Prior to taking in The Book of Mormon Sunday evening at the Kennedy Center, Cerise and I enjoyed an early dinner at the Willard Hotel, followed by cocktails at the Round Robin Bar. There we witnessed Bodine and Garcia, Senate staffers for Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and freshman senator Ted Cruz, respectively, engaged in a heated discussion over their drinks.
“Three times!” Garcia bellowed, pounding his fist on the table for emphasis, “just like Peter denying Jesus! Three times your man McConnell denied there was a deal to attach funding for the Export-Import Bank to the Comprehensive Transportation and Consumer Protection Act of 2015 in exchange for their votes last May in favor of Trade Promotion Authority! Three times!”
“That,” Bodine derisively snorted, “is because there wasn’t any God damned deal! And last time I checked, your man Cruz is no Jesus Christ, not by a long shot, no matter what he tells himself when he looks in the mirror sixty-nine times a day!”
“Collins!” Garcia called out as Cerise and I walked by, intent on a table at the other end of the room. “Sit down and listen to the crap Bodine here is spouting! I swear, you can’t make this stuff up!”
Since both of them are regular clients, I complied, figuring that Cerise’s presence would at least keep them from coming to blows. It seems to me that anything I can do to avoid a future fist fight in my reception area is a worthwhile investment of my time, even on a Sunday evening before the theater – Gretchen hates breaking up fights between my clients, after all. Just last week she had to keep a Greek economist from bashing a German finance attaché right in the face after the German made some snide remarks about how Gretchen better making sure the Greek paid his consultation fee in cash up front. And between her early life on an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, where everybody burns between seven and twelve thousand calories a day, and six years of mixed martial arts training, Gretchen’s completely capable of breaking up fights between my clients, believe me. She just hates doing it – mostly because of the broken nails. She spends a lot on her nails.
“Sure,” I jovially responded as Cerise and I occupied the other two seats at the table, “what are you two guys… discussing… with such… outstanding vigor?”
“This [expletive] [expletive],” they both simultaneously blurted out while pointing angry, accusing fingers at one another, “is [expletive] with me!”
Their immediate realization that they had both yelled the same thing at one another stunned them momentarily, giving me the perfect opportunity to interject an attempt at what is known on Capitol Hill as “comity.” It’s a risky strategy in Washington DC these days, but, in my humble opinion, worth a try nonetheless. “I’m sure you’re both exaggerating. Think about where you work – the United States Senate. Isn’t that the body of Congress which Thomas Jefferson described as the saucer into which the hot and intemperate work of the House is poured, in order to cool it with the light of reason and erudition? Isn’t the Senate the Great Forum of Compromise so eloquently described by James Madison in the thirty-ninth Federalist Paper? Come, come now, my friends – you both serve distinguished and dignified members of the United States Senate, do you not? And here we are, in the Round Robin Bar, whose very name bespeaks collegial understanding in the course of debate, for in fact, are we not one for all and all for…”
“This son of a [expletive],” Garcia indignantly interrupted, “works for a lying piece of [expletive]! Why the [expletive] should I [expletive] pretend otherwise? Why should you? Why should [expletive] anybody?”
“Up your [expletive] with broken glass!” Bodine shot back with a resounding yell. “You and your loud-mouthed Cuban Harvard cabana boy [expletive], who grovels and scrapes and sucks Donald Trump’s [expletive] in hopes of getting out of single digits in the Republican presidential opinion polls, wouldn’t know the truth if it came up and bit him on his shriveled, pathetic little pair of [expletive]!”
“Gentlemen,” I cautioned, “this his hardly the way for senior staff serving members of the greatest deliberative and legislative body ever conceived by the mind of man in the seven thousand year history of the human race to behave, even after work, even after weekend work, and certainly not on a Sunday. What issues could possibly drive the pair of you to such ranting, raving, lunatic extremes?”
“The Export-Import Bank!” Garcia spat.
“Obamacare!” Bodine growled.
“Trade Promotion Authority!” Garcia barked. “[Expletive], Collins, you [expletive] know that! Quit being such a [expletive] Pollyanna, okay?”
“Well,” Cerise sighed, “forgive me for being a [expletive] Pollyanna, then, but when we joined you two fellows a few moments ago, you were screaming at each other about something called the Comprehensive Transportation and Consumer Protection Act of 2015. Now, I must admit, I don’t exactly understand how transportation and consumer protection belong in the same piece of federal legislation, but what in the world does a law about either of those things have to do with Obamacare, trans-pacific trade promotion authority – whatever that is – or the… what bank was that again?”
“The Export-Import bank,” I clarified. “Established by an Executive Order promulgated by Franklin Roosevelt in 1934, it was officially established as a federal government corporation in 1945, with a mandate to provide loans and loan guarantees, via the full faith and credit of the United States, for the purchase of American goods and services by foreign nations.”
“Corporate Socialism!” Garcia declared. “We’ve got to put a stop to it!”
“What?” Bodine objected. “And ruin American export business because our country doesn’t provide the same kind of financial services to our companies and agricultural enterprises as China, Japan, France, Germany, Britain, and nearly every other industrialized exporting nation in the world? What the [expletive] is the matter with your man Cruz and his buddies, anyhow? You want to sacrifice our aircraft industry, our mines, our heavy equipment manufacturers, our construction and engineering industries, and every agribusiness conglomerate from Maine to California on the altar of your [expletive] antiquated, shallow, half-witted eighteenth-century free-market ideology?”
“And what’s your [expletive] ideology?” Garcia demanded. “What’s good for Boeing is good for America? Corporate cronyism on the American taxpayer’s dime? Why should hard-working people across this great nation subsidize the generation of export revenues that amount to less than five percent of the gross domestic product? I don’t see Mitch McConnell proposing amendments to help them!”
“About those amendments,” Cerise interposed. “Maybe I shouldn’t wonder too much about it, I know, what with a bill called ‘the Comprehensive Transportation and Consumer Protection Act of 2015,’ but how in the world did highways, trucks, railroads and so forth get tied up with credit cards and payday loans in the first place? I’m aware that Congress is a very strange place, but really – how did funding for the Export-Import bank end up being an amendment to a bill that’s supposed to become a law about, well, transportation and, um… consumer credit protection?”
“Because, my dear,” I explained, “if Congress were allowed to design animals the way it formulates laws, then they would turn out an endless procession of elephants, unicorns and platypuses. But not only can bills agglomerate together all manner of incongruous elements, the lunacy goes even farther – after a bill is introduced to either body of Congress, its members can propose any sort of amendments they wish, be it a pet project in their home state or district, declaration of National Ramp and Chokecherry Week, a special favor for a special friend, the repeal of another law…”
“Like Obamacare!” Garcia interjected.
“Or the provision of funding for a governmental entity,” I continued, “the function of which is totally unrelated to the subject or subjects of that bill…”
“Like the Export-Import Bank!” Bodine shouted. “All perfectly legitimate under the rules of the House and the Senate! No harm, no foul – Mitch McConnell was doing what the Senate leadership has been doing since the founding of our great Republic; nothing more, nothing less.”
“And lying about it!” Garcia roared. “He told Ted Cruz – in the presence of numerous, honest, reputable, Republican members of the Senate, persons of unimpeachable integrity – that there was no deal! No quid pro quo under the table! No log-rolling, back-scratching, featherbedding, reach-arounds going on! And it was all a [expletive] lie! And Ted had the [expletive] between his legs to call McConnell out for it on the floor of the Senate! That’s what makes Ted Cruz a man, and what makes Mitch McConnell a conniving, scheming, two-faced, lying old dowager!”
“Well you know,” I reminded Garcia, “that no matter how much of a dirty, stinking, deceptive, prevaricating, duplicitous, double-crossing son-of-a-[expletive] a member of the United States Senate may be, Rule Nineteen dictates that another Senator may not proclaim such things about him on the floor of the Senate, under penalty of being summarily ordered, by the President of the Senate, to sit down and shut up.”
“A risk well worth taking,” Garcia sneered, “in order to make sure the whole world knows what a dirty, stinking, deceptive, prevaricating, duplicitous, double-crossing son-of-a-[expletive] Mitch McConnell really is!”
“As opposed,” Bodine snarked, “to being a borderline psychotic ass-[expletive] egomaniac like Ted Cruz! Jesus Christ Almighty, the man’s posturing would embarrass Huey Long, and his philosophical acumen is like the mighty Mississippi in the days of Lewis and Clark – a mile wide and an inch deep! Honestly, I have never before, in my entire career in Washington, seen a more vain, pretentious, fatuous, preening, intellectual midget…”
“Now, now,” I cautioned, “I think you owe midgets an apology for comparing them to Ted Cruz’ intellect.”
“Oh, all right, yeah,” Bodine grudgingly conceded, “I guess so. No offense intended to midgets, of course. What I meant was, he doesn’t understand the culture of the Senate. He doesn’t comprehend its traditions, and he completely misses the point of having an institution like the United States Senate – or any upper house in a bicameral government. Sure, you disagree with the other senators about things, that’s the nature of a representative democratic republic! But then you make compromises…”
“Compromise,” Garcia insisted, “is a four-letter word!”
“Actually,” Cerise pointed out, “’compromise’ is a ten letter word. And if Ted Cruz thinks it’s an obscenity, then I’m worried about the fate of our nation. You can’t be serious. Your man Cruz isn’t, by any chance, pulling a Huckabee, is he?”
Garcia regarded Cerise with a puzzled look. “Pulling a Huckabee?”
“Sure,” she replied, “you know, like when Mike Huckabee said the Supreme Court were tyrants after they upheld same-sex marriage. Or when he said that Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is marching the Israelis to the doors of the ovens. You know, that kind of thing – saying outrageous, absurd stuff just to get attention. Lord knows he and your man Cruz need some; they’re both wallowing in single digits in the Republican presidential polls.”
“Madame, I will have you know,” Garcia haughtily proclaimed, “that Ted Cruz is a man of the highest principles, and would never lower himself to such cynical and unscrupulous tactics.”
“Oh, that’s refreshing!” Bodine snickered. “I’m sure we all feel much better in light of such sincere and readily verifiable assurances!”
“Mitch McConnell,” Garcia growled, “stood up on the floor of the Senate today, and during the entire course of the debate neither he nor any other senator denied that he had looked Ted Cruz in the eye, just as he had looked every other Republican senator in the eye, and said, flat-out, there was no deal concerning TPA and the Export-Import Bank!”
“And after his outburst,” Bodine japed, “Ted Cruz couldn’t even get together the sixteen senators he needed for a roll call vote. Everybody just froze him out entirely!”
“Look, [expletive]-hole,” Garcia yelled, “I watched those Republican senators huddle up on the floor of the Senate last May and negotiate a deal, right there in front of God and everybody! And later that day, at the Republican lunch, when Ted Cruz asked Mitch McConnell if there was a deal made on the Export-Import Bank so that TPA could pass the Senate, McConnell said ‘there is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal’ – three times! And it was a lie! And after that lunch we staffers got together and told Ted that McConnell was lying!”
“Listen, you [expletive] jackass!,” Bodine insisted. “’My boss, Mitch McConnell, has said for months, repeatedly and publicly, that the Ex-Im Bank supporters from both parties should be allowed a vote. He has also said publicly, several times, that the highway bill would be an obvious place to have that vote! And when there is overwhelming bipartisan support for an idea, even if the Senate Majority Leader happens to oppose it, it doesn’t require some ‘special deal’ to see to it a vote occurs on that measure! As Senator Orrin Hatch told your man Cruz, the members of the United States Senate serve the American people, not their own egos!”
“Now that,” Cerise remarked, “is obviously a lie. How could he possibly expect to fool anybody with such an utterly transparent cliché? Who does this Hatch guy think he is, anyway?”
“Today,” Bodine huffed, “he thought he was President pro tempore of the US Senate, that’s who! And what’s more, Garcia, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, who just happens to be the other senator from Ted Cruz’ home state of Texas, said your boss if full of [expletive] – although not in so many words, of course.”
“Cornyn can say whatever the [expletive] he wants,” shrieked Garcia. “The fact remains – a lie is a lie is a lie!”
“Did I just hear Gertrude Stein roll over in her grave?” Cerise wondered aloud.
“Gertrude Who?” Garcia blurted, nonplused.
“Oh, never mind,” Cerise sighed, rolling her eyes heavenward. “Let’s just say she was my old English teacher. But I must confess that I’m curious, Mr. Garcia. Could you explain why it would matter if Mitch McConnell lied?”
“Because the United States Senate is based on trust,” he declared. “And that is the basic and abiding principle of its operation.”
“So,” Cerise concluded, “it’s wrong if senators lie to one another?”
“Yes,” Garcia nodded, “very much so.”
“But it’s okay,” she continued, “for senators to lie to the voters?”
“Well, uh… no,” Garcia stuttered, “that’s… that’s not right, either.”
“Nevertheless,” she observed, “they do it all the time, don’t they? They make speeches that falsely represent the issues, they hand out press releases that represent their opinions as facts, they make campaign promises they never keep; in reality, as politicians, they lie to the public on a routine basis, don’t they?”
“Maybe some of them,” Garcia conceded with an indifferent shrug, “but not Ted Cruz.”
“Now wait a minute,” I broke in. “What about when Ted Cruz said that ‘Net Neutrality is Obamacare for the Internet?’ What about when he said that Obama wants to ‘put ISIS on expanded Medicade?’ What about when he nominated a gun activist to be Surgeon General? How about when he denied any role in a government shut down after working tirelessly for months to get one? And what about when Cruz accused the Obama administration of plotting to quarter troops in Americans’ homes? And when he said that allowing gay marriage would turn the Bible into hate speech? What about when he said that there hasn’t been any global warming in the last twenty years?”
“That’s not lies!” Garcia protested. “That’s insanity! It’s different!”
“So it’s okay with you if Ted Cruz is insane?” Cerise sought to clarify.
“No, no,” Garcia elaborated, “he’s not really insane, he just likes to talk crazy, that’s all. It helps him get his point across.”
“His point being,” Cerise surmised, “that being un poco loco is a good thing for a US senator?”
“Yeah, sure,” Garcia confirmed. “Like he says, Ted Cruz is a very, very proud wacko bird.”
“Who just dropped a huge load of wacko bird [expletive] right on Mitch McConnell’s head!” Bodine chuckled. “And got his tail feathers clipped by half the Senate for doing it!”
“All right then,” I pressed on, “what about when Ted Cruz said American business spends five hundred billion dollars a year on tax compliance? How about when he said that the Obama administration is putting small businesses into bankruptcy in record numbers? Or when he said that illegal immigrants were coming to the US because Obama offered them amnesty? And how about his statement that jurisdictions with gun-control laws have higher crime rates? Or when he said the Democrats threatened to use federal power to shut down Catholic charities and hospitals unless the Church changes its beliefs? And how about when he said that the Iranians were holding public celebrations of Obama’s successful confirmation of Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense?”
“Oh, yeah, well,” Garcia acknowledged with a slight wince, “those actually were lies. But in a good way. They were lies that told more truth than the truth itself, you know?”
“But if it’s all right for Ted Cruz to lie to the public,” Cerise prodded, “why did he get all bent out of shape when another senator lied to him, even assuming that’s what the other senator actually did?”
“Because… well… because,” Garcia stuttered, “uh… because Ted Cruz has never lied to another US senator about anything!”
“That sure as hell sounds like a lie to me,” Cerise replied. “What do you think, Tom?”
“I think,” I lied, “that if we don’t leave right now, we’re going to be late for the show at the Kennedy Center.”