WASHINGTON — It was bedlam on the Potomac, a Babel of preening Democrats
and keening Republicans.
W. couldn't stand it. He covered his ears.
Four nice men and a lady had given him the White House and now one mean man had taken away the Congress.
W. fled to Camp David on Friday shortly after noon. By 1:30 p.m., he
was safely tucked away in the Aspen cottage
for his nap, Spot and Barney curled at his feet.
He was restless, sulking into his feather pillow. "They promised me
it wouldn't be so hard, that I would look good.
But Uncle Dick and Rummy are making me look small.
"Uncle Dick was the one all those $100,000 donors wanted to have dinner
with. What about me?
He's sent invites for a June fund-raiser called the President's Dinner
on `Dick Cheney' letterhead.
Aren't I the president? He put out our Energy Report with the vice-presidential
seal. What happened to self-effacing?
"Rummy didn't even show up this morning for my Naval Academy speech.
He said he was too busy reorganizing
the Navy. Man, that is such el toro."
A deep voice pierced his pout.
"George," the voice intoned, "you know I always leave the room when anyone utters a vulgarity."
W. shivered. He recognized the Brahmin tones and unmangled syntax of
his late grandfather, Prescott Bush,
who always made him wear a tie at dinner. The craggy 6-foot-4 specter
was frowning at him from beneath
bushy eyebrows. He looked like a Roman senator, his gray hair swept
back in a pompadour style and parted
in the middle. He wore a double-breasted gray suit and shoes polished
to a high shine.
Prescott Bush was just as full of Episcopalian rectitude as a ghost
as he had been as a Connecticut senator
and Wall Street banker. W. reflexively bolted upright, hiding
his plastic cup of Cheez Doodles under the covers.
"George," Prescott said, "we need to talk about noblesse oblige."
W. got squinty. "That's near Sierra Leone, right?"
"It is a concept, George, a duty. Your White House is in a shambles
because you've let the party of Lincoln become
the party of Rove. I must in all candor say that Jim Jeffords is right.
The Vermonter left because you're being a goose
about your tax cut and the missile shield. You're fobbing off disabled
children, women and the environment.
"It hurt like mad when you turned your back on Connecticut and Yale,
where I proudly carried the Class of 1917 banner. When I ran for the Senate,
I took a Whiffenpoof quartet with me to rallies and sang bass. I was deeply
saddened not
to see a whiff of the poofs in your campaign.
"It's fine to mingle with the simple folk, George, but you don't ever
want to become simple.
How can you summer in broiling Crawford instead of Kennebunkport or
Hobe Sound?
"I played golf with Ike at Burning Tree, and we talked about our progressive
moderation, or moderate progressivism.
I wanted to pass civil rights legislation and courageously raise taxes
because it is important for the fortunate to go all out
for the less fortunate. (Except at Burning Tree.)
"You and your father say class doesn't matter, while enjoying the benefits
of your class. You skittered down to Midland
and donned cowboy boots and proclaimed yourselves born-again, whatever
that means. You ran as red-blooded
Texans rather than blue-blooded Yankees, righteous Southern conservatives
rather than refined New England centrists.
"Your father shed his venerable striped watchband and ate those ghastly
pork rinds. After heading the United Negro
College Fund at Yale and supporting Planned Parenthood, he veered to
the right for Reagan. But when he became
president, he hooked back to the fairway.
"Who is Grover Norquist? I have reservations about the father figures
who surround you — and usurp you.
They have led you on an ill-considered march to the right, away from
our roots and away from where the
modern Republican Party must go. Foolish wise men.
"By George, George, there was no need to offend dear old Jeffords.
You punch the bully in the face, as I did Joe McCarthy
— not play the bully.
"Adieu, adieu," the ghostly Whiffenpoof intoned, as he disappeared in a poof. "Boola, boola."