by Neal Pollack
“Well, tell us then, kid,” Brook said, turning to Brad Cohen.
“The next president of the United States will be Bill Clinton,” Brad said.
The conference room exploded with laughter.
“The governor of Arkansas?” said Brooks.
“That guy is a hillbilly,” Kaufman said.
“He’s a hillbilly who went to Yale Law School,” said Brad. “And a lot more Americans can relate to a guy from Arkansas than can relate to a guy like you.”
That shut Kaufman up for a second.
“Look,” Brad said. “I don’t mean to insult anyone. I know it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you, I’ve been crunching on this story for a year, and I just have a feeling about Clinton.”
Brad went ahead and listed all the reasons, all the anecdotal evidence he had. America was ready for a Democrat who was simultaneously pro- and antibusiness, for and against the workingman, and more or less with it culturally. It was the great hour of boomer ascendancy, Brad said. The New Century could ride that wagon straight to the White House.
The room was quiet.
“I can see it,” said Lenny Wasserman, squinting carefully at Brad.
Wasserman, if history repeated itself—and, in Brad’s experience, it always did—would go on to become one of Clinton’s primary White House fixers. So it made sense that he was inclined to believe. Everyone else seemed to regard Brad with something between confusion and admiration. Since when did a twenty-year-old walk into the office and proclaim the next president?
“There are a lot of negatives on Clinton too,” said Brooks. “Or so I hear.”
Brad wasn’t doing this to be a Clinton booster, though he had voted for the Big Dog in 1992 and ’96 the first time around and would almost certainly do so again. All he cared about was predicting the future accurately, and an accurate future would include a Clinton White House besieged by scandal. He’d be on top of all of every morsel well before it dropped.
“I’m not going to sugarcoat,” Brad said. “There are some sketchy real-estate dealings, and he has a problem with the ladies. Like a beyond-JFK problem.”
That seemed to get everyone’s attention. Brad gave them whatever details he remembered, leaving out the semen-stained blue dress worn by Monica Lewinsky, who at that moment was enjoying being a high school student in Los Angeles, blissfully unaware of her future role as the president’s mistress and a failed purse designer. But Brad did say, “If Clinton wins, the possibility of shenanigans in the Oval Office goes up by about a thousand percent.” Why not?
By the end of the meeting, Brad was one of them, before he’d ever taken up his perch in the bullpen, a junior editor who was really senior, or a senior editor who ate lunch with the juniors. Regardless, he was on the team now.
“Cohen,” said Brooks.
“Brooks,” said Cohen.
“I need some research on Saddam Hussein. Ever heard of him?”
Brad reached into his shoulder bag, shuffled through it, and pulled out a thick manila folder full of clips and policy papers with key passages highlighted. He knew what was coming, and he was ready for all contingencies.
“Hopefully this will get you started,” Brad said.
Brooks flicked through the folder. It had everything he needed, and more. He puckered his lips in appreciation.
This kid was good.
For two years, Brad worked the pen, putting in fourteen-hour days, interrupted only by power jogs on the National Mall, never abdicating except for a quick trip home during Passover. This was the era of the Gulf War. The New Century got very busy and serious of purpose during wartime.
The first time through, Brad had experienced the Gulf War as follows: it was on TV. Then one night, this painter he was trying to score with took him to a protest in Grant Park. They got stoned and had ended up getting chased down the street by baton-wielding men on horseback. Then they took the bus to Wicker Park, drank a lot of whiskey, and screwed on a mattress in an unheated loft.
Now he was faxing documents to the Brookings Institution. The previous life may have been a lot cooler, but this time Brad had a long-term strategy. The seniors needed Brad to research, to wonk, to place calls to Saudi Arabia. He did everything they asked, plus extra, working uncredited, unsung. One night a couple of weeks before the whole calamity wrapped up, he tapped out an editorial called “Finish Hussein Now, or Face the Consequences Later.” Brad went to Jaffe’s office and showed it to him. Jaffe devoured it in one bite, like a truffle. He had never seen a piece of writing so nerdily prescient, full of unassailable logic and pertinent facts.
“We have to run this as the lead,” he said.
“Great,” Brad said, “but do it without a byline. Or just credit the Editors.”
“Are you sure?”
“I don’t care if people know I wrote it. I just want to make sure that it gets said.”
Of course, everyone who mattered knew that Brad had written it. When it became the most-discussed piece of the week, Jaffe let him go on CNN to talk, the first of what would become a seemingly infinite number of appearances. After that he started asking for and receiving occasional flights for reporting trips in Arkansas. Clinton built momentum. So did Brad.
On March 17, 1992, the night Clinton knocked out Paul Tsongas by winning the Illinois and Michigan primaries, Brad was in Chicago at the big room in the Palmer House Hilton. He milled around, looking for quotes. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. Brad turned around. It was Rahm Emanuel, who, Brad knew, would one day be a congressman and a chief adviser to Barack Obama, though Brad didn’t know he’d also become mayor of Chicago. That lay beyond the scope of Brad’s crystal ball.
“Brad Cohen?” Rahm Emanuel said.
“Yes?”
“Big Dog wants to see you.”
“As long as it’s on the record,” Brad said.
“He’s the presumptive Democratic nominee, you dickless fuckstick,” said Rahm Emanuel. “He’ll be whatever he wants to be.”
“Fair enough,” said Brad.
They walked through the crowd, snaking behind the stage and down a marbled hall. Emanuel opened up two enormous oak doors. There sat Bill Clinton, chatting loosely with a bunch of suits, some of whom Brad recognized from his past/future, some of whom seemed unfamiliar.
“This our guy?” Clinton said. “He looks barely old enough to vote.”
“I wish,” Brad said. “First time I cast my ballot, I voted for Michael Dukakis.”
That got a laugh.
“So listen, I was wondering,” said the Big Dog. “We’ve all been reading your pieces in the New Century. You’ve gotten everything right. Not every detail, but everything that matters. But none of us have ever talked to you except for the gal who faxes out the press releases. Who are your sources?”
“I don’t have any sources.”
“Don’t be coy. This is confidential.”
“I’m not being coy,” Brad said. “Guess I’m just really good at reading the tea leaves.”
“That you are,” Clinton said, and then sat in his chair, looking thoughtful. In a different era or even a different setting, he would have sucked on a cigar. “Why don’t you come work for me?” he asked.
“Sir?”
“If I win this thing—”
“When you win this thing,” Brad corrected.
“Right, when I win this thing, I’m going to need the best people. I get the sense that you might be one of those people.”
How wrong you are, Brad thought.
“Thank you, sir,” he said.
“How would you like to come work for me in the White House?” asked Clinton.
“In what capacity?” Brad said.
“An advisory one,” said Clinton.
“What kind of advice could I give you?”
“I don’t care how y
oung you are. I need people who can read the tea leaves.”
“That’s very flattering, Governor Clinton,” Brad said. “But—”
“I don’t recommend you turn me down,” Clinton said. “The benefits will be enormous.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Brad. “But I’m not interested in being Rasputin. I prefer to maintain my independence. Can I recommend my colleague Lenny Wasserman instead?”
Clinton sighed. “Lenny’s already been on the payroll for a year,” he said.
“Oh,” said Brad.
“Are you sure you want to keep your little magazine job?” Clinton asked.
Brad sensed they were trying to hire him to shut him up. He was going to get put in charge of Global Youth Strategies or some such bullshit. And if he stayed around, an extended turn in the Clinton White House also probably meant an interrogation for the Starr Report. Brad was happy to spend years reporting and commenting on the Contract with America and Whitewater, but he didn’t want to have to play fixer with them, even in a third-hand way.
Brad extended a hand. Clinton shook it.
“Best of luck to you, Mr. President,” he said.
“So I’m going to win,” the Big Dog said, smiling.
Brad held up his index and middle fingers.
“Two times,” he said.
“I’ll hold you to that if you’re wrong.”
“I won’t be wrong.”
They showed Brad out. Brad exhaled, and then he jumped around a little bit. It had worked! He’d gone one-on-one with the man who, ten months from this moment, would be the president, and he’d played hard. He’d even turned down a job offer from the White House. His second time through life, Brad Cohen was nobody’s patsy, nobody’s weakling.
“You are the best,” he sang while jumping around. “The best the best the best!”
From behind him, he heard a drawl.
“Well, you certainly have a high opinion of yourself.”
Brad looked around. There stood an attractive woman, sandy-blonde hair overteased and oversprayed but with expensive materials. She wore a power suit with big shoulder pads. Her eyes glinted with wit. Brad blushed.
“I was just joking,” he said.
“Sure you were, Brad Cohen,” she said. “You know you’re the best the best the best.”
“You know who I am?” he said.
“We all know you,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
She extended a hand. “I’m Karen Stafford,” she said. “From Little Rock. I do fund-raising for the governor. And other candidates sometimes.”
Brad took it. Her grip lingered a beat, and she let it go slowly.
“You have pretty eyes,” she said, and winked. Brad felt he could almost feel the heat and crackle. These Arkansas people were shameless.
“Come with me,” she said. “Let’s watch history.”
They moved out of the gallery and into the crowd. There was a roar. Clinton took the stage.
“The people of Illinois and Michigan sure know how to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day,” he said.
Hillary was onstage too, clapping as the Big Dog spoke. He was done in a minute, and it was mostly celebratory platitudes. Then confetti dropped, flooding the room with colored paper. The AV system boomed “Lean on Me,” the dreadful 1992 Club Nouveau version, Clinton’s first theme song before the machine settled on Fleetwood Mac.
All around Brad people were hugging and kissing and celebrating the birth of a glorious new America. He was in the middle of the party wearing a fairly expensive tie.
Karen Stafford tugged at his arm.
“This is a big night,” she said. “I want to celebrate.”
“So celebrate,” he said.
“I want to celebrate with you.”
An hour later they were in Karen’s hotel room at the Hilton, the first of many hotel rooms they’d share over the course of that summer and then from time to time in Washington after that. It would be a gloriously superficial coupling, neither of them really paying attention to the other while both of them chugged along on separate career fast tracks. In that sense, it was like all of Brad’s other relationships the second time around. But this one pushed venality to the maximum.
Karen popped a bottle of champagne. Brad guzzled it. Karen slid her hand to his crotch and undid his zipper.
“Show it to me,” she said. “Show me your big Jew pundit dick.”
Now this, Brad thought, was different.
Two days after Clinton’s inauguration, Jacob Jaffe announced he was stepping down from the helm of the New Century. The logical candidate to replace Jaffe was Gary Rosenstein, whom he asked but who he knew would decline, because the increased responsibility would get in the way of his lifestyle. Jaffe had other ideas. He and Gary called Eddie McCord and Brad Cohen into his office. Brad sensed what was coming. Eddie clearly had no idea.
“So, you are my two best candidates,” Jaffe said. “And I trust that the magazine would be in good hands no matter which of you took it over.”
McCord interrupted. “I just wanted to say, Jacob, that if you ever want to come back to work for whatever reason, I’d be glad to step aside at any minute.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Jaffe said.
“Just an offer,” said McCord.
“Because I’m giving the job to Brad.”
Brad smiled just a little. That was his strategy in this lifetime: no whining and no bragging, just pure confidence. Besides, this hardly came as a surprise to him.
McCord, on the other hand, was very surprised, and he sputtered madly. “What?” he said. “But he’s twenty-two years old! And he’s never worked anywhere else.”
“He also correctly predicted the results of the presidential election two years out,” Jaffe said. “And was right that the Republicans would seize Congress. He’s been right about everything.”
“Dumb luck,” said Brad. False modesty was another one of the tenets in his self-faith.
“Maybe,” said Jaffe, “but I’m interested to see where Brad takes us in these ’90s.”
“Well, fuck that!” McCord said.
“Sorry you feel that way.”
“I earned this job.”
“You did,” said Jaffe. “But you didn’t get it.”
“So I quit,” said McCord.
A week later Eddie McCord took a columnist job at Newsweek, the first in a series of high-profile gigs that he’d trade in every two or three years, like a leased car, for better-paying gigs at other publications.
Jaffe kept his corner office. He said he was now “editor emeritus” and would advise Brad on how to steer the editorial. Often that advice would come via phone from Connecticut, where Jaffe had a house. He claimed to be writing books but seemed to spend a lot of time skiing in Europe.
Brad was in control of the New Century.
Under his watch the New Century was on the money when it came to Rwanda and Bosnia and covered NAFTA from every side of the aisle. Brad wrote pinpoint editorials on why Hillary’s health plan would fail and why Newt Gingrich’s seemingly doomed Republican revolution would also blossom into something more sinister down the way. He predicted the inflating and the bursting of the first tech bubble, getting every single market fluctuation exactly right. There were early calls for gay civil rights and an extended early essay on “Larry David and the Comedy of Nothingness.” That last one didn’t really stick the landing; cultural criticism wasn’t Brad’s specialty, and he still had weird, jealous feelings about TV from the first time around. But other than that one obvious weak spot, he knew exactly what to say, and when. The magazine thrived.
So did Brad. There were always parties, and they always ran late, or there were rock shows to catch at the Black Cat. He caught bands at the best phases of their careers, or veteran solo artists who he no
t only knew were going to die, but knew exactly when they were going to die.
Where was Juliet in all this? He didn’t know, and, he was almost embarrassed to admit, he didn’t really care. At this point he was too far down a different path, dating too many different people, to bring her into the mix. He was a different person now, completely. He had different friends, in a different city, but he was having even more fun in Washington, DC, than he had in Chicago the first time around. His social status was so much higher. He actually got invited to parties. Any domestic capital that he’d built up in his previous go-round had been discarded like low-value start-up stock options.
Yes, Brad missed his family, but who needed them? He was on a magical cruise through prosperous times. And he was really enjoying his twentysomething’s body too. He could drink more than two beers without falling asleep, could run a few miles without too much trouble, could drop a tab of E at a Saturday night rave and only need Sunday to recover, instead of the entire next week.
But after Clinton took office the second time, Brad began to feel sad and uneasy, even as the rest of the world partied on. Everyone else acted like the sunny skies would last forever. Brad knew what was coming. The next ten years offered nothing but conflict and anger and death. He could smell the mold long before anyone else.
Brad’s writing started taking on a gloomy quality. It was still prescient but not in a way that people wanted to read. He did a profile of George W. Bush. Going down to Austin and interviewing Bush cronies just made him depressed. As the 2000 election neared, Brad warned that the vote would be close, “Maybe even contentious in a way that we haven’t seen in a century or more,” but he took no pleasure in this prediction.
Brad was no longer enjoying his little prophecy game. He didn’t want to be part of the cleverocracy anymore. One weekend, after polishing off a futurist editorial headlined “Y2K Is Nothing Compared to What Comes After,” he took the train up to Connecticut, where Jacob Jaffe always had a guest bed made up for his greatest protégé.
Jaffe picked him up at the New Haven station. They drove back to the house, had dinner with Jacob’s family, and afterward retreated to the study to spark a fatty and drink brandy. It was the civilized way to live.