Christopher Buckley - Boomsday

Cass smiled. “No, not really.”

“You’re just trying to make a point, aren’t you?” He wagged a finger at her. “Well, I must say, young lady, that you have certainly made it. Even if you do set a mean agenda.”

Cass looked at her watch. “I have to go.”

They stood. He patted her hand. “Good luck to you, Cassandra Devine. Go forth”-he smiled-“and spin no more.”

She was crunching on snow across the parking lot when she heard a voice call out, “Hello, Cass.” She turned and saw her father. It had been many years since she’d seen him.

“Hello, Frank.”

He moved forward as if to kiss her. She held back.

“Look at you. You’re all grown up.”

“Look at you. All rich.”

“I did try.”

“Try what?”

“To make it up to you. The check. The one you tore into pieces.”

“Oh,” Cass said, “well, we’re even. I have to go. Good luck in the debate.”

“Oh, fuck it,” Frank said angrily, and turned on his heel.

“Nice talking with you,” Cass muttered. “Dad.”

“What did he want?” Terry said when she got back to the Jepperson trailer.

“Who?” Cass said, somewhat dazed.

“The second coming.”

“We seem to be fanning each other with olive branches.”

“There’s a whole lot of love going on in this campaign. Come on, showtime.”

They went into Randy’s dressing room. He was standing in front of a mirror, gesturing.

“Should I limp when I walk out onstage?”

“Why don’t you just hop?” Cass said. She brushed off his jacket. “You ready, Senator?”

“Alons, enfants de la pa-trie…”

“Fuck off.”

Bucky’s plan was to wait for closing statements, when it would be too late for a counterassault, for Peacham to say, “I think a man who drives a young woman into a minefield in the middle of a war zone for immoral purposes should not be allowed within a hundred yards or a hundred miles of the nuclear button.” Not a bad line, but Peacham never got to say it.

It happened sixty-four minutes in. The president had just recited a string of somewhat abstruse economic indicators suggesting that the U.S. economy might actually grow its way out from under the crushing deficit.

The moderator, John Tierney of The New York Times , turned to Randy and said, “Senator Jepperson, you have ninety seconds to respond.”

“Thank you, John, but I don’t need ninety seconds to respond. I can respond to what the president just said in four words: Shut the fuck up.”

The incident posed a challenge to news organizations-namely, how to report, verbatim, that a candidate for president of the United States told the incumbent president to “shut the fuck up”-without incurring fines by the Federal Communications Commission. The cautious evening network news shows bleeped the word.

For a moment, everyone in the auditorium-and across the nation-watched in mute amazement. For a few seconds, it looked as though President Peacham were going to cross the stage and punch Senator Jepperson in the nose. The rest of the candidates gripped their podiums while their mouths made fish-out-of-water motions. Randy held his ground like Stonewall Jackson at the Battle of Bull Run. Tierney, the moderator, bit down on his lip. After a pause that seemed to last an eternity, President Peacham turned on his heel and stormed offstage, surrounded by scowling Secret Service agents who looked as though they might open fire on the senator. The rest of the debate was somewhat less memorable.

Spin Alley, the area outside the hall where the candidates’ aides rushed to proclaim their man’s or woman’s (“obvious”) victory, was normally a hive of chatter. This night it was uncharacteristically hushed. Declaring victory tonight would be beside the point, like standing outside Ford’s Theatre after President Lincoln had been shot to proclaim the excellence of the acting.

When Cass arrived, reporters instantly abandoned whomever they had been interviewing and swarmed in on her. She was pressed up against a wall so tightly that Jepperson staffers had to form a flying wedge to save her from being asphyxiated.

“Cass, Cass-was that your idea?”

“Does this signal a new aggressiveness on the part of the Jepperson campaign?” ( Du-uh .)

“Aren’t you concerned that the Federal Election Commission will fine him?”

She let them gabble on at her for a few minutes before even trying to answer. Finally, in order to obtain an audible sound bite from her, the beast quieted.

“I think Senator Jepperson succinctly said tonight what many Americans, especially younger ones, think when they hear the president of the United States tell them that the economy is in sound shape. It’s not, and perhaps it’s time for some plain talk.”

“But he told the president of the United States to-to shut the-to…” The reporter couldn’t bring himself to say it.

“I heard what he said. It’s an expression favored by young Americans to signify ‘Really?’ or ‘Gosh, that’s wonderful.’ The senator was, I believe, using it ironically. For his generation, it has a more, shall we say, literal meaning.”

“But you can’t talk to a president that way. It’s not-presidential.”

“Is it presidential to deceive the nation over and over? Senator Jepperson feels that the young people in this country are being robbed of their future by politicians who can’t see past the next election. Why should they be accorded respect? Respect is something you earn. Senator Jepperson respects the office of the presidency. And he will treat it with respect when he becomes president. Meanwhile, my guess is Americans tonight are saying, ‘Give him hell, Randy.’”

Not quite. In fact, large numbers of Americans were phoning in death threats to Jepperson campaign headquarters and calling their congressmen and senators and demanding that they denounce him; others were calling the White House to say that they were appalled and writing scorching letters to the editor. But this barrage was coming from older voters. The younger ones, Cass’s U30s, generation whatever-they, too, were communicating as fast as they could, texting and blogging. And they liked-quite liked-what they had seen that night.

“Senator, many, including a number of your own colleagues in the Senate, have called on you to apologize to President Peacham. There’s even some movement to censure or even to impeach you. Will you apologize to the president?”

Randy was on Greet the Press.

“No, Glen. I have no plans to do that.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t regret what I said. In fact, I’d say it again. In fact-”

“Please,” Glen Waddowes said with a look of panic on his face, “this is a family show.”

Randy smiled. “I wouldn’t want to upset the sensibilities of any of your viewers, Glen. Sure it’s tough talk. But these are tough times. And when a president of the United States stands at a podium and tells outright lies as the nation comes down around him in ruins, maybe it’s time someone grabbed him by the lapels and said, ‘Enough!’”

“Speaking of lapels, that button on yours…is that…?”

“It says STFU, Glen.”

“I won’t ask you to explain what that stands for.”

“I understand”-Randy smiled-“but if I may, let me explain what I stand for.…”

The buttons were Cass’s idea. She had had tens of thousands of them ready to distribute the morning after the debate. It had all been hush-hush. She’d even had the campaign’s lawyer make the button manufacturers sign enforceable confidentiality statements. She didn’t want it to get out that the Jepperson campaign had prepared them in advance of the debate. No sense in ruining the illusion of spontaneity.