Huge amounts of time and energy are expended by the campaigns on how the debates are setup and organized. How many would there be? What format would they be? Did we have a traditional debate, with the candidates standing in front of podiums and answering questions from a moderator? Would they be seated at a table facing each other? Or did we go with a town hall format, where we would be on bar stools in a surround setting, free to stand up and move around? Who would be the moderator? Would he simply ask questions, or would he be allowed to push back against the canned answers and demand that the candidates answer the questions? The last thing anybody actually wanted was a moderator who went off script and told the candidate that he was a lying sack of shit, which is what most of us were!
There was a lot of nervousness about this year's debates. Nowhere is it stated in the Constitution that you have to have them. Typically you have two or three debates among the Presidential candidates, and one between the Vice Presidential candidates. The problem? I had never been in a debate – ever! It is rather unusual for Congressional candidates to debate, and we had blown off the Veep debate during the last election's debacle over my Nicaraguan vacation. John Kerry, on the other hand, had been in several debates as a Senatorial candidate. I was considered the underdog, not a good position for a sitting President to be in, and was widely expected to walk onto the stage, trip over my shoelaces, and then pee my pants. One theory, posed by one of the drier wits in the bunch, was that John McCain would be able to pick up the pieces when I screwed up the week before. Nothing like trying to live up to high expectations.
I thought debates were bullshit, and I had better things to do with my time (like run a government) then spend days and days practicing sound bites in mock debates. We limited the debates to one for the President and one for the Vice President. Big mistake! This was considered a sign of weakness on my part, fear that I couldn't cut it. Screw it! Maybe I wouldn't piss my pants on television and be considered the winner!
My attitude must have come through during the debate prep, because Brewster chewed my ass out royally, most powerful man in the free world or not! I was to knock off my shit, stick around and not duck out, and learn my lines, or I was going to be a one term President! It didn't help that John looked like a fucking perfectionist at this shit, either. I just reminded Brewster that I was legally allowed to write my own pardon in case I punched his lights out. He was not impressed.
That was the idea, anyway. The world has a way of screwing great plans up. On Tuesday September 14, Ari came into my office and asked me for a few minutes. I tossed down my pen and leaned back, nodding him towards an armchair in front of my desk. "Please! Have a seat. Rescue me from the budget, please!"
"Mister President, I just had a call about a story that was published in The National Enquirer."
"Elvis is still dead and there are no aliens in Roswell.", I told him.
Ari didn't look amused. "This is serious, Mister President. I just had a phone call from the Times about the cover story in this week's edition of the Enquirer."
"The Times? The New York Times?! I mean, not the Duluth Times or the Boise Times? Somebody at the Gray Lady reads the Enquirer? What's going on, Ari?", I asked, giving him a curious look.
"I sent somebody out to pick up a copy, but the Times is asking for a comment on a report that you have an illegitimate child.", he responded.
"So? We've had these kooks and cranks for years. What's new about that?" It was true, too. All public figures attract this sort of thing, and it always fell apart in the details.
"This is different, sir. They have a birth certificate and a diary of the mother from 1974."
"1974! I was a teenager then! What are you talking about, Ari?"
"Have you ever heard of a Michael Petrelli?"
"No."
"What about a Jeana Colosimo?"
Chapter 157: Fatherhood
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
I stared at Ari Fleischer, slack jawed and disbelieving. Suddenly he had a nervous look on his face. "Mister President?"
I took a deep breath and said, "You want to repeat that, Ari?"
"According to the story, Michael Petrelli is the son of Jeana Colosimo and you. There is reportedly a birth certificate, issued at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, New York, on March 29, 1974. Did you know this Jeana Colosimo?" He was reading from a notepad in his hands.
I smiled to myself and shook my head. "Good Lord! Jeana Colosimo? I haven't heard that name in thirty years."
"Mister President? Did you know this woman?"
I shrugged my shoulders. "Maybe, Ari. I knew a Jeana Colosimo back in high school, in fact she was my girlfriend for a couple of years. That was in Towson, Maryland, though, not Queens. Is there any proof on this? Where'd this Petrelli name come from?"
"No idea, Mister President. Could it be another scam?" We had been hit by a hoax about a year ago, also, when some dim bulb claimed I was the father of her love child. It took about ten minutes to determine that she was a hooker in San Francisco, and got knocked up when I was at the G-8 Summit in France.
I shrugged. "No idea. Probably. It's obviously happened before. What do you think we should do about it?"
"First, tell me about the girl you dated. Were you serious about each other?", he asked.
I nodded. "This was all before I met Marilyn, of course. We met in college. This was high school. Anyway, yes, we were pretty serious. Let me think, we met near the start of my junior year, so I was..." I had to do the math in my head. "I probably had just turned 16. We dated until the summer after I graduated, not quite two years."
"And you were sexually active?"
I smiled again. "Very!"
"How come she has never come up before?", he asked.
"Good question." I thought for a second, and then snapped my fingers. "Of course! Jeana was a year behind me! When I was a junior she was a sophomore, and when I was a senior she was a junior! More than that, though, they built a new high school. Towson High was way overcrowded, so they built Loch Raven. At the start of my senior year, they split the school boundaries. Anybody who was a sophomore or junior in the new boundary went to Loch Raven. All the seniors stayed at Towson. She would have been a graduate of Loch Raven! That's why none of the reporters who ever investigated me ever found her! She wasn't a student at Towson High! They tracked down all my classmates, but she was a year behind me at another school. No wonder nobody ever stuck a microphone in her face!"
"I have somebody running out to get a copy of the Enquirer. Maybe they have a picture you can look at, see if it's her. Why'd you break up?"
"Well, like I said, I was a year ahead of her. I was heading off to college, and she still had her senior year to finish. Besides, remember when you asked me once about how I busted my nose?"