their tour of the Bahraini base short and ensconced themselves in a small secure conference room. “I assume I call him back?” the U.S. Ambassador asked.

“Give it at least a half an hour,” the Strategist advised. “The Indian PM is a rug merchant—”

“Can we show some respect, please?” the Secretary of State interrupted, casting an exasperated look across the table.

The Strategist, not one to back down when he believed himself to be right, said, “Isn’t that literally true? His family traded carpets. Wasn’t his family in the carpet business?” the Strategist asked the U.S. Ambassador.

The Ambassador replied uncomfortably, “I do believe his mother’s family exported carpets from Kashmir.”