by John Price
“At first, you’ll get a little chuckle out of it. Of all people, you know you haven’t changed one bit. You’re still the same guy you were last week. But, and here’s the problem, over time, after months, and then after years, even after several years, of being idolized, and praised, and honored, and pampered….inside of yourself….you start to believe it. You begin to agree with your fawning staff, who, after all, owe their jobs to you. You begin to agree with the respectful news media, who always address you by your title. You notice that most of your constituents, the voters in your Congressional district, treat you like somebody who can bring them a better life. Most of them make it clear to you that they think you can just vote and jobs appear and grants of federal money appear and wars are won. A few, of course, won’t like you, or your votes, but over time, you learn to tune those people out. You ignore them, they obviously don’t know how great you are, you will quietly tell yourself. A new way of thinking sets in. With some, I’ve noticed that it happens almost as soon as they’re elected. But, with most, it takes time. If you’re a believer, it takes longer, because you know that you’re still mortal. But, I’ll come back to that.
“Adam, because 90% of all Members of Congress who seek re-election are re-elected, after two or three, maybe four re-elections, you will be tempted to become arrogant. I’m not talking about Louis XV- look down your nose - off with their heads kind of arrogance. I’m talking about arrogance in your gut. The word arrogance comes from the Latin root word arrogatus, to arrogate, or to assume something for yourself that isn’t really yours. The dictionary defines it as ‘to claim unwarrantably or presumptuously’. I’m not trying to lecture here, Adam, my point is this. When you are an important person for a while you begin to arrogate to yourself something that you don’t have the right to claim. If you are in power, you begin to think that you actually are the source of power, and it changes how you think.”
“Congressmen have power. What am I missing here?”
“Scripture says that all power belongs to God. He loans it, on occasion, to mere mortals, but it’s His. If a judge starts thinking that he is the source of justice, or a banker thinks he is the source of economic resources, or a doctor thinks that he is the source of healing, then they arrogate to themselves what is not theirs. They become arrogant. It may not show on the outside, but inside, they begin to arrogantly think they can get away with what others who don’t have what they have, could never get away with doing. You’ll be able to raise a million dollars for your re-election. Lots of folks will donate to you if you’re in office, many because they want something. Snap your fingers, arrange some fund-raisers and many thousands of dollars end up on your desk. You won’t have to do even one pelvic exam and your bank accounts will overflow with money. It’s amazing how much money comes in. Money sure affects how people think.
“And here’s where I’m headed with this. One day, and it could be any given day, you’ll be in your office and a cute new staff member will brush your arm as she hands you some papers, looks into your baby blues and gives you a big smile and a come-hither look. You’re not a teen ager any more, but you’ll start to feel like one. Your blood will race. You’ll think what if, or maybe. But….self-control will kick in. You’ll remember your dear wife, and your vows, and your constituents and your faith. And the temptation will pass.
“That is, until the next time it happens, and maybe the cute staffer is a little more forward this time, and maybe it’s out of the office, or out of town, at some event. She lets you know how much she admires you. She gushes about how you should be a Senator, or maybe even President someday. You go through your list of why you can’t break your wedding vows, again, but, and this is when it happens, you begin to tell yourself – ‘Self, you deserve this; you can get away with it; you’re a powerful, important Congressman. Nobody’ll know. Look at how hard you work. Can’t hurt anybody, really. Just some recreation to relax some.’
“It can’t be that easy to fall that far….”
“Adam, believe me, it’s incredibly easy to fall. I knew everything I had ever done, all I had ever worked for, all the pro-family, conservative stands I had taken were on the line, my family, my job, it was all right there and I did it anyway. As you can see, I’m no Cary Grant by any means, I’m less than normal height and balding, so looks have nothing to do with it. The devil is like a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour. I knew he was tempting me. My arrogance of power led me to think I could get away with it, because I was so important. Well, I wasn’t and I’m not. Only by the grace of God did Melanie stay with me, but it’s still very difficult on her, and our marriage was damaged, to say the least. My main regret is what I did to sully the name of my Lord.
“One other point. The arrogance of power can take you down in other areas besides sexual sin. You were elected because you believe in certain principles. I’ve personally witnessed my fellow Members of Congress stray. Not from their wives, but from their principles. You can fall away from why you came here simply because a lobbyist who bundled several thousand dollars in campaign contributions asks you to cast a simple little vote on an amendment here or there. You look at what you’re about to do. You know it’s not consistent with your core beliefs, but then you go through the same self-delusion I just outlined for physical sins. You arrogantly tell yourself that nobody will notice; it’s a small issue, anyway; I should get more credit for all I’m doing to fight the fight; compared to what I’ve seen other conservatives swallow it’s no big deal. You get the idea.”
Congressman-elect Adam Nation could not have known at the time of his meeting how important his twenty minutes with a fallen Congressman would prove to be in his life, and for the nation.
NINE
Offices of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia
The President wasted no time following his victory in the election. Once the election was over, he had frequently thought during the campaign, his anger increasing with each day, it would be time to settle some scores that were much in need of settling. Nobody treats me like they did the last four years and get away with it, he thought. Not this President. Not now that I’ve just been safely re-elected into my second term. Never facing the voters again. I can finally complete the process of fundamentally transforming a country that is obviously drastically in need of radical transformation. They elected me the first time. I told them what I would do. They re-elected me to a second term, knowing what I would do. So, now, it’s finally time to actually do it.
It had been a long day for Archbishop O’Malley. Most of his day had been spent fielding media inquiries. Reporters were uniformly curious as to whether he had been served any legal documents from the Department of Justice, as DC was full of rumors that either the Archbishop or the Archdiocese were being indicted for unspecified crimes. None of this came as a surprise to the outspoken Archbishop, as he had been the leader of the nation’s Catholics in opposing the re-election of the President. So, he expected no less, as he was a student of history and knew well what happens to those who oppose the occupant of the throne. He was acquainted with Machiavelli’s warning that “If you strike the king, you must kill him.”
The battle lines were joined once the Department of Health and Human Services had ordered Catholic institutions to provide medical services contrary to their faith. In response, the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops were unanimous in refusing to bow to the dictates of the federal government, even including bulletin inserts passed out in Catholic churches across the nation. Catholics were told that, if necessary, they could be called upon to engage in civil disobedience against the government’s violation of their religious liberty.
Archbishop O’Malley walked his talk by personally leading Catholic civil disobedience in eastern Pennsylvania. He signed a letter instructing employees of the Archdiocese to refuse to allow any funds, directly or indirectly, to be used for contraceptive health services. He also wrote to the insurance company that insured employees notifying the company that he would ca
ncel their services if any contraceptive services were accorded by the company, as that would violate the beliefs of their faith that life begins at conception.
The Archbishop made the cover of TIME and most major daily newspapers with his stance leading the fight and his public call two weeks before the election to “un-elect a President who wants to destroy the Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty in America.” The White House was not amused, but the President and his advisors decided that to avoid drawing rank-in-file Catholic voters into the fight, they would just ignore the Archbishop, and the Church, until, after the election, that is. They believed that most of the voters in the nation’s Catholic Church pews were not behind their Church leaders, in any case. Studies after the election showed that Catholic voters supported the President in appreciable numbers. The Administration rewarded Catholic voters by indicting Archbishop O’Malley.
What the President had planned before the election for the Archbishop after the election was a single count criminal indictment. The crime of which the Archbishop was accused was that he purportedly violated the federal hate crimes statute. The DOJ alleged that Archbishop O’Malley’s actions opposing the President’s HHS directive was a hate crime in that the Archbishop “discriminated egregiously against a protected class under the law, i.e., gender, as he committed acts to deprive women of health services.” Not a single lawyer working at the Department of Justice thought that there was even a remote chance of a conviction, but the President’s decision to prosecute was not to be denied.
The Vatican’s Press Office issued a statement “on behalf of His Holiness.” The Statement read:
“Today’s indictment of Archbishop O’Malley is a travesty of justice. Unless dismissed immediately, it may well lead to an unfortunate religious war in America. The Church doesn’t want such a war, but apparently some in the American Administration do. May God help us.”
The President buzzed his Press Secretary to come to the Oval Office to discuss his Administration’s response to the strongly-worded statement from the Vatican.
“Mike, look, I’m not going to take this from Rome. Who does this Pope think he is? Religious war? If they want a religious war, I would remind his Holiness what the Bible says about King Rehoboam.”
“I’m sorry, Mister President, I may have missed that in Sunday school class. The name is familiar, though.”
“Check out Second Chronicles chapter ten. After Solomon died, the people of Israel came to his successor, Rehoboam, and begged him to lighten their load, to lay on them a lighter yoke. You know, less government, so to speak.”
“So, Mr. President, he did it, right?”
“No, of course not. He told them that his little finger would be thicker than his dad’s loins. He promised to make their yoke heavier, not lighter. That’s my plan.”
“Really, how did that work out? Didn’t that split Israel and Judah into two nations?”
“That’s not the issue. I’m just saying that the Vatican has picked on the wrong man. They did their best to beat me, so I’ll do my best to increase what this government does to rein in all these churches, of all denominations, that raised the sword against me. What’s the phrase, ‘if you live by the sword, you will surely die by the sword’?”
“But, I can’t say anything even close to that at the media briefing.”
“No….that’s right….but here’s what you will say….”
At the daily media briefing the President’s Press Secretary responded to the Vatican statement by saying, “If it’s to be war, on behalf of women’s health services, let it begin. America will not lose the battle.”
The next afternoon Archbishop O’Malley surrendered at the Federal Building on Market Street. After internal discussion the Attorney General determined that cuffing and perp-walking a robed Archbishop in front of the media might not be the best idea, even though the election was now successfully over and no votes could be lost.
TEN
Dallas, Texas
“POTUS is down! OH, NO!…Repeat, the President….is down!...So is the VP.”
“Appears to be an upper front shot…bleeding...he’s behind the podium …on the platform.…. Several on the podium appear to have been shot…Protocol SkyHook. STAT! ….Full perimeter. STAT, STAT.”
With these frantically shouted words Secret Service Agent Stephen Quinn was only confirming what hundreds of thousands of day viewers could see with their own eyes – the President had been shot and was down, along with others on the stage in Dallas.
Normally, viewership of a day time Presidential speech outside of DC would not be large, but this was no normal day. The election was now over. The post-election pundits had given their views. The President and his running mate, accompanied by several Congressional leaders, had for some time been touring the country in what some Republicans derisively labeled the “President’s Victory Lap”. Some asked if he intended to extend his tour for four years.
The major news outlets led their initial reports of a shooting of the President by reminding their audiences that the site of the shooting was the same city in which John F. Kennedy was slain – Dallas, Texas. No one could know, of course, this soon after the trigger was squeezed how this President would fare. Was it a fatal shot? Was he merely wounded and would survive, as did President Reagan? As in any act of violence of this nature, the crowds of supporters in City Hall Plaza panicked, running from the Plaza. Within seconds, the Secret Service, following well-rehearsed plans, had covered the President’s body, followed by carrying him swiftly off the back of the stage erected for the speech in the Plaza, and to an ambulance, always kept nearby for just such a purpose. Vice President Lawrence McAlister, whose wounds appeared to be more serious, was likewise swiftly moved offstage. The Senators and other Congressional leaders were treated initially on the stage, due to the lack of immediate available ambulances. President Bush, 42, noted that as long as he could see the ambulance tasked to carry him, and he wasn’t in it, he was ok.
News coverage being what it is in the age of satellites and the internet, tens of millions, and then, billions, of residents of the world soon heard the news from Dallas, holding their collective breath for what would inevitably follow – either the good news of the President’s diagnosed likely survival of the assassination attempt, or instead, the tragic news that he had succumbed to the malevolent plans of his assailant, or assailants.
Within ten minutes of the shot being fired, CNN set a new timing record in concluding that the act appeared to be that “of a lone gunman”, though no one had any idea who the shooter was, or even where the shot came from. Federal investigators, however, narrowed the location of the shot to a one inch circular hole cut in a vacant office window in a building a block and a half distant from the campaign event platform, so far away that it had not been felt necessary for the building to be secured prior to the event. Forensics experts concluded that the shooter had to have been a highly skilled, well-trained sniper to make the shot, given the distance and angles.
Twelve minutes after the first Associated Press flash bulletin alerted the nation’s news outlets, the NBC affiliate in Dallas reported that its hospital sources had informed the station that the President had not survived the shooting. Lemming-like, the world’s electronic media repeated the report of the death of the world’s most powerful man. The news, though, was incorrect. As soon as the White House Press Secretary, who had traveled to Dallas with his boss, could assemble the media in the lobby of Baylor Hospital, he assured grieving reporters that the President was very much alive, and was expected to fully recover.
The Press Secretary’s response to questions about the Vice President and Congressional leaders was more guarded. His reluctance led media veterans to conclude that at least one of the leaders shot may have died from his injuries. The Press Secretary promised updates of the President’s condition from Air Force One, to which the President was about to be transported for a flight back to DC and medical attention at George Was
hington University Hospital.
News of the shooting in Dallas led officials to instantaneously conclude that the government of the United States was under armed attack. The various federal agencies charged with law enforcement responsibilities alerted their key employees to the potential of a widespread assault on federal officials. Cabinet officers, Congressional leaders not present in Dallas and Supreme Court Justices were all taken to pre-arranged secure locations. With the shooting of federal officials, it was clear that the events required the government to shift into full crisis mode. Official Washington, DC knows well how to do crisis mode.
The startling news from Dallas, as compelling as it was, ratcheted up even further in the midst of the evening’s news coverage of the shootings, as talking heads on all media outlets referred to the AP instant news feed. Chris Walters of Fox News covered the breaking news:
“….and so, as we have been extensively reporting, the President has survived, thankfully, this dastardly, might I say also cowardly, attack today. Our sources tell us that the President was not actually shot, but may have suffered superficial injuries from shrapnel from the several bullets that were fired at the stage at the rally in Dallas. We also understand from hospital sources that the Vice President remains in surgery in Dallas and that a U.S. Senator who attended the rally, whose identity has not been disclosed, was also injured in the mass shooting today. We understand that the U.S. Senator is not from Texas, but that he was traveling with the President in his post-election ‘thank you tour’ around the country.
“One un-named doctor at Baylor Hospital, several blocks east of Parkland Hospital, which is where President Kennedy was pronounced dead in 1963, as you will recall, has been quoted by the Dallas Morning News as saying that one of the persons shot at the rally today is in what he called ‘dire, worse than critical, condition’. He opined to the newspaper that the shooting victim is not likely to survive. Whether he was referring to Vice President McAlister or the U.S. Senator, who remains to be identified, is unknown at this point in time….Let’s see….My producer is telling me that next we’ll look at a segment from the hospital news conference held late today at Baylor. Dr. Chap……wait…yes.