“When you see the President,” Judge Foot told Jonathan Relevant as they parted, “you might pass the word that certain militant black leaders have been consulting with us about the effects of ‘benign neglect’ on American Indians. I know it’s an abstract point, but you might mention that I was wondering if he—the President—- sees any reactive connection between the slaughtering of the buffalo herds and the breakfast programs of groups like the Black Panthers and the Young Lords.”
“I doubt it.” Jonathan Relevant bid the Judge good-bye as he was escorted past the sentry at the gate to the White House grounds.
Inside the White House he was conducted to the office of the President’s male secretary. The marshals faded away. The secretary checked the President’s availability with a fast phone call and then motioned to Jonathan Relevant to follow him. A moment later Jonathan Relevant was face to face with the President of the United States.
“Mr. President, may I present Jonathan Relevant?” The President’s male secretary stayed just long enough to watch them shake hands, and then faded unobtrusively from the room.
The President waved Jonathan Relevant to a chair and sat down himself. “So you’re Jonathan Relevant.” The President studied him a moment. He approved of what he saw.
Jonathan Relevant had a ski-slope nose, slightly kinky hair, a corrugated forehead, a prominent Adam's apple, somewhat beady eyes set close together, and pronounced five-o’clock shadow. The lines of middle age furrowing his face seemed to speak of battles lost and persecution complex. The lantern jaw stuck out like a mountain west of the Rockies and bespoke the sort of stubbornness that just might be insensitive to the opinions of others, no matter how great their numbers. There was a furtive quality about him that is usually found only in used-car salesmen, professional poker players, and experienced politicians.
The President decided that whatever else Jonathan Relevant might be, he most certainly was a politician. He reminded the President of someone, but he couldn’t think who. Still, the President sensed immediately that they spoke the same language, the language of smoke-filled rooms, oil depletion allowances, law and order, status quo logrolling, God, country, and motherhood.
“We have things to talk about,” the President told Jonathan Relevant, “but first I’d like to catch the six-o’clock news. Would you mind watching it with me?”
“Of course not, Mr. President.”
“Good.” The President turned on the TV set and settled back to watch.
“The Six-O’Clock News is brought to you by the Nuclear Defense Corporation,” an announcer in the uniform of a four-star general proclaimed in clipped tones. “Remember, ‘One Man, One Bomb’ is our motto. And our motto is your security, Mr. and Mrs. America. . . . Now here’s the Vice President of the United States with the News of the Day.”
“Good evening, loyal Americans everywhere.” The plastic visage of the Veep replaced the announcer on the screen. “The administration is proud to bring you a completely unbiased wrap-up of news around the world. First, Vietnam . . . The administration has decided not to take action on the Thieu-Ky black-market operation for two reasons. First, according to a spokesman for the President, it would not be in the democratic tradition for us to interfere in the internal affairs of another country. And second, according to the Economic Advisory Council, any alteration in the business practices of the South Vietnam government would have a far more deleterious effect on the American business community and perhaps on the economy as a whole than it would have on the Saigon officials involved—since their money is in Swiss banks. Thus the administration has wisely decided to continue our aid program at its present level on the theory that maintaining the status-quo economy in South Vietnam is in our national interest and in the hope that some of the benefits will trickle back to the United States via those American officers cooperating with Premier Thieu’s business operations. . . . In the democratic tradition, a small group of ten million antiwar commie dupes were allowed to demonstrate within a reasonable distance of the White House today. The effeminate dissidents gathered in Philadelphia and marched as far as Baltimore before government forces regretfully had to turn them back because they had become violent. Leaders of the march encouraged the demonstrators to pelt the police with flowers, and so government forces were forced to nip the potential riot in the bud by dropping napalm on a ten-square-block area, illegally occupied by the fleeing demonstrators. The Mayor of Baltimore issued a statement in favor of the federal action and pointed out that the razed area was mainly in the ghetto and had been due for urban renewal in any case. This way, the mayor added, the city wouldn’t be faced with the problem of relocation. . . . The President issued a statement reassuring loyal Americans that he would not be swayed from his Vietnam policy by this small, vocal minority, most of whom, in any case, had been wiped out. . . . The Justice Department announced that they were issuing a warrant for any rioters who had escaped the napalm and planned to press riot conspiracy charges against them. . . . In Chicago, the Justice Department is already involved in the latest of a series of trials growing out of conspiracy charges. The defendants are the American Bar Association, an organization only recently placed on the Attorney General’s subversive list. The charges against the association stem from their defense of the lawyers who were jailed for defending the lawyers who were jailed for defending the lawyers who were jailed for defending the eight commies involved in demonstrations at the Democratic Convention in Chicago some years back. The presiding judge is Julius Hoffman, who, in this humble commentator’s opinion, is living proof that in America senility is no bar to performing one’s patriotic duty. With the approval of Chicago’s Mayor Daley, Judge Hoffman has arranged for the defendants to watch the trial on television in the dungeons recently constructed under the Cook County Jail. Thus American jurisprudence safeguards the rights of the accused no matter how heinous their behavior. The gags and chains, however, have regretfully remained because the disruptive tactics of the prisoners’ screaming “Right on, Bobby!” may instigate the other prisoners to violence. Such precautions seem only right when one remembers how Bobby Seale himself tore at the fabric of our legal structure by his outrageous and disruptive demands for legal representation. Remembering this, I’d like to say a word to those bleeding hearts who keep whining about the genocide practiced on the Black Panthers. It’s just this: Genocide in the name of internal security is no crime! . . .
“Here in Washington, the Senate approved the Administration Draft Reform Bill this afternoon. The bill has been sent to the President for his signature. Under its provisions, the draft age has been dropped to twelve years and the voting age has been raised to thirty-five. Thus the President is fulfilling his promise to bring the country together and to stem the rising tide of anti-Americanism among the younger generation. I’d like to assure listeners that I am expressing no bias whatsoever, but only common sense, when I say that the military experience will teach our young people the meaning and responsibilities of patriotism so that if they reach voting age they’ll be able to cast their ballots with full appreciation of the American ideal. . . .
“The American ideal received a typically distorted challenge today from the Soviet Russian Space Program. According to Pravda, the Russian astronaut currently on the moon is the first man to urinate there. This is a bald-face lie. As American TV viewers well know, the leader of the crew of Apollo Thirty-three not only urinated on the lunar surface, but defecated there! What’s more, the lunar atmosphere has preserved the proof! American taxpayers who willingly paid out thirty-seven billion dollars for this accomplishment may well be indignant over the Russian attempt to ignore it and claim the glory of being the first to deposit human excrement on the lunar surface. Next they’ll be claiming to have been the first to masturbate on Mars! . . .