All the President's Men

Bob Woodward reclined in the sailboat, catching the last wisp of September sun and Potomac breeze. His new book was climbing the lists, well-reviewed, and uber-buzzed. Still, it didn't feel the same as last time, or the time before that, or the time before that. His book was huge, but probably would result in nothing changing. There was something about this Administration that could just hang on, long after any other Administration would have imploded...and he couldn't figure out what it was. Next week he would be jetting all over the country, talking about the damning book, but what would it matter? For the first time in his life, he really wondered if there was too much evil in Washington to root it out.

Below Woodward's boat, Ardua lurked. She had grown so large now, she stretched all the way from Great Falls to Alexandria. She wanted to take him, but she didn't like what she sensed in him. She turned her attention to the Metro train crossing from Virginia into D.C. She sensed something enticing was on board there, and reached out to feel it.

On the Orange Line train, the Assistant Deputy Administrator for Anti-Fecklessness felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He turned around sharply, thinking some fag was trying to blow in his ear, but there was nobody in the seat. He turned around and glared at Dr. Khalid Mohammad several feet away, whose medical bag looked extremely suspicious. Dr. Mohammad didn't notice because he was busy reading Bob Woodward's new book, which made the Assistant Deputy Administrator get even angrier.

Over at the State Department, Condoleezza Rice was awaiting the Deputy Administrator's arrival while re-reading the same chapter that Dr. Mohammad was reading for the first time--the chapter about how Laura Bush had joined Andy Card in encouraging Bush to fire Rummy. Poor naive Laura: she would never get it. People like Rummy and Cheney could not be killed by ordinary bullets. Only someone of Condi's brilliance could lay a plot elaborate enough to trap them...after they had served her purpose. Outside the window, a starling looked on approvingly, its feathers shimmering blue and green and black.

Several miles away, a flock of starlings descended suddenly on the courtyard of the Afghan embassy, where the Special Envoy from Pakistan was having another secret meeting with the Afghan Ambassador. The countries' presidents had done a brilliant job of sending mixed signals to Bush last week, letting him think he was militarily, psychologically, morally, and diplomatically superior to both of them. It was only through the charade of non-cooperation that they could convince people like Rummy and Cheney that Osama Bin Laden could not be found. Musharraf and Karzai had their own plans to carry out, and were weaving an increasingly complex web to maintain their own power bases. It was only in reading Woodward's new book that they realized the time was closer at hand than they had thought.

Over at Observatory Circle, Rummy was drinking martinis with Cheney, watching football, feeling sickly beholden in a way that he had not felt for a long time. He wondered what it would be like if Cheney became President.

Over at the White House, Laura Bush was pondering what it would be like to be President. She was irritated to be stuck here for the weekend, again. She had never been so humiliated in her life. Now the whole world knew that George didn't listen to her. She reapplied her lipstick before carrying a tray of oatmeal cookies into the study, where George was trying to pay attention to his National Security Advisor without falling asleep. Laura knew that George would really have liked to take a nap after lunch, then watch a college football game. He smiled up at her sweetly, then accidentally burped. Laura went outside to sit in the Rose Garden. The scent was sweet, but the blooms looked a little tired, like they just would prefer to go into hibernation already. She didn't notice that the garden was full of starlings, catbirds, and rats-- and nothing else.