Our Gang (5 page)

later I didn't even remember what it

28
OUR GANG

was I'd endorsed. That my political opponents

could now be so desperate to oust me from powerso

disrespectful, not simply of me, but of the

august office of the Presidency, to take those few

utterly harmless and totally meaningless words that

I spoke that day, and turn them into this monstrous

lie!

Gentlemen, I am no newcomer to the ugly

game of, politics. I have seen all kinds of chicanery

and deceit in my day-falsification, misquotation,

distortion, embellishment, 'and, of course, outright

suppression of the truth. Nor am I what you would

call a babe-in-the-woods when it comes to the

techniques of character assassination. Years ago I

looked on in disgust and horror when they

crucified Senator Joseph McCatastrophy just

because he kept changing his mind as to the

number of Communists there were
in
the State

Department. I saw what they did only recently to

judge Carswell. I saw what they did to judge

Haynsworth. Why, just last month look what they

tried to do to Secretary Lard, when he held up that

phony piece of pipe before the Senate Foreign

Relations Committee and said it was from Laos

instead of Vietnam. Five miles away-and they're

ready to hang him for it!

But, I must admit, never in my long career of

dealing with falsehood have I come upon a lie so

treacherous and Machiavellian as this one my

enemies are trying to pass off about me ... What

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
29

did I say? Let's look at the record. I said nothing!

Absolutely nothing! I came out for "the rights of the

unborn." I mean if ever there was a line of hokum,

that was it. Sheer humbug! And as if it wasn't clear

enough what I was up to, I even tacked on, "as

recognized in principles expounded by the United

Nations." By the United Nations. Now what more

could I possibly have said to make the whole thing

any more inane? Maybe I was supposed to have told

them "as recognized in principles expounded by the

American Automobile, Association." Maybe I

should have given the whole speech in Pig Latin,

and made funny faces while I was at it! Maybe I

should have come out to make the statement in a

clown's costume! But I did not do that-because I

refuse to talk down to the American public. I refuse

to pull my punches. I refuse to believe that the

people of this great nation are incapable of

recognizing the most outrageous kind of hypocrisy

or sniffing out the most blatant contradictions

imaginable . . . And yet this, this is my reward, for

my faith in America. The Boy Scouts of America

screaming to the TV cameras that Trick E. Dixon

favors sexual intercourse. Favors fornicationbetween

people!

POLITICAL COACH:
Of course, as of now, it's still only

the Boy Scouts, Mr. President.

TRICKY:
Today the Boy Scouts
(here he
sinks down

onto the bench before the blackboard,

30
OUR GANG

barely restraining a sob)-tomorrow the world! ...

And what about my wife-what is she going to think?

What if she starts to believe it? What about my

children? WHAT ABOUT THE VOTERS!

SPIRITUAL' COACH:
Here, here, Mr. President. I

sympathize with your chagrin, particularly as it

relates to your fine family. But, frankly, I do not

believe that the American people who see you on

TV, any more than those who know you at

firsthand, are going to be taken in by such a blatant

fabrication. If ever a man, in his every word and

deed, his every movement and gesture, his glance,

his sneer, his very smile, put the lie to such a

slanderous accusation as this one, it is you.

TRICKY
(visibly moved) : Reverend, I thank you for

that tribute. Surely I have tried to give no indication

whatsoever to the people of this country that I even

know what sexual intercourse is. Futhermore, I have

instructed my family that they must under no

circumstances allow it to appear that any of us have

ever in our lives been. infected by desire or lust, or,

for that matter, an appetite for anything at all,

outside of political power. This may sound

immodest of me, but I happen to pride myself on

the fact that if it weren't for my perspiring so on

television, the American people would probably

have no way in the world of telling that under my

clothes I

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS
31

am flesh. And, of course you all know, as a result

of a decision I reached here during a lonely vigil in

the locker room only a few nights ago, this disorder

will very shortly be corrected when I enter Walter

Reed Hospital to undergo a secret operation for the

surgical removal of the sweat glands from my

upper lip. You see, gentlemen, that is how

dedicated I am to dissociating myself from

anything remotely resembling a human body.

But now to accuse me of this! As though to be

for the rights of the unborn was prima facie

evidence-that is, evidence sufficient to establish a

fact, or to raise a presumption of fact ... that's what

we lawyers mean by that phrase ... as you know,

before entering the White House I was a lawyer, and

so I know phrases like that ... as though that were

prima facie evidence that I was also in favor of the

process by which the unborn come into existence in

the first place. To accuse me, because of a perfectly

innocuous statement like that, of encouraging

people to have intercourse in order that they should

have unborn, in order that those unborn should

have these rights -that don't even exist! And that I

wouldn't care about, even if they did! How could I?

Here I am, President of the United States and

Leader of the Free World, working and slaving with

every fiber of my being, night and day, three

hundred and sixty-five days a year, for the sole

purpose of

32 OUR GANG

getting myself reelected-where would I find the

time to worry about the rights of anything?

Haven't they any idea what this job is all about?

The whole thing is so patently absurd! And yet

there are those Boy Scouts, in uniform,

marching in the streets of the nation's capitaland

those signs:

GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA,

SENSUALIST, WHERE YOU BELONG

POWER TO THE PENIS? NEVER!

REPRESSION-LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!

SPIRITUAL COACH (solemnly, taking the arm of

the shaken President) : Mr. President, forgive them,

they know not what their signs say. TRICKY: Oh,

Reverend, Reverend, I assure you, under ordinary

circumstances I would bend over backwards to

forgive them. I like to think that I am the kind of

man who can find it in his heart to forgive his worst

enemy. Why, not only have I forgiven Alger Hiss,

but when I was elected President, I sent him an

anonymous telegram expressing my gratitude for all

he had done in my behalf. And that man was a

perjurer! Listen, I would actually have forgiven

Khrushchev himself, yes, right there in that kitchen,

if it had

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 33

been politically expedient to do so. Just look what I'm

up to right now: I'm in the very process of forgiving

Mao Tse-tung, who by my own estimate has enslaved

six hundred million people!

But I am afraid, Reverend, that where these Boy

Scouts are concerned, we are fighting for a principle so

fundamental to civilized life, that even a man of my

magnanimity must rise up and say "No, this time you

have gone too far." Reverend, they are trying to

prevent me from winning a second term!

SPIRITUAL COACH: I see . . . I see . . . I must

confess that I had not thought of it quite that way.

TRICKY: It is not a pleasant way to have to think

about it. All of us would prefer to look with charity

and respect upon our fellow human beings, whatever

their race, creed, color or age, and to treat them

according to the tenets of our religious beliefs.

Certainly no one in this country wishes to appear more

religious than I do. But sometimes, Reverend, people

just make being religious impossible, even for

someone who stands to gain as much from that

posture as I do. SPIRITUAL COACH: But if such is

the case, if these Boy Scouts, for some

incomprehensible reason, are out to destroy your

political career by casting doubt upon your Sunday

school morality, perhaps it would be best for you to go

on televi-

34 OUR GANG

sion and give the people the facts as they really are. As

you did when they accused you in the 1952 election of

being the recipient of an illegal political fund. The

Checkers Speech. TRICKY (intrigued) : You mean

give it again?

SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, perhaps not the very

same speech.

TRICKY: Why not? It worked.

SPIRITUAL COACH: True. But I wonder, Mr.

President, if it addresses directly the issue at hand.

TRICKY: Maybe not. But you know, Reverend, when

you're dealing with wild and reckless charges like

these, when you're in the midst of a crisis such as this

one, that could snowball overnight into political

disaster, then you sometimes have to do what works,

and leave things like the issues themselves for later.

Otherwise, I'm afraid there might not be any later.

SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, I'm not a politician, Mr.

President, and I must admit that I may be hopelessly

naive to believe that The Truth Shall Make Ye Free.

But I do think that if instead of giving the Checkers

Speech again, instead of itemizing your earnings over

the years and telling how much money you owe your

parents and so on, you were now to make a similar

address, in which you presented to the nation an

itemized account of your sexual experiences, giving

exact dates from your appointment calendar-when,

TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 35

where, and with whom-you might well feel secure in

leaving it to the American people to judge whether or

not you are an advocate of fornication.

TRICKY: You mean, go on TV with the appointment

books ...

SPIRITUAL COACH: Yes, and leaf through them

page by page, until at last you come upon an item to

read aloud. I would think the long silences will in

themselves be the most eloquent part of the broadcast.