Christopher Buckley - Supreme Courtship

Dexter tossed the cell phone to an aide before it could ring again. Minefield ahead, he thought as he made his way toward the podium, inside a phalanx of aides and Secret Service agents, and nothing to do with the U.S.-Mexican border. But now, hearing the ambient sound of the 2,000 members of the National Rifle Association waiting for him to take the stage, he felt the sugar-rush of adrenaline in his veins. Concentrate, he told himself, con-cen-trate. Let’s just get this football into the end zone, then deal with the collateral stuff. Maybe he’d been a little… yes… incautious with Ramona, promising her… but, my God, what a fox. Could get tricky… Well, she’d understand. Sure. Give her a nice-an ambassadorship! Perfect. Maybe even Mexico. She’d mollified some of the angrier Hispanics over the border-mining… Yes, came in handy here… giving those interviews where she said she didn’t really agree with me on it. Yes. Mexico. Or Nicaragua, or one of those places. Okay, Dex. Concentrate. Con-cen-trate. NRA. Jesus, wait a minute… Texas. Texas is voting on the term limit amendment tomorrow. Huge gun state. THE gun state. Wonderful. And they’ve got me speaking to the NRA today? Great scheduling, guys. Okay. Concentrate. Guns. We like guns. They’re so… American. But let’s all agree, we have to be careful with guns. That little incident at the mall in Orlando… the media’s calling it a massacre, that may be putting it a bit strongly, but okay, maybe a little more diligence on the background checks would be in order? The guy had spent the last six years in a psychiatric lockup ward. Should he really be able to buy a gun like that? I’ll have a Big Mac, large fries, and a.38 caliber to go. Well, there are two sides to every issue. But the larger issue is… guns don’t kill people… Bullets kill people… Yes. Without the bullets… Well, if you really want to get down to it, people kill people. Is it the fault of the guns, or the people aiming the… Right. Why don’t we just ban people while we’re at it?

“Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve known him as Senator Dexter Mitchell, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. You’ve known him as President Mitchell Lovestorm of the hit series POTUS. Soon, you’ll know him as President of the United States. Will you please welcome…”

Love this part.

Someone in the audience shouted, “Send in the Nimitz!”

You got it, pal.

PEPPER WAS IN HER CHAMBERS, glumly watching television. Watching daytime TV was not the normal routine for a Supreme Court justice, but this did actually qualify as “must-see TV.” She was following the voting in the Texas legislature.

Texas had cannily delayed its vote on the term limit amendment so that it would be the state that ratified it. Pepper’s already keen interest in the voting was heightened by the fact that in the interim since she and JJ had stopped speaking over her Swayle vote, he’d been appointed to the state senate there by the governor-to fill out the term of a senator whose trucking company had been caught smuggling Mexicans over the border.

Much as the imminent passage of the Presidential Term Limit Amendment made for superheated discussion on the talk shows, the country was becoming alert to the possibility of an impending conundrum, namely: what if the amendment were ratified and President Vanderdamp won reelection? Could he-legally-take office?

That discussion now moved to the nation’s front burner. Panels of experts and scholars were duly convened; also, panels of people who didn’t really know much about it but who sounded as though they did.

One (actual) leading constitutional scholar wrote a much- discussed article for the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, concluding that such an eventuality “might well prove insoluble-the Perfect Constitutional Storm.”

He wrote:

The U.S. Constitution makes no provision for such an unprecedented, indeed, grotesque outcome. But nor should the Founders be held to account for the persistent and adamant incontinence of the American people who, as always, want to have everything both ways: lower taxes and more government services; less reliance on foreign oil, and no domestic drilling; free health care, defined as someone else paying for it; reduced emissions, and enormous cars; wind power, but no windmills in our own backyards; a ban on waterboarding terrorists, but no terrorism; strict border controls, but we’ll still need Manuel and Yolanda to mow the lawn and take care of the kids for $5 an hour and (lo siento) no benefits; and so on, ad nauseam and ad adsurdam. Meanwhile let us hope, let us, indeed, pray, that the state legislatures and the national electorate do not paint us into a corner from which escape is far from certain, and very certainly, messy.

Pepper perused these words while simultaneously watching the voting in Austin. She was suddenly seized with a stomachache, for she understood, more acutely perhaps than anyone else in the entire country, that this dilemma, this about-to-be-dead mouse on the national living room floor, was going to end up right here in the marble palace on her lap.

It was at this moment, as she sat clutching her cramped tummy and watching C-SPAN (FOR: 43, AGAINST: 21) that her secretary buzzed to say that her three o’clock appointment was here.

Presently the door opened, admitting two agents, the director of the Washington field office and-my, my-the assistant deputy director of the FBI. His presence, Pepper surmised, was a gesture of respect. This was after all, the Honorable, the Supreme Court.

The pleasantries made, coffee offered and politely declined, Pepper said, “With all respect, asking the FBI to become involved in all this-it wasn’t my idea. I’d just as soon soak it up and move on.”

The ADD nodded. “Understood and appreciated, Justice. But Chief Justice Hardwether officially requested that we become involved, so the train has left the station.”

“Okay, then,” Pepper said with a side-glance at the TV (FOR: 51, AGAINST: 25). “So, what can I do for you?”

One of the agents said, “Is there anyone here at the Court who might have some motive to embarrass you?”

Pepper smiled. “Yes. Everyone, more or less.”

The agent nodded blankly.

“You read the papers,” Pepper said. “It’s no secret I’m a bit of a”-she almost said catty whompus-“kind of a polarizing figure here. In a divided Court, I might just be the only thing everyone agrees on.”

“Have you had difficult relations with anyone in particular?”

Pepper said, “Not to sound rude, but that’s really none of your business.”

The agentry exchanged glances. “We’re only trying to-”

“Boys,” Pepper smiled, “I’ve been hanging around lawmen since I was in diapers. I know exactly what you’re ‘only trying to do.’ And you can cut it out. I’m not going there with you. Now, was there anything else? I’ve got a heap of work to do.”

The agents stared at her TV screen. “It’s the Texas vote,” she said. “Not Oprah.”

The ADD said, “I appreciate what you’re saying. Could I ask a direct question?”

“You can ask.”

“Do you have any reason to believe that this leak might have originated within Justice Santamaria’s chambers?”

“None whatsoever,” Pepper said evenly. “Justice Santamaria is a man of integrity, honor, and reputation.”

The ADD stared. “But you and he have had, I understand, a difficult relationship?”

“We’re colleagues. Colleagues agree on things and disagree on things. We have had good, frank, vigorous exchanges on matters of law that sound, why, right out of Plato’s Republic. Now come on, gents. This is a fishing trip. You’re throwing out chum and it’s smellin’ up my chambers. Look-I don’t know who leaked the damn thing and I don’t give a damn. I got enough things on my desk to give me ulcers into the next millennium. I know you’re doing your job, and I’ve got nothing but appreciation for that and nothing but respect for the FBI. But now, shoo. That’s all I got to say other than good day to you.”