Smith's Invisible Hand - Mightier than you thought
The Daily Mirror
American Senator Escapes Men in White
They came for Jimmy Carter at his home in Plains, Georgia, a rural faming community approximately 160 miles south of Atlanta. The “men in white” were from the State Department of Health, and their intent was to take Mr. Carter, the senior United States Senator from the state of Georgia, into care. This was not a criminal action, rather one taken on behalf of the Senator’s health. In their charge papers the “men in white” carried an affidavit that Senator Carter was suffering from a nervous breakdown and was in need of institutional care.
Fortunately for Mr. Carter, Dr. John Williams, the Chief of Psychiatry at the Anchor Hospital in Atlanta was present as the Senator’s guest. In addition to his hospital position, Dr. Williams also teaches at Emory University and is a consultant to the Georgia State Department of Health. Dr. Williams certified Senator Carter as fit. Georgia State Troopers, who were also present, then escorted the “men in white” off of Carter family property. Sumter County Sheriff’s deputies attempted to detain the men on a charge of trespass, but within a few hours the men were released by unidentified U.S. government agents. Neither the identities of the “men in white” or the federal agents could be confirmed.
None of this was a coincidence. Sen. Carter later told reporters that he had expected this move, and that he had arranged for Dr. Williams and the Georgia State police to be present in order to prevent his incarceration under what he termed “dubious medical evidence.”
“Time and again we have seen senior officials hauled off for treatment from nervous exhaustion, on little or no pretext,” Sen, Carter said. “What has happened here today is proof that some kind of campaign is being carried out by senior Rumsfeld Administration officials to imprison their critics in psychiatric facilities. This is a Soviet tactic, one which this President and his minions have adopted with gusto to tamp down dissent.”
Many senior United States government officials have indeed been hospitalized after suffering what are termed “nervous breakdowns” or “mental exhaustion.” The most senior was former Defense Secretary John Connally.
Pointedly few press outlets in the United States have commented on this disturbing trend. We note that, apart from a few local papers in the Plains and Sumter County area, this story has not been carried by major American news outlets, and has mostly been published outside of the country.
When asked to comment on this, Rumsfeld Administration spokesman Pat Buchanan called it “ridiculous, not worth commenting on.”
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Where was the Outrage?
By Hillary Rodham-Turner
It is the question often asked about the 1980’s, the period when the Rumsfeld Administration transformed the United States from a Constitutional Republic to an authoritarian state: Where was the outrage? Why weren’t more Americans – normally vociferous and stubborn defenders of their first and second amendment rights (not mention habitual sceptics of government power and overreach) – shouting their disproval of this slow slide into tyranny? How could this happen in America of all places?
The situation of the Rumsfeld years, the so-called “Rumsfeldia” as it became popularly known (though “Rums-Cheneyia” would have been more correct in naming what was, after all, the enterprise of more than one man) brings to mind what Allan Bloom said on the matter:
“Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity, but the one that removes awareness of other possibilities.”
Bloom, writing The Decade of Tears from the comforts of his Paris exile, observed the nugget of truth about how America in the 1980’s slipped from Ronald Reagan’s enlightened city on the hill to Donald Rumsfeld’s quasi Pinochet-like nightmare of darkness and repression. The answer, banal as it sounds, is that no one noticed. Or more correctly, parroting Bloom, the mass majority saw so little direct personal change that over time that they were unaware of another possibility to the state being fashioned for them.
To begin with there is history, with what came before underlying what happened; without understanding the immediate past it is next to impossible to understand events in their true context. Even Pinochet didn’t spring on the scene in Chile as a fully formed tyrant out of the blue; his arrival in power was part of a historic process, and so was that of Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Like the infamous Chilean general they observed the situation around them, and exploited their political advantages (and their opponents disadvantages) to grab power and hold on.
One of the most telling scenes of the early “Rumsfeldia” period which may shed light on the nation’s seeming acquiescence to tyranny is the October 1982 funeral of the late President James Gavin, considered by many (with the exception of Richard Nixon and George Wallace partisans of course) as the last “good” President before Rumsfeld. Gavin died under troubling circumstances, although at the time the official view that he had died of natural causes was upheld. Much revolves around a finding by the pathologist of the signs of early on-set Parkinson’s and whether or not this could have led to the President’s death, a conclusion which has since been called into question. In 1982 most believed that he had indeed died of natural causes. At his funeral Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, George Wallace and Henry Kissinger (among others) spoke out against what they perceived as happening, and in doing so they echoed one of Gavin’s last public addresses, given at the West Point graduation the previous May Gavin had said:
“…there is a dark impulse loose in our circles of power, one which looks inward and which believes that we can only manage our affairs in this world through brute force and bullying….We cannot and must not allow any politician, no matter how exalted the office, to narrow our freedoms or strangle our democracy.”
Asked later, on television by David Brinkley, if by these words the former President meant President Rumsfeld explicitly, Gavin did not answer directly, but did not deny the assertion either.
By the time of his funeral in October the thoughts he had expressed in May were echoed by Kissinger, Goldwater, Reagan and Wallace, each in their own way. But President Rumsfeld spoke at that funeral as well, and his speech focused exclusively on James Gavin’s record of service in the military as well as his Presidency. Sampling of test audiences after the funeral showed that over 60% of viewers felt the President’s remarks, which were devoid of any self-reference, were more appropriate to the occasion that the political comments made by others. In other words, Kissinger, Goldwater, Reagan and Wallace were heard; their message just wasn’t accepted.
Students of history are moved by this to ask if these men said so publicly, why then didn’t their message rally support? The answer is that very few heard them, and of those that did, there were many who accused these men of sour grapes. After all each of them had suffered a political defeat or set-back of some kind at the hands of the then incumbent President (1) and at least some measure of bitterness could be seen as their motives for darkening Rumsfeld’s name.
President Rumsfeld, asked about these apocalyptic statements about his administration said, “there are always those old warhorses who resist change and the advance of time. I’m sure they mean well, and we should heed their warnings as general warnings against the tendency of democracies to decay into tyranny, but they have to realize that many of the changes we have brought in, our dedication to a re-vitalization of freedom, are exactly the remedy to dictatorship that is needed. I welcome their criticism, but at the same time they must welcome change and progress, because these are the very ideas by which a democracy operates.”
For the general public, life in Rumsfeld’s America was a time of relatively modest growth in the economy, a far difference from the inflationary period of the late 1960’s and 1970’s. For many this was enough to deflect the harsher aspects of Rums-Cheneyia, at least in the terms of day-to-day existence, especially among the white suburban class who had seen their lifestyle threatened by the Depression of the 1970’s, and came to see Rumsfeld as their protector and hero, much as their parents had come to view FDR during the financial crisis of the 1930’s. Equally, this was the class least directly affected by Rumsfeld’s security measures. Those groups most affected by these measures tended to be viewed with distaste by this large group of voters and taxpayers.
One of the keys to understanding the Rums-Cheney period is to avoid the tendency by many critics on the left to brand Rumsfeld as a totalitarian. With the exception of national security issues, Rumsfeld actually provided a more authoritarian than totalitarian leadership model. This distinction is fundamental in comparative political analysis. Totalitarian regimes legitimize and practice very high degrees of penetration into all aspects of the economy, society, religion, culture, and family, whereas authoritarian regimes do not. Totalitarian regimes have dominant single parties; coherent, highly articulated, widely disseminated ideologies; very high levels of mass mobilization and participation directed and manipulated by the regime; and a strict control over candidates, when there are any, and policies. Authoritarian regimes have mentalities more than ideologies, low levels of political participation, and limited pluralism and competition of policies and political actors (including the press), with some constraints on regime control and manipulation of the polity, society, economy, family, religion, culture, and the press.
The familiar mechanisms of American democracy remained largely in place during the Rums-Cheney period, although they were hijacked to support an authoritarian regime. Despite his courting of the religious movements for political support, it is important to remember that Rums-Cheney was less concerned with changing culture or beliefs, as it was at imposing an idiosyncratic view of economic liberalism combined with a neo-imperialistic foreign policy. Its domestic control efforts were aimed at providing the supports for these and dividing their opponents over various interests, but at no time did Rumsfeld seek to impose a totalitarian ideology on the nation. Rather he used freedom as a misleading synonym for authoritarian control and he appealed to the public to support him in their own self-interest (not unlike democratic politicians in healthier democracies). There were no uniforms or swastikas: there were appeals to the economic good and elements which, while radically exaggerated, bore some resemblance to “mainstream” or legitimate American political ideas from ages past. Other political parties were allowed to function, albeit in a restricted state. In fact, the fracturing of the party system (which had begun as far back as the impeachment of Agnew in 1973) was a great enabler for the Rums-Cheney agenda. Where one or two strong, broadly based parties might have stood their ground against a runaway executive, the fragmentation of the parties (and the Democratic Party in particular) created smaller interest groups, which Rums-Cheney successfully played-off against each other. Arguably it was this which allowed a Rumsfeld Presidency, as opposed to a Carey Presidency, to take office in the first place.
To state that there was no outrage directed against the Rums-Cheney regime would, of course, be a false generalization. There was considerable opposition on the left: in fact the We The People Movement owes much to its opposition to Presidents Wallace and Rumsfeld as the formative force in its becoming the dominant party of the left in American politics. But, as Bloom observed, an opposition must begin with an understanding or conceptualization of an alternative, and outrage must begin with a belief that the better alternative has somehow been stolen through illegitimate means. This existed on the left, and among anti-Rumsfeld figures such as Dellums, Jackson, Carter and McCloskey. It was not felt more widely within the majority of the population, and that allowed Rums-Cheney to impose an authoritarian model on the land of the free with barely a whimper.
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1 = Reagan’s partisans blamed Rumsfeld for weakening his support in his close 1976 Presidential contest with George Wallace; Wallace was bitter over Rumsfeld’s dismissal of his Administration’s accomplishments; Goldwater blamed Rumsfeld and Spiro Agnew (Rumsfeld having been Agnew’s Chief of Staff) for weakening the Republican Party which in turn lead to his own defeat in the 1980 Senate contest; and most of Kissinger’s diplomacy had been undone by the Agnew and Rumsfeld Administrations.
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The State of the Union Address by President Donald H. Rumsfeld – January 31, 1985
Members of Congress, Mr. Chief Justice, Associate Justices, distinguished guests and my fellow Americans. I come before you tonight to pronounce the State of the Union as strong, and growing stronger. Over the last four years we have turned the corner on the rot that was destroying America. At home we have improved the economy and ended the tendency leading us toward socialism. Abroad we have strengthened our position by ending a costly commitment to nations that bore us too little good will, and in so doing we have strengthened our forces by freeing them of the petty binds placed upon them by an outdated alliance governed by those who would regulate instead of defend – and would surrender to the Soviet rather than fight. For those who cry henny-penny, the sky has fallen because we have surrendered Europe in the Cold war, let them consider that our Cold War strategy was misguided and that the domination of Europe by the Soviet was only a matter of time, given the pernicious conspiracy of Communism and the weakness of the European character, which long ago succumbed to the temptations of Communism and gave only lip service to the work of freedom. The true history of the Cold War remains how successive American governments were duped by traitors and Communist fellow travelers at Yalta and Potsdam to bear the expense of Europe’s survival and defense, while the Soviet Union bore only the expense of building its military machine to a level where it could obliterate the world in an orgy of Communist domination. Every dollar spent by the American taxpayer in defense of a Europe ready – no, willing – to go red placed another dollar of our sacred treasury into the bloody red hands of aggression in Moscow. Well, we have cut the feeder tube to that parasite, and no more American taxpayer dollars will go into the coffers of the world wide Bolshevik uprising. Starting today, my friends, Communism goes into the red for good! Today America reclaims its treasure and starts building anew a world-wide defense which will protect and preserve our dollars for the true work of freedom and liberation.
And how shall we manage our dollars? This is the fundamental question of our age; how shall we take the economic and industrial power of the United States and transform it not only into an engine for good in the world, but also an engine of prosperity which will uplift the people of the United States for generations. We must begin this, my fellow citizens, with a new revolution. We must become the new Jeffersons, the new Madisons, the new Washingtons in transforming our great nation into an even greater Republic dedicated to freedom and prosperity. In so doing we must first recognize that the attempts over the last fifty years to master the market have been wrong-headed; that our attempts to control the market have not followed the course of freedom, but proscribed it. We must recognize that the so-called New Deal and Great Society have given us neither a New Deal nor a Great Society. The past decade has shown us, more clearly than any economics lesson, where the failure of socialist inspired tampering with the mechanism of the free market leads us. High unemployment, inflation, devalued currency and a loss of opportunity have not been created by the free market, but by our efforts to place a chain around it. Therefore, this must stop, and it must stop now.
Let us pause to consider what the free market is. For one, as its name implies, it is the very embodiment of freedom. A free market knows neither policy priorities nor restrictions; rather it is an exchange that sets prices and controls exchanges in accordance to the capability and needs of all. It is a fundamental democracy, an economic democracy, and as such an expression of the freedom Jefferson and Madison meant when they wrote our sacred documents. But it is also an expression of God’s will. Adam Smith may have written of an invisible hand which guides the market, but we Americans, blessed by the benevolence of God to have created the greatest, freest nation on Earth, understand in our souls that Smith’s invisible hand is in effect the hand of the Almighty guiding the economy to success and prosperity in accordance to His will. Our attempts, as mere mortals, to control the market have been efforts to subvert His will, and in so doing we have been laid low by our own arrogance. We must correct the balance by accepting the markets as his will, and lifting the restrictions upon them.
Today we will begin the Revolution of economic freedom and restoration of the free market under God. I propose that over the next four years we shall turn the instruments of the over wielding, weighty United States government to the market, and allow freedom under God to drive policy. There will be no more Department of Commerce. Instead there will be commerce. There will be no more Nuclear Regulatory Commission; there will instead be a free association of industry and users deciding inputs and outputs in market-oriented decision making. Even the Pentagon will end, for this will be replaced by corporations competing with each other to provide for a common defense in a free market governed by efficiencies and prosperity driven outcomes. We need no standing Army, no large Navy, not when the free market can produce these at more efficient economic inputs to serve a national need in accordance to methods that will produce both defense and prosperity. No longer need the nation be burdened with a costly military machine, not when corporations will compete to be part of the defense sector, and each shall keep or lose their contracts according to their economic efficiency. The taxpayer will be saved the cost of supporting an inefficient military, and we shall see the number of jobs and opportunities increase across the land. Even within the new forces opportunities and rewards will increase, as pay restrictions driven by the limitations of the public purse will be removed.
I am reminded of the story of Jesus chasing the money-changers out of the temple, and I look upon it as a parallel to our own time and our own crisis. You see, the money-changers in the temple operated on a kind of government monopoly. They were licensed to operate by the government of the time and they were a wealthy few, who excluded the majority of their smaller competitors. The money changers were like our government; a monopoly power which, in the name of good works, in fact restricted competition and so deprived the market of fair exchange. Jesus, outraged at this situation, drove them out, so that a fair trade could be re-established. This is a lesson of the bible that I carry in my heart and my understanding of the free market.
Let us end the notion of Social Security, for there is no such thing, and to have created an agency by that name was not only an affront to the market, but to God Himself. Let us replace Social Security with Economic opportunity. Let us not concern ourselves with paying-off the aged and the infirm, but with providing them with new opportunities to rejoin the productive economy of our nation. Let us end pay-outs and welfare, and replace them with wealth opportunities and pay-ins form investment returns. If you collect a pension you are a parasite. If you receive return on an investment then you are a producer of economic prosperity. If you collect a wage you are a thief from the common good. If you are an investor in a product and receive rewards based upon the economic demand of a product or service, then you are and economic enabler. Seek not the paycheck or the pension check. Put your sweat and work into an investment and become a friend of the market, and an observer of God’s higher will.
To that end we must also take a new look at our definition of citizenship. In law the corporation is a person, and in the economy the corporation is the paramount actor. The corporation is the ultimate expression of the free market, but yet, legally, it is subject to a greater segregation that the worst moments of Jim Crow. As a legal person – as a fundamental element of God’s great economy – the corporation is denied its rights to citizenship and the vote. Every corporation must have the vote. Every corporation must have the freedoms of a citizen to participate in our political process. Indeed, in addition to voting, could not a corporation also get itself elected to a public office? I think this would be good for freedom and economic prosperity, and will present to the Congress legislation to make it so.
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In the aftermath of the speech many Republicans, Libertarians, Christian Voice and Boll Weevil Democrats rise in support of the speech – each has a constituency that can profit from it. Liberal Democrats, Liberal Republicans, We The People and left wing fringe party representatives are left in awe and disgust. (Save one).
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Sen. Lowell Wicker (R-CT): “Christ, he’s planning to turn the Pentagon into a bunch of mercenaries!”
Vice President Jackson: “I believe in free markets, but this is ridiculous.”
Jesse Jackson: “Let Rumsfeld come into the neighborhoods, let him come and take what little is left amidst misery. We’ll show him what it means to throw the money changers out of the temple! We’ll show him what is and what isn’t an affront to God!”
Mayor Spiro Agnew (I-NY): “Ah – no comment.”
President George Wallace: “The man is an idiot. An incompetent. Impeach the son-of-a-bitch now!”
President Richard Nixon (in the United Kingdom): “When Don Rumsfeld worked for me, I admired his fiscal prudence and energetic mind. These were good qualities for an administrator, and he did many good things during my administration. I don’t know what has happened since, other than to speculate that something has gotten hold of his mind and blinded him to reality. I can well imagine a need to explore more open markets and less regulations, but this is going too far. I mean, it’s one thing to remove some of the restraints on the economy, but this is more like burning it down to set it free. I’m afraid all that will be left to set free will be the ashes.”
Ronald Reagan (in the United Kingdom): “I have often said the nation needs less government and more freedom. That’s true. But, I’ve never said the nation needs madness at the expense of all government or common sense. If this proposal is carried through, there could literally be no United States, and who then are we to trust to preserve our freedom? Mexico?”
Margaret Thatcher: “Again, I must applaud President Rumsfeld for having the guts to say what must be said. If only Britain had a leader of such strength of purpose, of such clear character, then we could be free again.”
Douglas Hurd to Airey Neave (letter):
Sir,
You have chosen to applaud the Rumsfeld approach, borrowing for yourself Mrs. Thatcher’s recent inflammatory rhetoric on the question. Mrs. Thatcher is, of course, free to deliver whatever idiocy she chooses; that is the nature of the television commentary. You are the leader of the Conservative party, a potential government of Britain, and as such a guardian of great public responsibility and much tradition. May I suggest you look well into your heart on this, for this is the course that will leave the Conservative party, politically speaking, as the proverbial one hand clapping. If this needs further elaboration, I think you should carefully consider Act 5, scene 5 (23-28) of the Scottish play, wherein all that needs be said of this is clearly enunciated. Rumsfeld’s revolution will fail, and may likely create another one – against him; and then he will strut no more upon the stage. It would be well to observe these points in formulating responsible rhetoric going forward.
Charlton Heston: “It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!”
Ron Dellums – Going Left to be Right
On January 31, 1985 I watched an American President declare war on the poor, workers, the elderly, the sick and the disabled. Worse, I saw him invoke God as his patron and muse in this effort. I did not need to re-read the scriptures to understand that the very people Donald Rumsfeld had singled out for suffering were the very population God had embraced in the form of Jesus, and I was reliably informed that the Torah and the Koran took similar views on the question. Jimmy Carter called this a “Satan moment.” I called it a declaration of war on all that was good by a man so obsessed with free market economics that it had twisted his reason. I agreed with Senator Carter on another point: we had better win this war, because Rumsfeld’s path was, for lack of a better term, the path of death.
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Timothy F. "Tim" LaHaye joins the staff of President Rumsfeld as a liaison with the Christian Voice Movement.
Rev. Jerry Falwell: “I am pleased that the President has chosen to re-insert Christian principles into our government, which for too long has been driven by godless atheism and oriented to material fulfillment which leads only to eternal damnation. Clearly we need to embrace a free economy as God’s instrument, and I see no problem with making a corporation a citizen. I will say I find his interpretation of the money changers in the temple to be – unique- but worthy of consideration. For those who fear that de-regulation will be hard on the poor or the working classes, to these people I say you need to read the bible in greater detail. When people get right with God, they are better workers, and this plan will give them a better, God-centered economy.”
Elvis Presley: “I wasn’t aware that the Bible was an economics text book. I am aware that Adam Smith was no spokesman for Jesus, and what he proscribes, that’s gonna make a lot of good people poorer. That, I’m sure, God doesn’t want.”
Pat Robertson: “I have heard the word of the Lord, and if I understood him correctly, President Rumsfeld is going to be the greatest prophet since Moses.”
Rev. Billy Graham: “While I share some of President Rumsfeld’s conservative views, I am not inclined to believe that humans are simply cogs in the great machine of the economy. That, to me, smacks of Marxism, with its insistence on determination. I’m not sure God expresses His will in the economy, as much as man expresses his will through the stock markets and such like. Rather the will of God has nothing to do with money.”
Rep. John Carlos (AAFP-IL-9): “I say yeah, lets rip the government apart. It hasn’t done anything for people of color, or anyone at the bottom of the latter. I’m with the President on this, we need to shake this country to its roots and create a new order, one where the bottom today is at the top tomorrow.”
A secret weapons development center in Colorado.
Dick Cheney: “Let me get this straight, you crossed human and monkey genetics and got smart apes? What good is that? Didn’t they make that into a series of cheesy science fiction movies starring Chuck Heston?”
Scientist: “I don’t know about the films, and no we haven’t been producing talking apes. What we produced is a carnivorous ape-“
DC: “A meat-eating ape? Now that’s useful.”
S: “More than you know, Mr. Cheney. The standard gorilla is docile, unless directly threatened or challenged. By introducing human genomes and a taste for meat, we’ve produced a larger ape who shows signs of overt aggression.”
DC: “I can find that at any boxing gym, with less hair.”
S: “Our gorillas can be conditioned and trained, Mr. Cheney. With the proper training they offer sufficient intelligence to pick-up a weapon and follow orders.”
DC: “What are you suggesting?”
S: “We could breed an army of these gorillas, as auxiliary troops for our human forces. Point them in the right direction, and they could become a new kind of shock troop or infantry. In addition to carrying weapons, we could also train them to eat live enemy soldiers on the battlefield. That way you would have a fighting force you wouldn’t have to pay or feed, and which would demoralize just about any enemy force that had to engage them. That, plus you have a nearly unlimited potential to increase the force size, depending upon how many you choose to breed.”
DC: “Show me more.”
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The Uplifting Corporations as the Engine of Our Economy and the Creators of Prosperity Act is introduced in Congress. The Act would give corporations the right to cast a ballot in elections and present them with an unlimited shield from product and safety liability where consumers are concerned. The Act would also give corporate entities the right to run for and hold public office if elected.
The Religious Liberty Act is introduced into Congress. It would allow churches, under the existing exemption from taxation for their current financial activity, to form and administer corporations within their overall religious mission; provided the profits are returned to the churches and not distributed to individuals. Corporate activity need not be of a religious nature, opening the door to churches owning commercial entities which would be exempt from taxation and other Congressional legislative regulations under the terms of the first amendment.
A Constitutional amendment is introduced in Congress which would create a Council of God’s Heralds, which would have veto power over all legislation based not on its conformity to the Constitution but on whether the legislations intents and functions are in harmony with Judeo-Christian teachings.
The White House – soon after the 1985 State of the Union Address
President: “Gun toting, man-eating gorillas? Really, Dick? What have you been smoking lately?”
Dick Cheney: “You don’t like it?”
P: “If you want to write comic books I’m sure Roger can find you a place.”
DC: “You ever smell a gorilla? That alone could be a deadly weapon. Not to mention four hundred pounds of raging fury.”
P: “I think I saw that movie with my kids - ended with Heston in a dirty loin cloth on a California beach swearing at the Statue of Liberty. You can’t be seriously looking into this?”
DC: “The good doctor is running a con job on Uncle Sam. But, if we set the paper trail up right, we can set this up as a bogey to discredit some of our not-so-friends. The mother project was actually started under Wallace, so it has Democrat written all over it.”
P: “Well, they can’t impeach me over this; they’ll be too busy falling over themselves laughing about it.”
DC: “The idea is we make whoever we make a goat for this look like a real laughingstock. In the end why destroy a man when we can get him laughed out of town – turn his name into a national joke.”
P: “As long as we’re not the punch line. What did you find out about the convention?”
DC: “With the state of the union and some money spread around I think we can line-up legislatures in at least 34 states to request an Article five convention. It’ll be a mix of corporate Republicans, Jesus huggers and Libertarians, but its exactly that exotic mix that can let it happen. They all love aspects of your proposal, and the diversity of “allies” on our side ensures political cover for what must be done next.”
P: “Get rid of that damn twenty-second amendment.”
DC: “We’re going to get rid of them all, except may the second – too many people in our allied group like their guns.”
P:”Re-write seventeen so that I can appoint the Senators, the way they do in Canada.”
DC: “We may have to throw a bone to the Governors on that. Maybe we can compromise and we’ll have the Governors appoint one senator and you can appoint the other. We’ll also put your economic plan into the Constitution, and we’ve got some draft language on giving you a veto over Supreme Court decisions. Of course that’ll cost. We may have to set up this religious council they keep pushing for.”
P: “Damn! Do we really have to kow-tow to these religious nuts. I mean, I felt like an idiot giving that Jesus and the money-changers sermon as part of my address. I mean, really- do we have to sink to this level? ”
DC: “We need them. They can call out a dedicated army of supporters if needed. Besides, if we get them and the Libertarians out front on the Article V convention, then we have political cover against charges that we are re-writing the Constitution for our benefit.”
P: “Still, that fruit loop LeHay gives me the willies. Why have we got him working here?”
DC: “Some powerful holy rollers asked for him by name, in return for lining-up behind our program.”
P:”We need to deal with the Electoral College.”
DC: “Abolishing it is too risky. We think maybe, as an interim measure, we can have the new Constitution require that the Electors all be federal judges, and we’ll stack the deck to make sure at least three hundred are in our pocket.”
P: “Why not all five hundred and thirty-eight?”
DC: “Let’s not lose perspective here. All we need is enough to give you another term, the rest is just eye-candy. We’ll also include a provision that no-one who has lived abroad can stand for President. That’ll keep Nixon and Reagan from coming back and trying to unseat you, and we’ll add a clause excluding former Presidents; that’ll take care of Wallace. We thought also a clause excluding previous nominees, just to clip McCloskey’s feathers.”
P: “You try hard enough you could make me the only eligible candidate.”
DC: “Only incumbent Presidents from Illinois may run for President. As long as Lincoln and Grant stay dead, you’re okay.”
P: “We’ve got to do something about Jack. He’s going soft.”
DC: “I know. He’s been having off-the-record chats with Senator Carter.”
P: “I thought you were going to take care of him?”
DC: “It seems the senior Senator from Georgia was one step ahead of us on that move. We’re going to have to tread carefully where he is concerned.”
P: “A disloyal VP could cause all kinds of problems. Just look at what happened with Katzenbach.”
DC: “You’re not sick are you?”
P: “Never better.”
DC: “Then the Katzenbach-Wallace problem won’t apply.”
P: “We need someone who is with our program.”
DC: “I’m working on that.”
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Washington
Vice President Edwards: “I understand your concern Jimmy, and frankly I’m seeing a real problem here. This is going too far, I agree.”
Sen. Jimmy Carter (D-GA): “Then you have to be ready to act, to save this country from the madness that has taken over in the White House.”
VP: “There’s little a Vice President can do, the power of the office is limited.”
JC: “Take charge when the moment comes. If we can move a bill of impeachment, and get it through the Senate, if we repeat what was done with Agnew, then you have to be ready to take the reins and stop this slide.”
VP: “What you’re talking about is very dangerous, Jimmy. Some would call it a coup. In any case, I don’t think you’re going to get 67 Senators to convict.”
JC: “If the right people speak out at the right time, I think you would be surprised. The thing is Jack, we can’t sit back and do nothing.”
VP: “You know you’re asking for a trip to one of those funny farms they’ve set-up for people who have had a “nervous breakdown.””
JC: “They already tried that on me. It’s time to give President Rumsfeld his nervous breakdown.”
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The Democratic National Committee
Sam Nunn – Chair: “We have to maintain our differences to the Rumsfeld Administration and its abuses, but do so by maintaining a credible alternative-“
Sen. Frank Church (D-ID): “That’s getting us nowhere. We have to pick-up the gaunlet and fight here. We have to show-“
Sen. Ernst Hollings (D-SC): “Not all of what Rumsfeld has done is bad. His economic reforms-“
Sen. Claiborne Pell (D-RI): “Will destroy this country, if his lack of respect for the Constitution hasn’t done so already. They’re even trying to get the Libertarians and the Christian Voice to pressure state legislators into calling an Article V convention. They literally want to re-write the Constitution. Doesn’t that bother anyone? Anyone?”
Sam Nunn: “Of course, that is troubling…”
Sen Ted Kulgonoski (D-OR): “Troubling?! It’s treason, god-damnit.”
Hollings: “Now control yourself-“
Pell: “You control yourself. How much Rumsfeld money have you accepted to play the front man for their program.”
Hollings: “I resent-“
A note passed from Jerry Brown to Jimmy Carter:
Divide and conquer.
Carter’s reply:
A house divided can’t stand. Rumsfeld has figured that out, and these fools are happy to play the game by his rules.
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