Our Gang (23 page)

the whole thing. More accurately, the lack of brains.

You see, that's really our number one clueeverything

else aside, this was a pretty stupid thing

to do to the President. There he is, the President,

and they do a stupid thing like this. Now if this is

somebody's idea of a practical joke, well, I for one

don't consider it funny. You're not just stuffing

anybody into a baggie, you're stuffing the President

of the United States. What about the dignity of his

office? If you have no respect for the man, what

about the office? That's what really gravels me,

personally. I mean, what do you think the enemies

of democracy would think if they saw the President

of the United States all curled up naked like that.

Well, I'll tell you what they'd think: they couldn't be

happier. That's just the kind of propaganda they

love to use to brainwash people and make

Communists out of them."

"Do you think then that the assassin was an

enemy of democracy as well as a madman?"

"I do. And as I said, a practical joker. Fortunately,

we happen to have a complete file on all madmen

who are enemies of democracy and

THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY 161

practical jokers, and they're under constant surveillance.

So I don't think there's going to be any

trouble finding our man, or madman. And even if

we don't find him, we've got the Boy Scouts from

Boston who confessed to this thing in reserve, so

I'd say, on the whole, we're in much better shape

than we were last time, and are really just waiting a

go-ahead from the White House . . ."

"We are privileged to have with us in the studio

one of the most distinguished members of the

House of Representatives, a leading Republican

statesman, and a friend and confidant to the late

President. Congressman Fraud, this is a sorrowful

day in our nation's history."

"Oh, it's a day that will live in infamy, there's no

doubt about that in my mind. I am, in fact,

introducing a bill into Congress to have it declared a

day that will live in infamy and celebrated as such in

coming years. What you've got here, as Chief

Heehaw at the FBI was saying, is a real lack of

respect for the office of the Presidency. What

you've got here in this assassin is a very disrespectful

person, and, I would agree, probably a madman to

boot."

"Do you have any idea, Congressman, why the

White House continues at this late hour to refuse to

confirm the story of the assassination?"

"I think it goes without saying that we're in a

sensitive area here, and consequently they want to

move cautiously on this whole thing. I think they

want, first off, to gauge the public reaction here at

home, and then of course there is the reaction

around the world to consider. On the one hand

you've got our allies who depend upon us for

support, and on the other hand you've got our

enemies who are always on the lookout for some

chink in our armor, and if you keep all that in mind,

then I think you have to agree that in the long run it

is probably in the interest of our integrity and our

credibility to cover this whole thing up. I would

think that some such reasoning as that is going on

behind the scenes at the White House right now."

."Has the First Lady been notified?"

Oh, of course."

"What was her reaction?"

"Well, she was understandably quite overcome in

the first moment. But, as you know, she is a very

decorous woman, even in moments of great

emotion. Consequently, her immediate reaction was

to note that the manner in which the assassin went

about the assassination was in extremely bad taste.

The baggie aside for the moment, she thinks that at

the very least the President should have been slain

in a shirt and a tie and a jacket, like John F.

Charisma. She says there was a suit fresh from the

dry cleaners in the closet at the hospital, and that it

really shows

THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
163

that the assassin was a person of very poor breeding

to have failed to recognize how important it is for

the President, of all people, to be neatly and

appropriately garbed at all times. She said she just

had to wonder about the upbringing of a person

who would forget something like that. She said she

didn't want to blame the assassin's family, until she

knew all the facts, but it was clear she felt there

probably could have been a wee bit more attention

given to good grooming in his house when the

assassin was growing up."

"Congressman Fraud, there has been some

speculation that the President's assassination is a

reprisal for the destruction yesterday of the city of

Copenhagen. What do you think of that idea?"

"Not very much."

"Can you explain?"

"Well, it just doesn't make any sense. The

President himself went on television, after all, and

explained to the American people the situation in

Denmark and why we might have to destroy

Copenhagen. Now he didn't have to do that, you

know-but he did, because he wanted the people to

have all the facts. So I just don't see how you can

fault him there. And, I must say, in praise of this

great country, that except for a few elderly people

out there in Wiseonsinand they of course turned out

to be of Danish

164
OUR GANG

extraction, and obviously didn't have any objectivity

on this matter at all-but except for those few

irresponsible demonstrators out there shouting

dirty words in Danish, the overwhelming majority

of the people of this country have taken the

destruction of Copenhagen with the wonderful

equanimity and solidarity we have come to expect

of them in matters like this. No, I just can't see

where somebody is going to assassinate the

President for a sound policy decision such as this

one, and that even goes for a madman. No, he had

the mandate of the people here, lunatics included."

"And the mandate of the Congress as well?"

"Well, of course, as you know, there are unfortunately

a very few Congressmen and Senators -I

guess you could call them headline seekerswho will

go so far as to try to make political hay out of the

bombing of a little Godforsaken village out in the

middle of nowhere, some crossroads nobody has

ever heard of before and surely after the bombing

will never hear of again-so I leave it to you to

imagine what such

politicians are going to do with the nuclear de

struction of a place like Copenhagen. In their

behalf, however, let me say that even
they
would

not be so reckless as to assassinate the President

because of a difference of opinion over some

thing like bombing sites. I mean, nobody's

perfect. One President chooses this target, one

THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
165

President chooses that target, but fortunately we

have in this country a political system that can

accommodate itself to that kind of disagreement,

without recourse to assassination. And by and large

I think you can say that
in
the end the mistakes in

judgment and so on shake themselves out, and we

pretty much destroy the places that need destroying.

It seems to me, in fact, that as regards the

destruction of Copenhagen, you'll find that even

among the President's staunchest critics in the

Senate, there was a sense that a decision of that

magnitude simply couldn't have been arrived at

lightly or arbitrarily. I think most of the truly

responsible members of the Congress feel as I do,

that having made a strong show of strength such as

this in Scandinavia now, we are not going to get

ourselves bogged down there later the way we did in

Southeast Asia."

"So you see no connection between the 'Something

is Rotten in Denmark' speech and the assassination?"

"No, no. Frankly I can't believe that the murder

of the President has to do with anything he has ever

said or done, including his courageous remarks in

behalf of the unborn and the sanctity of human life.

No, this is one of those wild, crazy acts, just as the

FBI describes it-the work of a madman, and, as the

First Lady suggests, a pretty ill-mannered madman,

at that. It seems to me that any attempt to find

some rational political motive in anything so bizarre

and boorish as stuffing the President of the United

States unclothed into a water-filled baggie in the

fetal position is so much wasted effort. It's an act of

violence and disrespect, utterly without rhyme or

reason, and cannot but arouse the righteous indignation

of reasonable and sensible men everywhere."

"-the hairy, the half-cocked if you know what I

mean, the hammer-and-sickle supporters, the

hard-core pornographers, the hedonists, the Hell's

Angels, those whom God won't help because they

won't help themselves, the hermaphrodites, the

highbrows, the hijackers, the hippies, the Hisses,

the homos, the hoodlums of all races, the heroin

pushers, the hypocrites-"

"Yes, the tribute has begun, the tribute to the

man they loved more than they knew. By trains

they come, by busses, by cars, by planes, by

wheelchairs, by feet. Come some on canes and

crutches, and some on artificial limbs. But come

undaunted they do, like pilgrims of yesteryear and

yore, to honor pay to him they loved more than

they knew. Reaped by the Grim Reaper before his

reaping was due, he brings us together at last, as he

promised he one day would do. And doing it he is.

For in they come, the ordinary

THE ASSASSINATION OF TRICKY
167

people, his people, barbers and butchers and

brokers and barkers, tycoons and taxidermists and

the taciturn who till the land. It is, I daresay, a

demonstration the likes of which he who has been

grimly reaped by the Grim Reaper did not, alas,

survive to witness. No, during his brief residence on

this planet Earth, and his three years in the White

House, they demonstrated not to honor him but to

humiliate him, not to pay him homage and respect

but to shout their obscenities at, and display their

disrespect toward, him. But these are not the

obscenity-shouters and the disrespect-displayers

gathering here tonight along the banks of the

Potomac-banks as old as the Republic itself-and