Our Gang (4 page)

on the White House lawn to get the President's

attention away from a football game, I think it is in

the example of these little organisms. I tell you,

they have really impressed me with their silent

dignity and politeness. I only hope that all

Americans will come to be as proud of our unborn

as I am.

MR. FASCINATED:
Mr. President, I am fascinated

by the technological aspect. Can you give us just

an inkling of how exactly the unborn will go about

casting their ballots? I'm particularly fascinated by

these embryos on the placenta, who haven't even

developed nervous systems yet,

let alone limbs such as we use in an ordinary

voting machine.

TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 21

1 'RICKY:
Well, first off, let me remind you that

nothing in our Constitution denies a man the right

to vote just because he is physically handicapped.

That isn't the kind of country we have here. We

have many wonderful handicapped people in this

country, but of course, they're not "news" the way

the demonstrators are.

MR. FASCINATED:
I wasn't suggesting, sir, that

just because these embryos don't have central

nervous systems they should be denied the right to

vote-I was thinking again of the fantastic

mechanics of it. How, for instance, will the embryos

be able to weigh the issues and make

intelligent choices from among the candidates, if

they are not able to read the newspapers or watch

the news on television?

TRICKY:
Well, it seems to me that you have actually

touched upon the very strongest claim that the

unborn have for enfranchisement, and why it is

such a crime they have been denied the vote for so

long. Here, at long last, we have a great bloc of

voters who simply are not going to be taken in by

the lopsided and distorted versions of the truth

that are presented to the American public through

the various media. Mr. Reasonable.

MR. REASONABLE:
But how then will they make up

their minds, or their yolks, or their nuclei, or

whatever it is they have in there, Mr. President? It

might seem to some that they are going to be

Z2 OUR GANG

absolutely innocent of whatever may be at stake in

the election.

TRICKY:
Innocent they will be, Mr. Reasonablebut

now let me ask you, and all our television viewers,

too, a question: what's wrong with a little

innocence? We've had the foul language, we've had

the cynicism, we've had the masochism and the

breast-beating-maybe a big dose of innocence is

just what this country needs to be great again.

MR., REASONABLE:
More innocence, Mr. Pres

ident?

TRICKY:
Mr. Reasonable, if I have to choose between

the rioting and the upheaval and the strife and the

discontent on the one hand, and more innocence on

the other, I think I will choose the innocence. Mr.

Hardnose.
MR. HARDNOSE:
In the event, Mr.

President, that all this does come to pass by the
'
72

elections, what gives you reason to believe that the

enfranchised embryos and fetuses will vote for you

over your Democratic opponent? And what. about

Governor Wallow? Do you think that if he should

run again, he would significantly cut into your share

of the fetuses, particularly in the South?

TRICKY:
Let me put it this way, Mr. Hardnose: I

have the utmost respect for Governor George

Wallow of Alabama, as I do for Senator Hubert

Hollow of Minnesota. They are both able men,

TRICKY HOLDS A PRESS CONFERENCE 23

and they speak with great conviction, I am sure, in

behalf of the extreme right and the extreme Ieft.

But the fact is that I never heard either of these

gentlemen, for all their extremism, raise their voices

in behalf of America's most disadvantaged group of

all, the unborn.

Consequently, I would be less than candid if I

didn't say that when election time rolls around, of

course the embryos and fetuses of this country are

likely to remember just who it was that struggled in

their behalf, while others were addressing

themselves to the more popular and fashionable

issues of the day. I think they will remember who it

was that devoted himself, in the midst of a war

abroad and racial crisis at home, to making this

country a fit place for the unborn to dwell in pride.

My only hope is that whatever I am able to

accomplish in their behalf while I hold this office

will someday contribute to a world in which

everybody, regardless of race, creed, or color, will be

unborn. I guess if I have a dream, that is it. Thank

you, ladies and gentlemen.

MR. ASSLICK:
Thank you, Mr. President.

3. Tricky Has Another Crisis;

or, The Skull Session

Tricky
is dressed in the football uniform he
wore

during his four years on the bench at Prissier

College. It is still as spanking new as the day it

was issued to him some forty years ago, despite

the fact that when he finds himself at night so

perplexed and anguished by the burdens of the

Presidency as to be unable to fall off to sleep, he

frequently rises from his bed and steals down

through the White House to the blast-proof un

derground locker room (built under his direction

to specifications furnished by the Baltimore Colts

and the Atomic Energy Commission) and "suits

up," as though for "the big game" against Prissi

er's "traditional rival." And invariably, as during

the Cambodian incursion and the Kent State

killings, simply to don shoulder guards, cleats

and helmet, to draw the snug football pants up

24

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
25

over his leather athletic supporter and then to turn

his back to the mirror and catch a peek over his big

shoulders at the number on his back, is enough to

restore his faith in the course of action he has taken

in behalf of two hundred million Americans. Indeed,

even in the midst of the most incredible international

blunders and domestic catastrophes, he has till now,

with the aid of his football uniform, and a good war

movie, been able to live up to his own description of

the true leader in Six Hundred Crises as "cool,

confident and decisive." "What is essential in such

situations," he wrote there, summarizing what he

had learned about leadership from the riots inspired

by his 1958 visit, as Vice President, to Caracas, "is

not so much `bravery' in the face of danger as the

ability to think `selflessly'-to blank out any thought

of personal fear by concentrating completely on how

to meet the danger."

But tonight not even barking signals at the fulllength

mirror and pretending to fade back, arm

cocked, to spot a downfield receiver (while being

charged by the opposing line) has he been able to

blank out thoughts of personal fear; and as for

thinking "selflessly," he has not been mak
ing
much

headway
in
that department either. Having run plays

before the mirror for two full hours-having

completed eighty-seven out of
one
hundred

attempted forward passes for a total of two thousand

six hundred
and
ten
yards

26
OUR LANG

gained in the air in one night (a White House

record)-he is nonetheless unable to concentrate
on

how to
meet the danger before him, and so
has

decided to
awaken his closest advisers
and
summon

them to the underground locker room for what is

known in football parlance as a "skull session."

At the door to the White
House, each has
been

issued
a uniform by a Secret Service agent,

disguised,
but for a shoulder holster, as an
ordi
nary

locker room attendant in sweat pants, sneakers and

T-shirt stenciled "Property of
the
White House."

Now,
seated on benches before the big
blackboard,

the "coaches" listen carefully
as Tricky, with his

helmet in his hands, describes to them the crisis he

is having trouble being
entirely
selfless about.

TRICKY:
I don't understand it. How can these

youngsters be saying what they are saying about

me? How can they be chanting those slogans,

waving those signs-about me? Gentlemen, by all

reports they are growing more surly and audacious

by the hour. By morning we may have on our

hands the most incredible upheaval in history: a

revolution by the Boy Scouts of America! (In an

attempt to calm himself, and become confident and

decisive,
he puts on his helmet)

Now it was one thing when those Vietnam

soreheads came down here to the Capitol to turn

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
27

their medals in. Everyone knew they were just a

bunch of malcontents who had lost arms and legs

and so on, and so had nothing better to do with

their time than hobble around feeling sorry for

themselves. Of course they couldn't be objective

about the war-half of them were in wheelchairs

because of it. But what we have now isn't just a

mob of ingrates-these are the Boy Scouts!

And don't
you
think for one moment that the

American people are going to sit idly by when a

Boy Scout, an Eagle Scout, climbs to the top of the

Capitol steps and calls the President of the United

States "a dirty old man." Let there be no mistake

about it, if we do not deal with these angry Scouts

as coolly and confidently and decisively as I dealt

with Khrushchev in that kitchen, by tomorrow I

will be the first President in American history to be

even more hated and despised than Lyin' B.

Johnson. Gentlemen, you can go to war without

Congressional consent, you can ruin the economy

and trample on the Bill of Rights, but you just do

not violate the moral code of the Boy Scouts of

America and expect to be reelected to the highest

office in the land!

And yet when I made that speech at San

Dementia, it all seemed so ... so perfectly and, if I

may say so, so brilliantly, innocuous. Five minutes