Admit The Horse

by P. G. Abeles

  A self-identified conservative with a popular syndicated column claimed not to understand what all the blather was about. After all, she pointed out, most of the discussions were pretty banal. She argued that the journalists were engaged in private conversation and deserved not to be “outed.” Commentators on the left praised her for her practical impartiality, while commentators on the right remembered that she had been one of McCracken’s most virulent critics during the primaries—at one point devoting almost an entire article to describing McCracken as a “soul-less cyborg.” Both sides politely refrained from mentioning that her defense of her colleagues was not entirely selfless: she was, herself, a member of JournoList.

  As the furor raged and the ethics of the group were argued (at least inside the Beltway), the founder of JournoList publicly pulled the plug on the google group. But not before many of its members had found a new home on google groups, which they named ( in what must have been intended as a poke-in-the-eye of their critics) “Cabalist.” By July, they had 197 members.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Washington, DC

  ADELITA BOUCHARD STRUGGLED WITH THE BABY on one hip and a bag of groceries on the other. It had been a discouraging few weeks. She had given her information to Congressional investigators, but despite promises to the contrary, the leading Democratic member had just announced there was simply not enough evidence of wrongdoing on the part of SEED to justify the expense of Congressional hearings. Meanwhile, she’d been pilloried all over the internet by idolatrous Okono supporters, who claimed (without any evidence) that she was a front for some revanchist Republican plot to de-legitimize Okono. A few months ago, she would still have been sufficiently idealistic to be shocked by this. Now she wasn’t even surprised. After she strapped the baby into her car seat, she opened the rear hatch and put the rest of the grocery bags in the back. She noticed a rumpled looking white guy approaching her from across the parking lot.

  “Adelita Bouchard?”

  “Yes?”

  The man handed her an envelope. “You’ve been served,” he said, and he walked away. With real trepidation, she opened the envelope. Power Vote was suing her for $5 million.

  Five days later, her lawyer informed her that SEED had quietly filed the papers to legally change its name to Neighborhoods International for Community Empowerment or ‘NICE’. Hardly anyone in the media reported it.

  “Nice, indeed,” thought Adelita with disgust.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  September, 2010

  Medford, Oregon

  IT WAS WONDERFUL TO SEE CONNOR AGAIN. Lacey had called him when she’d found out she was coming to town. While it was a long drive from his house bordering the state park, he was used to making the trip, and he’d happily agreed to meet her. She was in town for a book signing of her children’s book, which was rapidly becoming a bestseller. When Lacey spotted Connor across the store, she rushed up and gave him a big hug. Same old Lacey

  Connor thought, pleased. She excused herself from the hatchet-faced agent from the publishing house and grabbed her handbag.

  “I’m allowed an hour,” she said under her breath, with a friendly wave to the sullen agent waiting at the book-signing table, who was obviously displeased at her break for freedom. “Is there someplace we can go and grab some lunch? I’m starving.” He steered her to a cute eatery down the street where they grabbed one of the tables outside. As they waited for their salads, they sipped iced tea.

  Connor couldn’t resist teasing her. “So, it seems like they keep you on a pretty short leash.” Lacey laughed with a big smile:

  “They do. He does,” she said “But in fairness to him, it’s his responsibility to keep the schedule, and he’s the one that gets yelled at if we’re late to the next appearance. I, on the other hand, have no responsibilities whatsoever.”

  “Sure,” Connor said, teasingly. “You’re just the talent.”

  Lacey snurfed her drink. “Well, I guess I’ve been called worse.”

  “So, you enjoy it…the traveling and all?” he asked skeptically. Connor enjoyed his freedom too much to relish having a sour-faced handler. Lacey shrugged and smiled.

  “Sure. Honestly, it’s not much. After all, it’s just a little book.” Lacey put her fingers together an inch a part. “I’m grateful they’re promoting it. My agent says they don’t really do many book tours any more. I know I got really lucky. Did I tell you that I got a silent auction donation request for a signed book from some yeshiva in Brooklyn?”

  “No.”

  “Signed by the chair of the auction,” Lacey paused for dramatic effect, “Mrs. Josh Stein.” Lacey laughed.

  “You’re kidding me,” said Connor, shaking his head, disgusted. “That was ballsy. I hope you sent her away with a flea in her ear.” Lacey looked sheepish.

  Connor looked up quickly. “Lacey! You didn’t? You didn’t send that little shit a book?”

  Lacey covered her face with her hand, ashamed. “I did. I sent it. I know. I know. I’m just no good at being mean to people, Connor,” Lacey finished apologetically.

  “Lacey. That’s so lame. The guy tried to destroy you.”

  “I know. I know. But the kids at the school looked so nice.”

  Connor started to laugh, shaking his head. Lacey started laughing, too.

  Lacey continued. “It still seems strange how it all happened. I mean, I’m not sure if I would have tried writing if I weren’t really out of employment options. But it’s really worked out.”

  It was a beautiful autumn day. Downtown bustled around them, people rushed by. Lacey looked around the crowded outdoor mall. “This is a great town. I didn’t know you got this much sun in Oregon.”

  “This is Rogue Valley, it’s the driest and sunniest part of the state.”

  Lacey eyed him, kiddingly. “I guess I should have known you’d need that for your greenhouse.” Connor was always trying to persuade Lacey she needed to grow her own vegetables. Connor started to his defense when she held up both hands in mock surrender.

  “Connor, it will please you to know, that following your suggestion, we have added a greenhouse lean-to to the new house.”

  “You need to get a few chickens, too,” Connor said earnestly. He never gave up. Lacey laughed. “Let’s see if I can keep the tomatoes alive, first.”

  The waiter came by and refilled their iced teas.

  Lacey looked at Connor appraisingly. He looked just the same. “So how are you?” she asked.

  ‘I’m great. I told you, I think, I met a nice gal…”

  “Sue, right?”

  “You’ve got a good memory. And we enjoy the same kind of things. It’s an easy trip to wine country for a long weekend. And of course, Crater Lake’s really close and we like to get out there and hike.”

  “And you just got back from Italy?” Lacey asked. Connor smiled.

  “Great trip. Have you ever been?” Lacey nodded.

  “It was my first time. I loved it. I can’t wait to go back.”

  Lacey smiled, pleased.“So, you’re doing alright?” she asked.

  Connor made a face and shrugged. “Naw. I mean, my stocks still aren’t worth shit, but I left them in, like you told me…”

  “Good man,” said Lacey. They both laughed.

  Connor continued. “And I’ve got my pension. But this economy is tough. But, you know, like everybody else these days, I keep it simple, don’t spend much.”

  “How about you guys? How’s Daniel doing?” Daniel was Lacey’s husband.

  Lacey paused. “Actually, he’s renovating houses. It turned out he couldn’t get a real job, either…” Lacey laughed. “But he really enjoys choosing the properties. He’s been pretty successful.”

  Connor shook is head. “I never understood how people do that.”

  Lacey shrugged. “Well, he’s still an accountant at heart, so he approaches it like a math problem. You buy the property for x—the neighborhood median is y, so you can spend z. Of course, in this e
conomy, not much is selling, so the margins are a lot tighter…but he’s making it work, renting the places he can’t sell.” She paused, as if considering whether she should say more. She added thoughtfully.

  “The IRS are going after Daniel for some work he did for his old company…”

  Connor looked appalled. “Oh, shit.”

  Lacey smiled tightly, grateful for his concern.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing. You know, Daniel’s a straight arrow…”

  “The straightest,” Connor interjected.

  “I’m sure it’ll get resolved before long.” She smiled brightly, determined to put him at ease. “Please don’t worry about us. Everything’s going well.”

  Connor was happy for her, happy for them both. He knew she’d end up on her feet. Lacey was tougher than she looked.

  “I’m glad, Lacey. I’m really glad.”

  The waiter served their salads. “Do you keep in touch with the McCracken people?” Connor asked.

  “Sure,” she replied. “All of them. Betty Jo’s revolutionizing the Ohio real estate market.” They both laughed.

  “I love Betty Jo,” Connor said.

  “Yeah, she’s pretty unstoppable,” agreed Lacey. “I’m not sure those Republicans in Ohio have recovered yet.” She smiled ruefully. “But maybe if they’d listened to her, Malloy might have won Ohio.”

  “Did you ever figure out how to email each other?” Connor asked. When the email networks were disrupted, he’d served as a go between to Betty Jo and Lacey.

  “Wow.” Lacey put down her fork. “Did I never tell you this?”

  Connor, munching his salad, shook his head, “No, what?”

  “Have you ever heard of ICANN?”

  Connor shook his head ‘no.’

  Lacey continued. “My husband told me about them.” Lacey’s husband Daniel was a computer guy.

  “Basically they’re a non-profit, under contract to the Department of Commerce. They monitor ISP addresses—all

  the big ones — .net, .com, .org. and they actively work to prevent spam.”

  “Okay. Sounds good. I hate spam. I like all my anatomical parts just as they are,” Connor answered.

  Lacey sipped her iced tea. “Good to know. Anyway, under ICANN’s direction, various different servers started ‘Blacklists’ called DNSBL’s that list the IP addresses of known spammers and share them with all the major mail servers to reject their messages.”

  Connor wiped his mouth. “So far so good.”

  Lacey continued. “But there’s almost no verification. If the DNSBL receives notice that someone received spam from an email—they immediately block it. Some of the blocks automatically expire after 30 days. Some of them never expire until they receive a complaint. And, of course, they never notify the sender that they’ve been placed on the list.”

  “So, how does someone find out if their email is on the list of suspected spammers?”

  “I had a friend send an inquiry about my email address to about 25 of the biggest DNSBL’s”

  “And…?”

  “I was blocked, of course.”

  Connor exploded. “No!”

  “Yup. Know when I was blocked?”

  “When?”

  “Three days before the conference call with Malloy.”

  Connor supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at the perfidiousness of the Okono-ites. Somehow he still was. But there had been a few rats in the McCracken camp, as well. They were both silent for a few minutes, concentrating on their salads. Finally he asked:

  “So what do you think, was Danny Englund for real?”

  Lacey looked sad. “I wish I knew. He was a pretty dopey guy. Was he smart enough to come to us on his own? Were they stupid enough to send him? I don’t know. Maybe. The word is that he was a total flake, a freelancer. But that’s what the McCracken campaign would sort of have to say now anyway.”

  They both paused to eat their salads. “You know, Max asked me to run a campaign?”

  “Yeah? I’m not surprised. You’d be great, Lacey.”

  “I thought about it,” she shrugged, embarrassed. Then she laughed. “…for about ten minutes. But then I realized it would never work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Hard to explain. But I guess…for me, everything’s

  changed now. How can I stand shoulder-to-shoulder with SEED and the Service Workers Union when I saw what they

  did during the campaign? I mean before—” she shrugged, “greedy corporations, Republicans…” she laughed. “Well, good

  Democrats are conditioned to think it’s okay to go after them with somewhat questionable tactics because they’re bad people.”

  “Sure. Eat or be eaten,” Connor said with asperity.

  “Well, all I know is, it suddenly looked a lot different when fellow Democrats were on the receiving end…When I was on the receiving end, I guess,” she admitted sheepishly.

  “And it wasn’t just the Okono brown shirts, it was the press, too. I grew up revering the New York Times. I really believed if the Times printed it, it was true. I thought if there was fraud or wrongdoing, and they found out about it, they had real integrity, they’d take it to the mat. Truth to power, and all that. But we gave it to them—the illegal campaign contributions, the ties to the Nigerian warlord, the Joey Ali stuff. God knows what else…And they buried it.”

  “Maybe they thought it was bad info?” Connor suggested.

  “They could have looked into it themselves. We didn’t expect them to take our word for it. But it was more that that…”

  “Yeah, what?”

  “You know, when I was doing opposition research on Okono I came across this Newsweek article “Inside Okono’s Dream Machine” all about the ”respectful tone” he took toward his opponents and his high-minded themes of hope and change, and how maybe he was too earnest and naïve to survive presidential politics.”

  Connor laughed. “So what? That was like mother’s milk to most of the press during the election.”

  “But they talked about his early campaigns. They claimed his refusal to go negative went way back…to running for president of the law review and working with Republicans in the state senate.”

  “So?”

  “But they left out the actual campaigns which Okono ran by getting everyone else disqualified on his first run—and in his later runs by giving the press salacious details about his opponent’s divorce records. Does that sound like ‘refusing to get personal’ or ‘kneecap’ anyone?”

  Connor laughed. “No, that pretty much sounds like the definition of getting personal and kneecapping someone.”

  Lacey continued. Her voice rising slightly as she explained.

  “You’re supposedly writing an article about how he conducts himself in an election—but you don’t cover the election? How does that work? They jumped the timeline from Harvard to working in the state senate. Obviously, they knew about the elections and purposely left it out. And there’s hundreds of examples like that: an early Vanity Fair article that talks about Okono’s early influences but never mentions his ties to The Minister or the crazy church. Even Nicholas Kirov—”

  “Wait. I know that name…?”

  “Right. Big reporter for the New York Times, travels all over the world doing exposés on corruption and malfeasance, especially about the treatment of women and girls.”

  Connor nodded, “Yeah, so, stand-up guy.”

  “Right, stand-up guy. But he conducted an interview early on with Okono where Okono recited the Muslim call to prayer…”

  “Yeah, so—he lived in a Muslim country as a kid.”

  “In perfect Arabic…and Okono talked about going to Muslim classes where he got in trouble for making faces instead of studying.”

  Connor laughed. “C’mon Lacey. So, you’re saying Okono’s a Muslim?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care. The Black Liberation Theology they practice at his church is a kind of hybrid of religions. Maybe that’s what he b
elieves. Maybe he’s a Christian. Maybe he doesn’t believe anything. Personally, I don’t give a shit what religion someone practices, or if they practice any at all. But that’s not my point.”

  Connor smiled. “Okay, so what’s your point?”

  “Okono’s comments were part of the public record. People who do care had a right to know. That article got buried, and the audio was taken off the New York Times website.”

  “Who did that?”

  “Who knows? Maybe hackers, maybe the Times itself. But Kirov knew about it, and certainly his editors knew about it, and when the hoopla erupted, they kept to the party line that anyone who doubted Okono’s strict adherence to Christianity was either a racist or a nut.”

  Connor rubbed his forehead. “I’m not sure I’m following.”

  Lacey sighed. “Suggesting that someone is Muslim because he has a different skin color is a lot different than suggesting he’s Muslim because he tells you himself that he made faces at the other kids when he was studying in Muslim school.”

  “I see your point.”

  Lacey continued. “They didn’t just fail to investigate. They actively covered up any information they thought might be damaging. That feels worse, somehow.”

  Connor paused, thoughtfully.

  “Okay. So screw ‘em. Run a Republican campaign and point out all the press’ inconsistencies…” Connor suggested.

  Lacey laughed.

  “Because the Republicans are sweetness and light? No, learning to distrust the Democrats hasn’t necessarily made me any more trustful of the Republicans. I mean, look at Ohio, just as an example. What a mess. Republicans didn’t want poor people to vote, and Democrats wanted them to vote four times.” Connor laughed out loud.