Wednesday, November 15, 2000
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Wednesday, November 15, 2000 |
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The Wednesday after the Wednesday By
SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
A recurring vision: All over the country, columnists and commentators like me, on deadline, staring at blank monitors, wondering what in the world they can say that hasn't already been said, what to offer readers who are swimming through oceans of ink in search of what? Hope? Reassurance? Certainty in a never more uncertain world? Whichever candidate we favored, we woke up last Wednesday morning and braced ourselves to click on the TV and learn who comes next in the litany of American presidents that begins, "Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, uh..." And we were just as ignorant as to whose name comes next. We laughed nervously reading columns written before Election Day, columns that began, "By the time you read this, we'll know who our next president is..." I don't think anyone will be saying that in this week's columns. The first novel of political intrigue that I can remember reading was Allen Drury's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Advise and Consent." It hooked me. I read relatively few books, but when I do read for pleasure, "inside-Washington" stuff is my genre. Earlier this year I read Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor," and then continued with "Executive Orders." The plots are well enough known that I don't think I'm spoiling anyone's fun by recapping the pivotal event of the two novels. An airliner crashes into the Capitol, killing the president and nearly every member of the Cabinet and Congress. Our hero Jack Ryan is suddenly president, having just been appointed vice president. But the former VP, whose resignation was forced, lays claim to the White House. And as in all Clancy tomes, there are terrorists in disguise, escalating international crises, unpredicted military strikes and, in this one, gruesome details of a plot to loose germ warfare in the form of the Ebola virus. So, I'm reading this improbable fiction in a boat gently rocking in a Tennessee autumn, and clucking happily, "Oh, you've gone too far this time, Clancy. These things would never happen, let alone all at once." Then we turn on the news: Old enemies are heating up old conflicts in that part of the world we ironically call the Holy Land. The Russians lose a submarine in an incident that could have been scripted by Clancy, and terrorism in a faraway port makes indelible in our national memory a destroyer named Cole. Dear God, there's even an outbreak of Ebola in Africa. And we wake up on a Wednesday after Election Day and on the Wednesday after that with the presidency still undetermined, and no promise of resolution any time soon, and we wonder why we have a hard time sorting fact from fiction. We're living the history of the United States written by Tom Clancy. Who would believe such a plot? Any of the subplots is incredible enough: A first lady who will be sworn into the Senate at about the time most of us were betting she'd be in court filing for divorce. A dead man elected to the Senate. A senator whose flexible party loyalty allowed him to hedge his bets if he gets to be vice president after all, his Democratic Senate seat goes to a Republican, another shift in a balance of power that ebbs and flows from one side of that chamber to the other with every vote count. Or recount. Who would believe such a plot? Out of 50 states 50! and it comes down to Florida to decide this dead-even election. Don't you know Jeb Bush cries in the dark of night, "Why me, Lord? Why Florida? There are 49 other states you could have picked on. Why mine?" All of us want a sense of control over our destinies, a sense that everything's going to work out all right, that some wise someone has a solution for every problem. Look at what we do when we lose control: we make jokes. This thing will provide as much material for comedians as for historians. The line, "You don't have to be snippy about it," will go right up there with, "Where's the beef?: and "Whassup?" Thank goodness we can depend on Andy Rooney to top off "Sixty Minutes" with a trenchant witticism. Right, Andy? Andy? Many of us reassured each other, in the closing days of the campaign, "Whoever wins, the wonderful thing about this country is that we'll go on with our national life seamlessly, in accordance with the Constitution and the law. Once the ballots are counted, we'll lay aside our differences, there will be no armed troops patrolling, no demonstrations in the streets." Less than a week later, crowds bearing placards are shoving each other in the streets of West Palm Beach of all places, and uniformed officers are toting side arms and bags of ballots, guarding election personnel whose faces are absolutely drained of humanity. Our ordeal is nothing, however, to that of the candidates. The worst part of it for them may be the fact that they are used to being in control and were poised to take on a position with more intrinsic power than perhaps any other on earth. And suddenly they don't even know where to have their mail forwarded in January. |
