All the Presidents' Pets

by Mo Rocca

  Then, as luck should have it, Gephardt got stalled behind the Washington Post’s Sally Quinn, who was engrossed in a conversation with Full House’s John Stamos. The way to Barney looked clear until Gephardt, in a sudden fit of pique, struck Stamos against the head. A cry went up as Jane Seymour, the former Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, knelt down to examine him.

  Gephardt the Albino was now racing toward us, so Helen and I did the same toward Barney. We were mere feet away when from out of nowhere Laurie, a look of distress behind her wide smile, stepped in front of us with two armed guards. Straining to sound casual she said, “Well, how lovely to see you both. Now let these gentlemen escort you out . . . before all hell breaks loose.” The two guards grabbed us and started pushing us out.

  I looked over my shoulder, straining to keep eye contact with Barney, our last best hope. He looked back at me wanly. “Good-bye and God bless America,” I said feebly. We both understood she would need our prayers.

  But Helen wasn’t going so gently.

  “Ouch!” yelled one of the armed guards. In a flash Helen had bitten his arm and scurried between his legs. She was running toward Barney. Helen was going to make contact.

  The guard looked helpless. The President looked confused. But Laurie stood between Helen and Barney.

  And Laurie looked pissed.

  28

  The Chapter That Only Jerry Bruckheimer Could Bring to Film

  Fixing her with a terrifying stare, Laurie suddenly thrust out her hand toward Helen. Helen backed up, but Laurie’s arm instantly extended and her hand gripped Helen’s skull. Helen squawked.

  “Uh-oh, looks like trouble,” said the President, grabbing Mrs. Bush and Barney and diving under the table. The rest of the dais followed.

  I slipped past my guard and tried to wrest Laurie’s grip from Helen’s head but when I touched her arm I felt cold steel. Then when I picked up a chair to crash over her, her head pivoted toward me at an impossible angle and her neck literally extended in a serpentine flash. She gripped the chair with her teeth, smashing it over my head.

  “Oh my God,” screamed ABC’s Kate Snow. “Laurie Dhue is a cyborg!”

  That’s when it occurred to me. “Daresay Glib Curio,” I said, dazed. “That’s an anagram for ‘Laurie D. is a cyborg’ . . . wow, what a stupid anagram.” I had barely hobbled to my feet when Gephardt the Albino’s black shiny military boot kicked me in the face. I fell backward. Luckily former press secretary Marlin Fitzwater was there to break my fall. Gephardt was determined to silence me for good, though. He picked me up off Fitzwater and hurled me right at Laugh-In’s Jo Anne Worley. I managed to pull myself together and take a swing at Gephardt. He caught my hand and began crushing it.

  Then out of nowhere, Wolf flew in and pointed a flashpoint at Gephardt. Gephardt howled in pain. “Albinos suffer from photophobia,” I remembered. “Great thinking, Wolf!” Then with a flying roundhouse kick to the head, Wolf managed to knock Gephardt out cold.

  “Oh my God, Wolf Blitzer is a black belt!” exclaimed Kate Snow.

  “Wolf-san, thank you,” I said, but there was little time for chitchat. Laurie’s grip was tightening on Helen’s head. Helen projectile-vomited, the common reaction for a buzzard when cornered, but Laurie didn’t blink.

  Wolf went for broke and leaped at Laurie with the same move that had knocked out Gephardt. This time Laurie’s free hand morphed into a giant flyswatter and with the power of two hundred Williams sisters combined, smacked Wolf into the ceiling, where he stuck flat for a moment before dropping onto a chandelier. He hung there unconscious.

  Laurie was using her hand-turned-flyswatter to bat aside anyone who approached. When a courageous George Stephanopolous charged toward her, Laurie’s flyswatter morphed into a bat. Like a champion slugger she pointed her bat across the room toward Ali Wentworth, then line-drived George right into his wife.

  “Good to see you two ‘livin’ it up’!” Laurie growled in a deep demonic voice.

  All looked lost till Candy stepped up. From out of her overstuffed purse, she pulled her pearl-handled revolver. Candy aimed right at Laurie’s midsection, closed her eyes tight, and fired. With a loud ping sound, the bullet ricocheted off Laurie’s titanium torso and right into Dr. Phil’s ass. Like a barnyard animal he wailed in pain.

  Laurie was laughing, her eyes bright red. She was channeling James Earl Jones now. “Something tells me that you can’t depend on CNN.”

  Candy was undaunted. “I’ll report—and I’ll decide. Bitch.” Candy gave her purse a few good swings, then walloped Laurie in the head. A loud crunching sound was heard and Laurie fell backward, releasing Helen.

  “Candy, you’re amazing!” I shouted.

  “They don’t call me ‘Handy Candy’ for nothin’,” she said, opening her purse and pouring out the dust of a couple of shattered Hummel figurines. “I knew these things were worth something.”

  Helen was getting her breath back. “I’ll be fine, dear. But I don’t think we’re through with her,” she said, pointing to the spot on the floor where Laurie had fallen. There was now a metallic liquid pool and within seconds it was quickly re-forming itself into a human shape.

  With Laurie regenerating herself, Helen did the only sensible thing: she flew upward to safety.

  “Haven’t done this in years,” she said. With a few flaps she was soaring up above.

  “Oh my God!” said Kate Snow, “Helen Thomas is a bald eagle!”

  “That’s not an eagle, you dingbat,” snapped Norah O’Donnell. “It’s a turkey buzzard.”

  The reporters were now furiously taking notes, their attention on Helen making lazy circles in the sky. She was absolutely beautiful in flight, her wings spread in a spectacular dihedral V-formation.

  “Helen,” I said, my voice catching, “you’re beautiful.”

  Back down on the ground, though, danger reemerged. A liquid metal Laurie Dhue strode up onto the stage. Once transmogrified back into flesh she was wearing a pink prom dress and looking suspiciously like Sissy Spacek in Carrie. That’s when, as promised, all hell broke loose. First all the doors slammed shut, then a fire hose started gushing on its own.

  “Jesus Christ,” I murmured. “Laurie Dhue has telekinetic powers.”

  The cannon-strength water jet immediately took out three of Mickey Rooney’s ex-wives. Larry King was smart enough to hide behind Jane Russell’s iron lung. The hose next went after defense attorney Mark Geragos and pinned him against the wall. In a touching moment, his nemesis, Court TV’s Nancy Grace, pulled him to safety only to be blown through a window herself.

  Suddenly an I beam dropped down, collapsing on Dick Morris’s feet. Above the chaos you could hear the crunching of Dick’s delicate foot bones. “My feeeeeeeeee—!” he screamed.

  A sinkhole opened up in the floor and in a moment straight out of Earthquake Barbara Boxer and Joe Biden—the Senate’s closest likenesses to Ava Gardner and Charlton Heston—were whisked away.

  The horrific chaos instantly brought some people closer together. Former senator Alan Simpson grabbed NPR’s Nina Totenberg, soaked but ravishing, and they began furiously making out—before they were engulfed in flames.

  As a measure of how things had gotten out of hand, Ann Coulter looked at Laurie, then turned to me: “Okay, I think she’s overreacting.” That was seconds before Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham dropped on top of her.

  I knew I didn’t want to die this way so I sought shelter in a remarkably sturdy barricade that Condoleezza Rice had thrown together from a couple of tables and chairs. Inside Condi was working three cell phones while she loaded a shoulder-fired missile.

  “The President believes that what is going on in the Hilton Hotel is unacceptable to the American people. The President recognizes, however, that Laurie Dhue is not representative of the many honest, decent, patriotic cyborgs that are a welcome, vibrant part of American society,” she shouted into the phone. When MSNBC Joe Scarborough’s head rolled behind the barricade, Condi gav
e it a curious look, then set it on fire and hurled it Molotov cocktail–style back at Laurie, all without missing a beat. While Condi continued spinning I peered over the barricade, in search of Helen.

  Smoke and water were filling the room quickly and the cries of the press corps, politicians, and assorted quirky personalities were agonizing to hear.

  Across the room I could see that Candy was stranded on top of a table, the water rising around her. She took a deep breath, then swan-dived in and swam underwater. When she came up, coughing and spitting up water, she dragged John King in one arm and a surprisingly unironic Leslie Nielsen in the other.

  Meanwhile Alan Colmes had become hysterical. All dressed up for the “Waiters’ Gallop” number from Hello, Dolly! he stood in front of Laurie ranting. “What have you done with Hannity?!” he shrieked.

  Surely Laurie was about to do something unspeakable to him but she suddenly had other priorities. Pushing me aside from behind, Condi had stepped forward. And this sister meant business. She fired her missile right into the wall next to Laurie. The water drained out and suddenly there was a glimmer of hope for the living. Next Condi pulled a lump of coal from out of her pocket, then crushed it in her fist so hard that when she opened her hand there was a diamond there—all just to show how bad-ass she was. She tossed it carelessly over her shoulder. (Like a lizard snapping at a mosquito, a maimed David Gest snatched it.)

  Laurie was impressed. The two eyed each other with cool suspicion as Condi drew nearer. It looked like Condi just might save us, but we were still on edge.

  “You’re gonna kill us all!” screamed an unhinged Ernest Borgnine. Condi knocked him out with the back of her hand.

  “She’s going to need enforcements,” said General Eric Shinseki, shaking his head.

  “Keep it lean, keep it mean, Condi,” countered Donald Rumsfeld.

  “You break it, you fix it,” piped in Colin Powell. “Pottery Barn rules.”

  “Pardon me, Secretary, but that’s not Pottery Barn policy,” corrected Pottery Barn CEO Howard Lester from underneath Donald Trump’s lifeless body.

  Condi heard nothing. She’d come face to face with Laurie. The moment was at hand.

  The smallest of smiles played across Laurie’s face as a pair of wraparound sunglasses morphed onto her face and a trenchcoat onto her body. Condi, not to be outdone, snapped her fingers, and Paul Wolfowitz threw her an identical ensemble.

  Condi leaped into the air and hung there, it seemed, in slow motion, arms outstretched, until one leg snapped forward and connected with Laurie’s chin. Then everything lurched back into real time as Condi pummeled her so furiously her hands were a blur.

  “It’s a slam dunk!” shouted former CIA chief George Tenet, jumping up and down and waving his arms.

  But Laurie regained her footing and bolted away from Condi, actually running up and along the wall, executing a perfect double back flip and straddling Condi from behind. Condi grabbed for the nearest weapon, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and began mercilessly thrashing him against Laurie—but to no avail. Crushed in the vise-like grip of Laurie’s thighs, Condi began sputtering, her fluent bureaucratese now faltering: “In the context of the offending structural impediment only one actionable conclusion can be ascertained . . . Richard Clarke . . . is one major . . . mofo,” before quietly surrendering.

  Laurie, her eyes flickering with an eerie calm, would now likely finish the rest of us off.

  “Where the hell are you, Helen?” I said.

  Then up above from out of the smoke Helen came soaring. She was still alive! And she was heading straight toward Wolf, who was still knocked out, sprawled inside the chandelier—which just happened to hang directly over Laurie, who was continuing to wage her campaign of terror.

  It was immediately clear what Helen was trying to do. She started pecking away at the cable connecting the chandelier to the ceiling. Wolf was coming to when Helen gnawed the very last connective tendril of cable.

  Laurie had just sent a set of steak knives flying toward Chris Matthews when the chandelier came loose. She looked up but didn’t have a second to stop the chandelier from crashing down on her.

  Helen swooped down and pulled out Wolf before the sound of a massive electrocution started. Laurie was sparking and smoking like a trunk of firecrackers set on fire. It was a spectacular short-circuiting as Laurie’s systems went totally haywire:

  “Fair and balanced . . . Welcome to The Dig Story . . . fair and balanced . . . stay tuned for The O’Reilly Factor . . . I’m Laurie Dhue . . . More news at the bottom of the hour . . . the network that America trusts . . . let’s turn it over to Oliver North . . .”

  Then it stopped. The violence was over.

  Only the cries of the injured and dying continued—along to the sweet strains of Mandy Moore’s spontaneous cover of “There’s Got to Be a Morning After.”

  CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta was doing all he could to minister to the wounded. (Those at the Christian Science Monitor table politely refused treatment.)

  “—eeeeeeeeeeeet,” finished screaming Dick Morris. Out of breath, he simply whimpered.

  His bald head beaded with sweat, James Carville just muttered. “The horror. The horror.”

  I hobbled to Helen’s side. “Are you okay, Helen?”

  “Don’t worry about me, darling,” she said, choking on the fumes. “What happened to Barney?” The dais was shrouded in smoke. For all we knew there were no survivors up there. The podium was only barely visible.

  Then like the American flag at Fort McHenry, one tiny paw reached up from behind it. Then another. Then small though it was, the head of a proud Scottie rose up and began speaking into the microphone, which was miraculously still working!

  “I speak to you tonight, not as a Republican, not as a Democrat, but as a Pet,” he began resonantly, with only the slightest hint of his ancestors’ burr. “A Presidential Pet who was proud to answer the call to serve his great country, a country founded on the wisdom of the pets who came before. But sadly, I have not been able to serve my country . . .”

  My heart was racing and I put my arm around Helen. This was the moment we’d all been waiting for. Barney continued:

  “The astonishing tale I will tell is one that I hope will inspire a new birth of freedom.” He paused. “But damn if I’m going to tell it for free to a room full of dead people. ICM, if you’re out there, you know where to call.”

  Barney padded off stage, chased after by a limping Ron Suskind waving a blackened business card.

  Once again the room fell eerily silent, until the double doors flew open and a young woman in an Eskimo coat and Ugg boots strode in and dropped her suitcases. “Am I late?” chirped Ashleigh Banfield, all smiles before taking in the devastation before her.

  29

  In Which Everything Ends Happily for Everyone Except the Several Dozen Casualties in Chapter 28

  Needless to say, the carnage at the Hilton was replayed ad nauseam. In the end, everyone won out.

  CNN and MSNBC both saw big spikes in their ratings. More important, their reporters were reenergized after learning all they’d been missing. They stood together and forced the administration to become much more open—no more background briefings, no more ignoring reporters’ phone calls, no more dropping bad news on Friday in the hopes it wouldn’t get coverage, no more threats against Barney.

  President Bush, it turned out, was unharmed. Seconds after the melee had begun, he’d been whisked off to a bunker in Nebraska. Later, when he heard about Barney speaking, he was genuinely surprised. “All those times I heard that voice, I thought it was Jesus talkin’ to me.” He vowed to make both himself and Barney available for regular press conferences—so long as they could appear jointly and he be allowed to continue using stupid nicknames for reporters.

  The secret note in the press secretary’s vest, it turned out, had the message “Muzzle him” written on it, presumably in reference to the First Pet—fairly uninspired in comparison with everyt
hing else that had gone on. Scott was only too happy to be rid of Gephardt the Albino. “He kind of freaked me out,” he admitted.

  Eric Sorenson got promoted to NBC’s executive offices and immediately offered me my own show. I demurred, choosing to take some time out to recover from the wound left by a salad fork driven into my side. (After a quick rehab and a few simple skin grafts, Joe Scarborough took the slot.)

  One interesting byproduct: Ashleigh Banfield got rehired by NBC. The network was now severely understaffed so her timing had been perfect.

  Fox News, already the cable news ratings leader, saw the biggest boost in their numbers. Laurie’s display of telekinetic pyrotechnic terror was all caught on tape and repeated more than the Howard Dean scream speech. Suddenly the coveted young male viewers who’d mysteriously stopped watching television the season before returned en masse to Fox News. “She’s hot and she kills people,” explained one teen.

  At great expense the network chose to rebuild Laurie. It was worth every penny. In the meantime they used a sample of her cyborg DNA to clone a more modestly lipped duplicate, code name Paige Hopkins.

  As for Helen, her fears of going to jail for the murder of Zachary Taylor proved unfounded. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, another Hilton massacre survivor, informed her that the statute of limitations on the murder of that President had already passed.

  Helen was a free woman and the toast of the town. She received a Peabody, a Polk, a People’s Choice, and she got to host TRL.

  But the greatest honor was the one bestowed by the Turkey Vulture Society. We arrived at their awards ceremony in the new stretch Prius. I held Helen’s claw as her name was called. When Helen made her way onto the stage, she was overwhelmed.

  “This moment is so much bigger than me. This is for Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and the California condor,” she said, waving her statuette. “A door has been opened!”