“He always lacked a sense of decency, Mr. President. Everyone knows Huey went too far, even in Louisiana. They’ll wait until he’s dead before they name some bridges after him.”
“What do you think of Washington now, Oscar? It’s a different city now, don’t you agree?”
“I have to admit, Mr. President: it bothers me to see foreign troops stationed in the capital of the United States.”
“I agree with you there. But that solved the problem. People burrowing into the streets, barricading whole neighborhoods… no major government can survive in a capital like that. I can’t order American troops to pursue these people with the rigor it requires to break decentered network gangs. But the Dutch will clean the streets if it takes ten years. They’ll tough it out.”
“It is a different city now, sir. Much tidier.”
“You could live here, couldn’t you? If the salary were right? If the White House krewe looked after you.”
“Yes, sir; I like to think that I could live anywhere that duty called.”
“Well, it isn’t Louisiana, at least.”
“Actually, Mr. President, I’m very fond of Louisiana. I still keep up with developments there. It’s a bellwether state in many, many ways. I had some very fulfilling moments in Louisiana. I’ve come to think of it as my second home.”
“Really. ”
“You see, the Dutch got so hard and desperate when the seas came up. I think Louisiana is on to something. I’m starting to think there’s a lot to be said for simply lying down in the ooze.”
The President stared. “Not that you yourself plan to do a lot of oozing. ”
“Only on occasion, sir.”
“In an earlier discussion, Oscar, I told you that if you followed orders at the Collaboratory I’d find a post for you in the White House. There have been some interesting developments in your career since then, but none that give me any reason to doubt your ability. This is not an Administration for bigotry — or for scandal — and now that we have some grasp of constitutional coherency again, I’m going to cut the spook-and-cowboy business back to a dull roar. I’m actually governing this country now — even if I sometimes have to employ Dutch troops — and when I leave the Oval Office, I intend to leave a country that is sane, responsive, decent, and well behaved. And I think I have a role for you in that effort. Would you care to hear about it?”
“By all means, sir.”
“As you’re well aware, we still have sixteen goddamn political parties in this country! And I don’t intend to face reelection with a pipsqueak party like the Soc-Pats behind me. We need a massive shake-out and total political reconsolidation. We need to shatter all these calcified partisan lines and establish a workable, practical, sensible, bipolar sys-tem. It’s going to be Normalcy versus everything else.”
“I see, sir. Much like the old days. So are you left-wing, or right-wing?”
“I’m down-wing, Oscar. I have my feet on the ground, and I know where I stand. Everyone else can be up-wing. They can all be up in the air, scattering crazy, high-tech, birdbrained ideas, and the ones that fall to ground without shattering, those will belong to me.”
“Mr. President, I congratulate you on that formulation. You have a window of opportunity here where you can try anything that you please, and that formulation sounds doable.”
“You think so? Good. This is your role. You will be a White House congressional liaison to interface with the current party struc-ture. You’ll shake the radicals and crazies out, and agglomerate them into the up-wing.”
“I’m not down-wing, sir?”
“Oscar, there is no down-wing without the up-wing. It doesn’t work unless I mold my own opposition. The up-wing is crucially important to the game plan. The up-wing has to be brilliant. It has to be genuinely glamorous. It has to be visionary, and it has to almost make sense. And it has to never, ever quite work out in real life.”
“I see.”
“I’m particularly concerned about that prole/scientist coalition. Those people have the bit between their teeth. They are already shak-ing down industries by threatening to research them. They’re the only truly novel and vigorous movement on the political landscape right now. They cannot possibly be inside my camp. I can’t buy them off. I can’t sweet-talk them. They’re inherently radical, because they’re our century’s version of the main motive force that transformed Western society during the past six centuries. To destroy them would be crimi-nal, it would lobotomize the country. But to give them their head is insane.”
The President drew a deep breath. “Because the spin-offs of their research built American capitalism, wrecked American capitalism, made the seas rise, poisoned the topsoil, wrecked the ozone layer, scattered radioactivity, filled the skies with contrails and the land with concrete, caused a population boom, caused a reproductive collapse, set Wyoming on fire… no, it’s even worse than that. It’s much, much worse. Now they’ve got our brains laid out like a virgin New World, and every last human being is a backward, undeveloped Indian. Someone has to deal seriously with these people. I suspect that you are just the man.”
“I think I understand you, sir.”
“They don’t have any grasp of political reality, but they’re going to blow the doors off the human condition unless something is done with them. I’m thinking: something subtle. Something attractive. Something glamorous, something that would make them behave less like Dr. Frankenstein and more like artists do. Modern poetry, that would be excellent. Costs very little, causes intense excitement in very small groups, has absolutely no social effect. So, I’m thinking mathe-matics. Nothing practical, just something totally arcane and abstract.”
“You can’t trust abstract mathematics, sir; it always turns out to be practical.”
“Computer simulation, then. Extremely, extremely time-consum-ing, complex, and detailed simulations that never do any harm to reality.”
“I think that’s a lot more likely to produce your intended result, sir, but frankly, no one in the sciences takes cybernetics seriously any-more. That line of research is all mined out, it’s intellectually dowdy. Even bio-studies and genetics have been mostly metabolized by now. It’s all about cognition now, sir. That’s the last thing left to them.”
“You must have suffered from that. Maybe you can convince them to try something much more pretty. With more sheer wonder in it. ”
“Mr. President, there is one issue here. Aren’t you asking me to infiltrate them and betray them?”
“Oscar, I’m asking you to be a politician. It’s not our business to blow the damn doors off the human condition. That’s not in our job description. The job is to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquil-lity, and promote the general welfare. A job we politicians signally failed to do. You know something? It’s not a pretty thing to watch a nation go crazy. But it happens. To great countries sometimes, the greatest peoples on earth. Japan, Germany, Russia, China… and we Americans have just had a bad, bad spin in the barrel. We’re still very groggy. We were lucky. It could be the fire next time.”
“Sir, don’t you think the scientific community — such as it is — should be told all this? They’re citizens too, aren’t they? They’re rather bright people, if a little narrowly focused. I don’t really think that deceiving them is a tactic that can prosper in the longer term.”
“We’re all dead in the longer term, Oscar.”
“Mr. President, this really is a dream job that you’re offering me. I recognize its importance, I’m very impressed by your trust. I even think I might have the ability to do it. But before I engage in some-thing that is this — what can I call it? So Benthamite/Machiavellian — I need you to tell me something. I need you to level with me on one issue. Are you in the pay of the Dutch?”