We landed in Washington late that night and were thoroughly exhausted. I promptly announced I was taking a day off, and Marilyn and I took Marine One back to Hereford. The Veep could call me at the house tomorrow to find out when I planned to come back.
Chapter 146: A Special Broadcast
Monday, December 10, 2001
We had flown back on a Thursday, so I took a long weekend back home to get to know my daughters again. Charlie was at sea again, deployed on the U.S.S. Fort McHenry, which I thought was nicely poetic, since Fort McHenry was in Baltimore. She was a Whidbey Island class gator, just out of dry dock and a lengthy refit, and was going to be at sea for a good six months. He had left right before we flew to England and we wouldn't see him again until late spring.
We had talked before he went to the ship. He had been in now for about two years, and he still didn't know if he wanted to make it a career. It was interesting, and he did like the sense of purpose it gave him, but floating around on a boat with nothing but a bunch of guys was getting old. Also, he was smart enough to know that as my son, he would be limited in his assignments. He still thought himself more an action and outdoors guy than a college kid, and if he left the Corps, he would probably go full time pro in bike racing. He wasn't a little kid anymore, but was talking like a young adult. I asked how it was going with people knowing who his dad was, and I got a grin and a shrug. "It is what it is, Dad. I mean, people know, but nobody makes it a big deal. Nobody is trying to suck up to me, in any case. I'm kind of glad you got me to go in under my middle name, though. At least then I really wasn't known."
"Well, we'll see you again when you get back. Try and call or write your mother! She worries about you..."
"And you don't?", he teased.
I ignored him and went on. " ... and she misses you. When you get back, if you wanted to bring some friends, that would be fine. If you don't want to stay here, you can stay at the place on 30th Street."
The day before we flew home from Tel Aviv, I called Norm Mineta and Greg Paulson and relented on United Airlines. Hopefully they had learned their lesson. Shutting them down had been like a thunderbolt from Mount Olympus, and I had pointedly refused to take any calls on their behalf from any Congressmen or Senators. Once home, however, I gave everyone the go ahead on the Airline Safety and Security Act of 2001, which would provide some loan guarantees and indemnifications. Everyone expected two things, that it would get watered down, and that it would pass quickly. I could deal with that as long as it left the FAA able to demand safety related changes. If that was left intact, I could live with a lot of other Congressional horseshit thrown in.
At Thanksgiving I took a small break and spent a long weekend at home. We still had the girls with us, for at least this year, so we did the big turkey and stuffing routine with all the fixings. I commented to Marilyn that this might be the last time we did this. Next year the twins would be in college, and might not even want to come home. At the same time, once they were out of the house, Marilyn would be moving full time to the White House with me, which I much preferred. We were on the verge of becoming empty nesters in the biggest house in the world! (Okay, that's an exaggeration, but it would still be a big change.)
We were finishing up 2001 and it seemed the nation was still in turmoil about the events of three months ago. Congress had finally gotten around to announcing that hearings would be held after they reconvened in 2002, probably sometime in February. It would be a joint Congressional and Senate hearing, conducted by the Select Committees on Intelligence. I told the leaders that the Administration would cooperate, and that their first witnesses were going to be the Three Amigos. I also told the Three Amigos to make sure they had their report done by then, and I expected some suggestions for the future. I also told John Ashcroft to see if he could get his Special Prosecutor in line with what was going on. If Congress started questioning people at the same time Fitzpatrick was questioning them, was there double jeopardy involved? If one team gave somebody immunity, did it apply across the board? I'm glad I never became a lawyer!
I also told them that if they expected a statement from me, to let the White House Counsel's office know. While I was perfectly willing to make a sworn statement and answer questions, under no circumstances was I going to let them swear me in and go on a witch hunt through my past. Before I ever gave any form of testimony, there were going to be some ground rules.
Meanwhile, while all this was going on, Enron collapsed. I had known it was going to happen, but I couldn't remember the specific date. I also knew that it was just the first of several big name business collapses that could be traced to inadequate regulation and supervision. I gave a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in which I laid the blame for the collapse at the feet of the unfettered laissez faire attitude prevalent among far too many businessmen and political leaders.
"Americans believe, just like you, that capitalism is the best economic system for them and their families. They know that the best chance they have to improve their lives, and the lives of their children and grandchildren, is through capitalism. Even more important to them, however, is a sense of fairness! People think of business as a great game, and they want to play the game! They also know that games have rules! If you throw away the rules, if you throw away the referees, it's no longer a game that people will want to play, but a racket that people will avoid! If you want the respect of your fellow citizens, there must be changes. If you want to keep making money, there must be changes!"
That was just part of it, and the applause was underwhelming. If they didn't like my speech, they were just going to hate the idea that I planned to increase funding for the SEC and the Justice Department. I wasn't at all sure I was going to win this battle, but I was very sure that it was going to cost me and the American Renaissance Initiative a whole lot of money to fight!
Then again, this was going to be just the first of many salvoes across the deck. I had already told Alan Greenspan that I wanted the banking system tightened up. The Federal Reserve is fairly independent, but that didn't mean I didn't have some influence. I told him that I felt that we needed to increase capital requirements on bank reserves, and also to begin running some 'stress tests' on some of the bigger banks. That earned me a few raised eyebrows from the Fed Chairman, but I just reminded him that the 'irrational exuberance' remark that he had used to describe the dot-com bubble, now applied to the housing markets and financial sectors. I would let him face the markets on that one. They liked and respected him; I was just a fucking zillionaire, so what did I know.
On Monday, December 10, we had a rather interesting day. Marilyn and the girls had been down to Washington for the weekend, and we kept the twins out of school for the day, and they stayed in town. We were approaching the mystical hundred day mark in my Presidency, and there were lots of requests for a lengthy interview in the White House with me and the family. I don't know how Ari made his selection, but he settled on an interview with Bob Schieffer of CBS. We would be interviewed in the White House on Monday the 10th, and it would air in a two hour special Sunday night the 16th.
A lot of this was due to the manner in which I became the President. The American system of selecting leaders is screwy, in that the character traits which are best suited to winning elections are not the character traits best suited for being the President. There is no chance in hell I would have ever actually run for President. George Bush pulled me and my $20 million out of total national obscurity and dropped me in the VP slot. If he had his way, after four years he would have put me back into obscurity. Now I was the President, and most of the country didn't know that much about me.