Marty nodded and agreed. "As far as the Pentagon is concerned, or really, any government agency, the perfect Congressman is somebody who doesn't know anything about what they are supposed to be regulating. That way the agency can guide them appropriately, which basically means raising their budget no matter what."
Harlan's eyes widened some, but he nodded. "There is supposed to be a course on this somewhere, but this happened so fast they haven't had time to run me through it."
"Well, you tell them that I'm giving my blessing, but that if you need to take a few weeks to figure it out, I'll understand.", I told him. "Is this considered a joint billet for Goldwater-Nichols?"
Congressional liaison is a big deal at the Pentagon. The military budget is one of the largest items in the total, and they have huge numbers of officers dedicated to keeping it large and growing it larger. If I had been in the Navy, or was on the Naval and Marines subcommittee, an Admiral would have brought around somebody. There are also officers assigned to the Senate and the various staff committees as well. These are all field grade officers (O-4 through O-6, majors through full colonels, officers who should be running battalions and brigades instead of this nonsense) all of whom were reporting to a flag officer of some sort (generals and admirals) some of who were assigned to specific commands and some of who were assigned to various procurement programs. It's an impossible muddle.
The Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986 decided to 'streamline' the system, and instead added a gargantuan number of 'joint' slots to the system, where Army officers served on staffs combining other services as well, so they could 'jointly' work on problems. At some point an officer has to serve in a 'joint' position to be considered promotable to a senior rank.
Harlan nodded. "It's joint, but it doesn't matter. These days, unless you're better than Audie Murphy you'll be lucky to get your twenty in. I am just hanging in until then."
Marty commented, "Well, they have you stashed somewhere until you find your way around?" Harlan nodded. "Make some friends over there and buy a place down in the Virginia suburbs. There's a lot of defense contractors out along the corridor to Dulles. Do it right and you won't even need to move at the end of your time. You can get in with a contractor and hawk their wares for even more money."
I grinned and nodded. Harlan simply rolled his eyes and said, "I think I have fallen down the rabbit hole!"
"Oh, my friend, if you only knew!", I told him.
Chapter 119: Counterattack
1995
Before John and Helen left for their trip, we had a big party for them at a banquet hall in Timonium. It was a big group of us, people from the company, political types from all over the district and from elsewhere in Maryland, other friends and neighbors, and Allen and Rachel both flew in with their families. Prior to this John had met with me and introduced me to his handpicked replacement, an attorney just a few years older than me, Tucker Potsdam, who had been a tax lawyer with the Buckman Group and didn't take to the corporate life and the killer hours it occasionally involved. Now he was hanging out his own shingle as tax lawyer and private equity manager. We were going to continue with the fig leaf of independence from active management of my investments. I would talk to the new guy, who would talk to my trustee. Perfectly legal, at least by Congressional standards.
The party turned out to be ... strange. Nobody wanted to say the obvious, that we were having a party and talking about a dead man walking. At one point I was sitting at a table with Allen Steiner, John's son and an old buddy from Boy Scout days, having a drink. He asked, "Does this feel more than a little weird to you?"
"I've never been to a funeral where the guest of honor was walking around the room.", I answered.
Allen snorted out a laugh and coughed out a bit of his drink. "It's bizarre, all right!" He coughed a little and then drank some more.
"I don't know what I'm going to do without him.", I told my boyhood friend. "I mean, a guy develops feelings for the first man who bails him out of jail."
That caused Allen to start laughing and coughing again. "Will you stop it? If I keep laughing and inhaling my drink, I'm going to end up in the box before my dad!"
"Hey, I'm just saying, I have history with him."
He nodded. "Yeah, there were times I was even a little jealous, you know? I was three thousand miles away, and you were still back here with Dad. It sounds stupid now."
"Allen, you have to know, you and Rachel ... Listen, my picture was out in the lobby. Yours and Rachel's were on his desk!", I protested.
He waved it off. "Hey, don't sweat it, I know that. I'm just saying, Dad feels the same way about you. I mean, he sat me and Rach down the other night and reviewed the wills and stuff. Good Lord! He's worth $60 million dollars! He told us he wouldn't have had a fraction of that if he hadn't gotten in with you and your company."
"He earned every cent! I wouldn't be where I am without what he did for us." I replied. "It wasn't just me, not by a long shot!"
"All I'm saying is that when the time comes, you know..." He glanced over at where his parents were sitting, with a somewhat guilty look on his face. "Well, you know ... he'd appreciate it if you said a few words. Mom and Rachel would, too."
I nodded. "I'd be honored. Hell, there'll be so many people wanting to say nice things about your father, I'll need to beat them back with my cane!" I drained my glass. "Christ, he'll probably end up on some tropical island in the South Pacific and outlive us all."
Allen drained his own glass. "I'll drink to that!"
In Washington Newt and the Gang of Eight (now Seven, since Rick had moved up in the world) began to get a lesson in practical politics from one William Jefferson Clinton. I was expecting it, even if the others weren't, and it was still a shock. Some of the others were reeling, and Newt was truly pissed that Slick Willie wasn't rolling over and playing dead like a good Democrat should. Clinton laid low for the first couple of weeks of the new session, allowing us to introduce one of our Contract bills every day. When asked, as he invariably was, he simply promised to work with the new Congress and the new Congressional leadership to forge legislation that was both bipartisan and able to move the country forward. Very innocuous stuff.
To what extent he was trying to lure us into a sense of false security I'm not sure. While he wasn't screaming, some of his key lieutenants were. The ones I heard the most from were Dick Gephardt and Dave Bonior, both of whom were highly experienced, thoroughly tied into the moneymen, and as crooked as the day was long. The Republican takeover of Congress was an unnatural event, ranking right up there with having sex with dead donkeys, and needed to be reversed. They immediately began taking our legislation and picking it to pieces in the hopes of destroying it entirely. Even better, if they could destroy it, they could then trumpet how the Republicans had failed in our Contract with America, and should be sent packing at the next election.
Some of the bills were easy pickings for them. The two most obvious items were John Boehner's Balanced Budget Act and my Rebuilding America Act. These were the two bills most likely to be compromised by the Dems – and everybody else, for that matter! Both were major spending bills, and allowed an infinite number of ways for a Congressman to loot the Treasury on behalf of his constituents, or contributors. Sometimes it is something relatively innocuous and cheap (by government standards) such as the Federal funding of yet another corn museum in Iowa. Other times it can be ridiculously extravagant projects like the 'bridge to nowhere' in Alaska, which ran almost a third of a billion dollars, and connected the mainland to a town with only 50 residents. This is pork barrel politics at its most nitty and gritty. Remember the mighty word 'earmark.'