When I arrived at the office this morning, I barely had time to take the plastic lid off my Juan Valdez mocha cappuccino before my private secretary let me know that Chelsea Clinton was on Line One:
Tom: Good morning, this is Tom Collins.
Chelsea: Hi, Tom, this is Chelsea Clinton.
Tom: So I was told. It’s been quite a while since we’ve chatted, hasn’t it?
Chelsea: Years, I guess.
Tom: I suppose that’s to be expected; someone like you has a pretty hectic life, I would imagine.
Chelsea: Well, duh – I’m like the daughter of a former President and my mother is running for President and she’s a senator from New York, and I work for Avenue Capital, one of the world’s biggest hedge funds, you know.
Tom: Of course. But didn’t you enroll as a pre-med chemistry major at Stanford?
Chelsea: Yeah, I did, ‘cause I figured that being a doctor would be, like, so off the hook, you know?
Tom: What lead you to that conclusion?
Chelsea: Uh, I used to watch that show, “ER” a lot. But then I found out you need to be good at math and stuff to pass chemistry courses…
Tom: That does come as a surprise to a lot of pre-med students, I know.
Chelsea: Yeah, and [deleted] the professors doesn’t work. They just let you [deleted] them and then they give you the same grade you would have gotten anyway. But when I switched my major to history, getting straight A’s was easy.
Tom: And your postgraduate study of International Relations at Oxford was similar, I presume?
Chelsea: It was okay, but I wish Dad hadn’t forgotten to warn me about Oxford professors.
Tom: What about them?
Chelsea: Well, Oxford is, like, in England, you know, and most of them are like, uh, sort of gay, I guess is what they are.
Tom: So it was tougher for you to get good grades?
Chelsea: Oh, I still got them to give me good grades, but it was way tougher to sit through long lectures than it was at Stanford.
Tom: In any case, though, congratulations on finishing grad school and getting a good job!
Chelsea: Thanks, Mr. Collins.
Tom: So to what do I owe the honor of this phone call?
Chelsea: Did you hear that I took a leave of absence?
Tom: Seems to me I did hear that, yes. Why?
Chelsea: To tell the truth, Mr. Collins, after all that [deleted] I did to get through Stanford and Oxford, I kind of thought that McKinsey & Company would give me something important or meaningful to do, but I found out right away that all they wanted me for was to trot me around like a show pony or something all the time and use me as a way for their clients to buy access to my Mom and Dad. So I quit and went to work for Avenue Capital ‘cause, like, my Dad’s friend Marc Lasry runs it…
Tom: And how did your education in history and international relations serve you in the world of hedge fund management?
Chelsea: Uh, hedge fund management turned out to be a lot like chemistry.
Tom: Heavy on the math?
Chelsea: I donno, it sure sounds like that when I listen to Marc and his portfolio managers talk.
Tom: And what did you do at Avenue Capital?
Chelsea: You won’t tell anybody else, will you, Mr. Collins?
Tom: Absolutely not. My lips are sealed, as they say.
Chelsea: They gave me a window office and a six-figure salary, but I just sat there, day after day, doing nothing.
Tom: Gee, sounds like excellent experience for a future position as a GS-15 in the United States Civil Service.
Chelsea: Really?
Tom: Sure.
Chelsea: What’s a GS-15 make?
Tom: As of January, 2008, a GS-15 Step 10 can make up to $149,000 a year.
Chelsea: Is that all? Screw it, then – I wouldn’t [deleted] in the ground for that kind of chump change.
Tom: Easily understood, no doubt about it. What do you figure Avenue Capital wanted you for?
Chelsea: It was like I was some kind of insurance, I guess.
Tom: Seems to me that I heard something about Avenue Capital having a few financial setbacks lately…
Chelsea: Right, and when Mom gets elected President, she can pardon people, just like my Dad did. Marc’s given Mom and Dad a [deleted] load of money, you know.
Tom: Yes, I’d heard that, too. So you find campaigning for your mother more rewarding than hanging around a plush office on Madison Avenue with nothing to do?
Chelsea: At little bit, yeah. Not much. A lot of it basically sucks, you know? My Mom sends me around to these schools, mostly, so she can get the youth vote, you know? And I have to answer questions, which is why I decided to call you, ‘cause everybody knows you’re like, the smartest guy in Washington.
Tom: Aw shucks, you’re making me blush!
Chelsea: Okay, maybe you’re not that smart, but they say you always have good ideas, anyway.
Tom: Thanks, Chelsea. So you’ve had some problems with your college tour, then?
Chelsea: Yeah, some of those little snots are a real nuisance, know what I mean? Like, the other night I’m at this totally jerkwater school… what was it… valet… no… gardener… nah…
Tom: “Butler?”
Chelsea: Yeah, yeah, that’s it – Butler College or Butler University or something – out in Flyover, you know, in Illinois or Iowa or something.
Tom: I think it’s Indiana.
Chelsea: Really? I can’t tell the difference with those corn-fed yokel states. So anyway, this totally pathetic dweeb asks me if my Dad’s, uh, you know, thing, with Monica Lewinsky messed up my Mom’s credibility. So I’m like “Wow, you’re the first person actually that’s ever asked me that question in the, I don’t know maybe, 70 college campuses I’ve now been to, and I do not think that is any of your business.”
Tom: Chelsea, I’ll level with you – if you’re going to go out and meet the American voters, stumping for your Mom’s election to the presidency, then it can’t be like it was before, when you were essentially a private citizen who just happened to be the daughter of a former United States president and a senator from New York. When you chose to pick up that microphone in an academic auditorium, in front of a crowd of pathetic, pimply undergraduate dweebs attending some third-rate cow college way out in the Godforsaken sticks and say “Vote for my Mom,” you automatically become not only an extension of your mother’s presidential campaign, but also a public figure in your own right.
Chelsea: Really?
Tom: I’m afraid so. And as a public figure who represents the Hillary Clinton campaign, the people have a right to ask you questions like that.
Chelsea: So I can’t just, like, say “Nanny-nanny-poo-poo, none of your beeswax,” or “I know you are, but what am I?”
Tom: Nope. You have to respond to questions like that, or you will do your mother’s campaign more harm than good.
Chelsea: But Mr. Collins, this could be like an iceberg or something.
Tom: You mean, that fellow’s question is just the tip of the iceberg?
Chelsea: Yeah, an iceberg tip, and I could be up for a whole big bunch of questions like that.
Tom: “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
Chelsea: What the [deleted]? I’ve never cooked anything in my entire life!
Tom: No, no – that’s what Harry Truman said about politics. It’s a metaphor. Participating in American politics is like working in a hot kitchen – there are unavoidable consequences to running for office, and taking some “heat” from sniveling, wet-behind-the-ears undergraduates is what you’ll have to withstand if you want to be a true asset to your mother’s campaign.
Chelsea: So what should I have done with that guy?
Tom: The key concept is that you have to “respond” to questions – not necessarily answer them. You have to say something that sounds like an answer, whether it actually is an answer or not. In this case, by all means, you should not have actually answered that little twerp’s question. A real answer, such as “Yes, I think it’s obvious that my mother knew things that she did not admit publicly about the affair, and therefore any reasonable person would conclude that the act of having withheld such information could legitimately impugn her credibility,” or “No, I am absolutely certain that my Dad kept my Mom completely in the dark about everything, even after his affair with a White House intern had become public and it was obvious that he had lied to a grand jury about his conduct; and, in fact, I believe she knew less about what was going on than Kenneth Starr,” is highly counterproductive. You see, Chelsea, neither of those responses would be acceptable because they are, in fact, real answers to a sincerely asked question that the questioner, the viewers and the media all recognize as a legitimate thing to ask the Clintons’ daughter, should she decide to campaign on her mother’s behalf.
Chelsea: So, like, what should I have said, then?
Tom: You know, it’s a bit surprising, no doubt about it, that Bill and Hillary’s daughter doesn’t have this kind of talent right down in her DNA. I’m absolutely certain that your Mom or your Dad could provide you with an even better example than mine, but anyway, a good response to that question would be something like, “There are two sides to every coin, and I believe this campaign should focus on issues that matter, and with that said, let me state for the record that my mother is the most honest, forthright and credible person I know.”
Chelsea: But… like, you didn’t really say anything, except a load of bull [deleted] that nobody could ever, like, you know, check out to see if it was really true or whatever.
Tom: Exactly. I know your mother is probably too busy right now, but couldn’t you ask your Dad to coach you a bit on how to handle questions?
Chelsea: Yeah, I guess I could, but, like for the last eight or nine years, whenever we get together to work on something, he’s always asking me about my friends, trying to get them to come along with us, or have me give him their phone numbers and stuff. It’s kind of creepy, actually. That’s one of the reasons I called you instead, because, like, you know, you’re not a dirty old man or a perv or anything and my Dad, sometimes, I’m just not comfortable about him up in that stuff, you know?
Tom: I understand. Tell you what – are you near a personal computer?
Chelsea: I have a laptop right here.
Tom: Great. Okay, start your Web browser…
Chelsea: What?
Tom: Oh, sorry. Click on the Microsoft Internet Explorer icon.
Chelsea: Well, why didn’t you say so? “Web browser” – what the hell is that?
Tom: Never mind. Is Internet Explorer running?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tom: Okay, now, go to Google videos…
Chelsea: Look, Mr. Collins, Bill Gates gave Mom and Dad a whole lot of money. Why don’t we use Microsoft Live Search instead?
Tom: Because Google is, like, an order of magnitude better?
Chelsea: What’s an order of magnitude?
Tom: Trust me on this one, all right?
Chelsea: I guess.
Tom: Type in http://www.google.com.
Chelsea: Where?
Tom: In the Open dialog box.
Chelsea: What’s a dialog box?
Tom: Go to File…
Chelsea: Go to File?
Tom: Yeah, move the cursor…
Chelsea: What’s a cursor?
Tom: The little arrow thingy.
Chelsea: Oh, that.
Tom: Yeah, move the little arrow thingy up to where it says File.
Chelsea: Okay.
Tom: Good. Now click once on “File.” A drop-down menu appears…
Chelsea: I see it.
Tom: Fine. Then, second entry down on that menu, it says “Open.”
Chelsea: Okay.
Tom: So, move the little arrow thingy down to that menu entry and click once.
Chelsea: Oh, my God! There’s this other… square thingy…
Tom: Yeah – that’s a dialog box. Now, click on the white space inside the dialog box, then type http://www.google.com and click on “OK.”
Chelsea: It says “MS Live Search, we did not find any results… Related searches… is this useful? Double Dot Colon Cleanser. Pepsi Double Dot Logo.
Tom: I see. Okay, set it up and try it again.
Chelsea: Set up what?
Tom: Go to File, click on Open…
Chelsea: Oh, oh, yeah, sure. Okay, that box is there again.
Tom: Good. Now, what I want you to do is, type it in with me, one key at a time, okay? The first character is an “h.”
Chelsea: “H.” Is that upper case or lower case?
Tom: Uniform resource locator names are case insensitive.
Chelsea: Huh?
Tom: Don’t worry, it doesn’t matter. Next character – “t.”
Chelsea: Okay.
Tom: Next character – “t.”
Chelsea: Okay.
Tom: Next character – “p.”
Chelsea: Okay.
Tom: Good. Now type in a colon.
Chelsea: Huh?
Tom: The colon character. It’s above the semicolon, between the “L” key and the key with the single and double quote characters on it. You’ll have to hit the Shift key concurrently to get it.
Chelsea: You mean, the next thing I’m supposed to type isn’t a “c?”
Tom: Okay. Tell me what you typed into the Open dialog box a couple of minutes ago, going one letter at a time.
Chelsea: Sure. “h-t-t-p c-o-l-o-n s-l-a-s-h s-l-a-s-h w-w-w d-o-t g-o-o-g-l-e d-o-t c-o-m,” just like you said.
Tom: Right. So, you have MS Live Search, I presume?
Chelsea: Yeah.
Tom: Good. You know what the Back Arrow is?
Chelsea: Of course I know what the Back Arrow is, what do you think I am, [deleted] stupid or something?
Tom: Of course not. Click on the Back Arrow to return to the MS Live Search main window.
Chelsea: All right.
Tom: Click where it says “Video.”
Chelsea: It says “Video search helps you find and watch the latest video clips from across the Web.”
Tom: Excellent. Now click on the white space and type in your Mom’s name. Then click where it says “Search Videos.”
Chelsea: I see lots of little pictures of Mom.
Tom: Good – those are video clips. Hmm… let’s see… all right, here’s a good one “Hillary Clinton Post Super Tuesday Press Conference.” Click on that one.
Chelsea: It says something about the application is not responding, do I want to send Microsoft an error report?
Tom: Right. When was the last time you swept your Windows laptop for viruses, ad-ware and Trojans?
Chelsea: I’m sorry Mr. Collins, but the only Trojans I know about are the ones in my purse. And it’s not Windows, either, it’s Vista.
Tom: I understand. Re-boot your laptop.
Chelsea: Do what?
Tom: Never mind. I’m going to put this video’s audio track on the telephone line, and you listen along with me, okay?
Chelsea: Sure.
[Eight minutes and forty-six seconds elapse.]
Tom: Okay, let’s take a look at how your mother answered those reporters’ questions. First, somebody asked her about the five million dollars…
Chelsea: Oh [deleted]! How did you find out about that?
Tom: No, no, I mean the five million dollars your mother loaned to her campaign.
Chelsea: She did?
Tom: It was in the video sound track we just heard.
Chelsea: I had to step away for a minute – somebody sent me a text message…
Tom: Be that as it may, then, suffice it to say that somebody asked her about the loan, and she just flat out admitted it. You see, Chelsea, when whatever the question is about has become common knowledge, even if that was only four hours ago, your mother knew what to do – admit it. But notice that she made that admission pay off by immediately following up with an excellent spin statement about how competitive her campaign is. Then, two reporters begin talking at once – one of them asks how much more of her own money she would be willing to invest in her campaign. Notice that guy was loud and clear. Then, there’s another reporter, sort of mumbling a second question in the background about the status of negotiations between her campaign and Barack Obama’s. So, does your mother answer the loud, clear question that’s obviously loaded to blow up in her face, or does she answer the mumbling imbecile? You see? As Spiro Agnew might have put it, nolo contendere!
Chelsea: Spiro who?
Tom: Never mind, just look what your mother does in that situation – she latches on to the mumbled, stupid question like somebody threw her a life preserver, and forges right ahead proclaiming complete ignorance of any such negotiations. Think about it – people listening to the press conference will be completely confused – “I don’t know anything about it,” she says, answering the question nobody listening at home could possibly hear, creating the impression that she’s answering the question about further injections of her own money into her own campaign, then follows that up with “I am on the path to win the nomination, that’s what I’m going to do, that’s what this is about.” You see? It’s brilliant! Then the guy who asked about her intentions to give her campaign more of her own money asks that question again, and she ignores him a second time, pretending that her next question is one some other guy asked, which is, since you haven’t wrapped things up as you expected by now, what are your plans for the “Potomac Primary?” And what does she say? “Obviously, when you are in a contest, you want to have a result sooner instead of later, but I think that this is fairly predictable, that we are down now to two candidates. Both of us have run very vigorous campaigns…” and blah, blah, blah. You recall that?
Chelsea: Yeah, it went on for a long time.
Tom: Right. Over a minute. She spends over a minute stating the obvious, providing no additional new information. And then what happens? The reporters start eating it up like free hot dogs, asking her more questions she can respond to with repeated statements of the obvious, such as she’s “excited about competing,” and there are two states plus the District of Columbia involved in the next primary, and everybody in her organization is “taking stock” and “working hard” and “we have good organizations,” and it’s going to be “a mad dash to Tuesday,” all “full speed ahead,” and so forth, re-hashing recent history in detail, shrewdly eating up time during which more awkward questions could be asked. Then the reporter who asked the question about spending her own money on her campaign asks it again, very loud and very clear, while another reporter mumbles a question asking which states she considers important, and once more, she ignores the tough question she doesn’t want to answer and goes for the easy one, first stating the obvious again in excruciating detail, naming the states with lots of delegates: New York, Texas, Ohio, California, New Jersey, blah, blah, blah… then winding up by telling the world that “every state is important,” followed by a recap of recent political history in Maryland and Virginia, then digressing to the “Washington and Lee” primary, all the while burning up more time that reporters could have used to ask her more embarrassing questions she doesn’t want to answer. Then she gets a sticky question about her former position on the WalMart board, and why doesn’t she talk about that when she campaigns? So what does she do? She digresses, going back to discuss her 35 years of experience as a corporate lawyer, and tells us that she’s pleased to talk with anyone about her experiences, and how she intends to put “all of what I have done” into her presidency. Then she gets a question about the gender gap. But is that her problem? No way! She tells us that “Democrats in general” have a gender gap problem, and declares that “the states that we have to win are the ones I will be doing very well in.”
Chelsea: So, I should, like, ignore questions I don’t want to answer?
Tom: Well, you can’t just do that flat out if nobody else is asking anything else at all – but if even just one other person is asking something different, yeah, you can, and, like your mother did, you should, too.
Chelsea: And I should burn up question time by giving long, rambling answers that state the obvious and re-hash recent history?
Tom: Nice work. It looks like you’re catching on. Tell you what – you spend some time watching how your mother handles tricky questions, and I bet that, inside a week, there won’t be a dweeb on any college campus in America you can’t take.
Chelsea: Spend time? How much time?
Tom: Ten, fifteen hours, maybe.
Chelsea: Ten or fifteen hours? Sounds like a lot of work. Can’t you find somebody to hire that can take care of this for me?
Tom: I’m sorry, but it’s not possible to hire another person to acquire a skill that you, yourself, need to possess and display in public.
Chelsea: It’s not?
Tom: Unfortunately, no.
Chelsea: Well, why the [deleted] isn’t it, God damn it all?
Tom: Ask your parents.
Chelsea: [deleted] [deleted] [deleted]!
Tom: No, seriously – ask your parents, and if you aren’t satisfied with what they tell you, then by all means, call me back and I promise you a full and satisfactory explanation.
Chelsea: [deleted]!
Tom: Land of Goshen! Do you kiss your momma and pappy with that mouth, young lady?
Chelsea: [deleted]!
Tom: Come on, now, I know you don’t mean that.
Chelsea: No, no, I’m sorry, Mr. Collins. It’s… it’s just that being an adult sucks, and it sucks way more than I ever expected it would. You gotta think all the time and make decisions and be responsible and [deleted], and I thought feminism took care of all that stuff, you know? I never suspected I’d have to like, actually use anything in those courses I [deleted] my way through in college and graduate school, or do anything but, like, you know, be a way for rich people to get to my parents for, like a big fee or something. Now Mom and Dad are demanding that I go out and campaign for Mom, and I’m like, all nervous and scared and stuff and I don’t know what to do. I’ve never really put in fifteen hours of work on anything in my entire life, Mr. Collins. I never had to – my father was president of the United States; my mother was a senator. I’m so frightened that I’ll go out there again and say something stupid and maybe even wreck my own mother’s presidential campaign. Oh, Mr. Collins, I’m so upset and confused!
Tom: Hey, so are about seventy million members of the Democratic party. And you know what they say, don’t you?
Chelsea: What?
Tom: Misery loves company. Oh, boy, my nine o’clock client appointment is here – and you think you’ve got problems? He’s a member of the Chinese Olympic Committee. And, oh yeah, by the way, he’s paying for my time, too. Ciao.