I heard my eleven o’clock consultation this morning well before I saw her – in the reception area, unloading a boatload of grief on poor Gretchen.
“Who the hell is that?” My current appointment, a gentleman from Tokyo, with whom I had spent the previous three hours formulating risk-reduction strategies for integrated circuit manufacturing, nearly jumped out of his seat.
“That…” I said, consulting my calendar application, “would be one Amatullah Lumumba Venceremos Mariátegui, representative of the Barack Obama presidential transition team.”
“My appointment,” we heard a loud and quite assertive female voice declare, “is for eleven a.m., you little blonde, blue-eyed devil, and it’s two minutes and thirty seconds after eleven! Your boss better not be in there with some white man who thinks his time is worth more than mine!”
My Japanese guest threw me a nervous glance, then spoke, inclining his head slightly toward the door separating us from my next client. “Thank you, Mr. Collins,” he quickly and quietly spoke, “I’m sure we can arrange to conclude this analysis later today. Would some time after five be suitable?”
“Absolutely,” I assured him as I verified an open slot on my schedule. “Five o’clock it is.”
“Good. See you then…”
“Don’t give me that [expletive] you [expletive],” an increasingly irritated voice insisted outside. “Git back up on yo [expletive] box of Swiss Miss Mix, you [expletive] honky [expletive]!”
“Perhaps,” the Japanese gentlemen suggested, pointing at the door from which issued a continuing and copious stream of invective and abuse, “I could leave by another exit?”
“Absolutely,” I assured him, pointing to the door which leads to the adjacent conference room. “Go through there. The door on the left side of the far wall has a key pad. Enter 1-2-7-1-9-4-1. On the other side, there’s a small, windowless office with files and shelves stocked with office supplies and medical equipment. At the far end, there’s closet with no door – you’ll see a server rack installed in it. There’s a heavy metal door to the left of it, which opens onto a corridor. At the end of that corridor is another door that opens onto the north stair well of this building. Be sure you take everything with you, because the last two doors only have handles on the sides facing you.”
“Pick up that phone and tell your boss I said my appointment starts now, you [expletive] [expletive]!”
“What was that key pad combination again?” Sweat broke out on my anxious guest’s brow while, true to reflex, he turned his face, as anyone would, in the direction of a nearby loud and menacing sound.
“December 7, 1941,” I explained, offering a sure-fire mnemonic device. “Pearl Harbor day.”
“Oh, oh… yes… of course…” he bowed and darted out, and, as it soon became evident, just in time.
“Mr. Collins, I presume,” a booming contralto demanded, no sooner than the door to the conference room shut. Ms. Mariátegui had taken the liberty of letting herself in, it seemed. I refrained from offering her a seat, however, as she was already seated – in a wheelchair. Gretchen, the poor thing, stood helplessly behind it, her arms spread out in a clear gesture of futility.
“Please, come in,” I invited. Ms. Mariátegui rolled up to my desk as I came from behind it to offer my hand. “Tom Collins. How can I help you today?”
“You can start by getting rid of her!” Mariátegui pointed vehemently at Gretchen.
“Take the rest of the day off,” I directed.
Gretchen smiled broadly. “Yes, sir.”
At that, Mariátegui snapped her head around to look at Gretchen, whose tone of voice no doubt had been insufficiently contrite. Gretchen, being accustomed to my occasional odd client, quickly replaced her charming smile with an appropriately glum countenance. Satisfied that Gretchen was not looking forward to leaving work early today, my visitor stared at Gretchen pointedly until she donned her coat and left, after which, Mariátegui gave my office door a hefty shove, slamming it shut, trapping me in there, alone with her. For a long, awkward moment, she stared indignantly at my extended hand, exuding suspicion, then, with obvious reluctance, took hold of it for a perfunctory shake. “Amatullah Lumumba Venceremos Mariátegui,” she proclaimed.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Mariátegui,” I cooed in my most soothing voice, gently dropping her hand and returning to the chair behind my desk. “What brings you to my office this morning?”
“I’ve been told,” she responded, a bit huffily, “that people from all over the world, and of every imaginable political orientation, visit you for consultations.”
“Not to seem immodest, madame,” I purred, “but that is essentially correct.”
“So,” she continued, “over at Obama Transition Headquarters, we’ve been considering placement of qualified candidates in various positions, to serve in the upcoming Obama Administration.”
“But of course,” I concurred. “That is, among many other things to be sure, exactly what a presidential transition team should be doing at this point after an election. Are there some issues involved upon which I might be of assistance?”
“Well,” she allowed, “there are a couple of things they sent me over here to discuss with you. First of all, some of them seem to think I scare people.”
“Possibly,” I conjectured. “One must admit that a woman of African descent with an Hispanic surname in a wheelchair working for Barack Obama might be, for example, the sort of nightmare that makes certain followers of Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, clutching their assault rifles so tightly to their heaving chests, the mad tattoo of their thumping hearts causes the gun butt to tap out a cut-time street beat rhythm upon their bed’s headboard, a telegraph of terror in the inky blackness of a fearful and uncertain night.”
“Make that a proud, loud, lesbian, Marxist, Moslem militant black woman with an Hispanic surname in a wheelchair, working for Barack Obama, helping to staff his new Administration in Washington,” she insisted.
“Yes, well, in that case,” I volleyed back, first casting a meaningful glance at her head scarf and then another at The Essential Works of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (Henry Christman, editor, Dover Press, 1987), Mercy: a Novel (Andrea Dworkin, 1990) and The Collected Speeches of Hugo Chavez (UNESCO Press, 2007) in the bulging canvas GLADD book bag attached to her wheelchair, “make that ‘wake up screaming drenched in sweat and keel over dead from a heart attack right there in bed.’”
“Which serves them right,” she hissed out between her teeth, betraying no small amount of satisfaction.
“I’d agree, Ms. Mariátegui,” I stroked, none too subtly, “that those people’s hang-ups are nobody’s fault but their own.”
“That’s what you’d think,” she agreed, actually smiling at me as she spoke. “But would you believe it – I’ve been told I scare other Democrats!”
“No?” I feigned shock as best I could. “Really?”
“As incredible as that might seem,” she confessed, “it’s true; and so, they said I could either talk to a shrink, or I could talk to Tom Collins. So I chose you.”
“I’m very flattered,” I lied (convincingly, I hoped), “that you would prefer my advice to that of a medical doctor with decades of experience with the human mind.”
“Hell,” she shrugged, “I just figured it would be safer if I talked to you. Depending on what I say, a shrink might try to lock me up in a padded room or something. But you – you’re just some cracker who’s got everybody in town snowed down to thinkin’ he knows what he’s talkin’ about; that’s all you are.”
“But of course,” I agreed. “So, now that we understand each other… is there anything… in particular,” I carefully prodded, “that… precipitated…”
“Hell, yeah, mister,” she interrupted. “You’re lookin’ at the uppity woman pushin’ to make Hillary Clinton the next Secretary of State!”
“Oh,” I remarked, as calmly as I could, “so you’re the one behind that.”
“You bet your [expletive] white [expletive] I am, Mister Hot [expletive] Ofay with his oak-paneled office and a picture window view of the White House! Sisterhood is powerful, and Hillary’s one powerful sister!”
“And, it seems,” I surmised, “you managed to convince Barack Obama that appointing Hillary Clinton the next Secretary of State would be a good idea?”
“Convince Barack Obama?” Her eyebrows shot up in a disdainful arch. “Why would I bother doing that? I convinced Michelle Obama!”
“Oh, I understand.” A brief pause allowed me to choose my next words carefully. “And some… other members of the Obama organization… took umbrage…”
“Umbrage?” Mariátegui’s nostrils flared with rage. “They went bat-[expletive] [expletive] crazy, that’s what they did!”
“But have you,” I slyly questioned, “ever considered the possibility that they aren’t crazy?”
“What do you mean?” She bristled, her eyes blazing.
“Well,” I glided along, as deferential as a courtier in the presence of Henry VIII, “perhaps they were concerned about how the job… would… fit Hillary.”
“I think,” she confidently declared, “it would fit just fine!”
“But the State Department,” I harmlessly observed, “constitutes the diplomatic arm of the United States government. It is, therefore, by definition, concerned with Byzantine foreign policy, inscrutable global macroeconomics, labyrinthine world trade markets, arcane tariffs, abstruse cultural negotiations, abstractly scientific planetary ecology, impenetrably detailed international law, unfathomable maritime conventions, inherently unstable geopolitical equilibria and the constant, ongoing resolution of highly complex multifaceted conflicts arising from those factors through an arduous, erudite and patient process leading to the eventual construction of a bewildering plethora of international treaties, each of which must, under our Constitution, be also subsequently ratified by the United States Senate.”
“Yeah.” Mariátegui nodded in evident agreement. “That’s what the State Department is supposed to do, all right.”
“Yes,” I concurred, “and can we honestly say that Hillary Clinton has any particular talent, education, expertise or experience relevant to any of that?”
“No.” Her response hung in the air like an unexpected hummingbird.
“Madame,” I pointed out, “if you agree that is the case, then why should Hillary Clinton become the next Secretary of State?”
“Because,” my client explained, “Hillary is ideologically pure, and ideological purity is all that really matters.”
“What?” I let her think about her statement for a moment. “Are you saying Barack Obama isn’t ideologically pure?”
“Of course he’s not,” she returned with the instant response of physical reflex. “Obama’s a pragmatist! That’s why he won the primary! That’s why he got elected!”
“And that’s bad?” My expression conveyed, I hope, sufficient skepticism.
“Bad?” Her amply brawny arms lifted her over a foot out of her wheelchair. “It’s utter travesty, that’s what it is! You think Leon Trotsky was a [expletive] pragmatist? You think Joe Slovo was a pragmatist? You think Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin was a pragmatist? You think Valerie Jean Solanas was a pragmatist? And tell me, oh great white male Washington Beltway Consultant, just what the [expletive] is so great about pragmatists, anyway?”
“In general,” I allowed, “nothing much. Pragmatism is, however, a very important component of successful diplomacy.”
“But not necessarily,” she ably countered, “an attribute of successful diplomats!”
“No,” I admitted. “What profit, though, has the United States, should its diplomats be successful, while its diplomacy fails?”
“So you don’t think Hillary has the…” she stumbled, searching for the appropriate term.
“Temperament,” I offered.
“Ah, yes,” she accepted, “let’s say that… she lacks the correct temperament; or so you maintain. Other than that, what else?”
“Oh, my goodness, madame,” I dared chuckle, “one might as well ask, ‘Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?’ Should you insist, however, I can supply several other important objections. First, there’s her husband’s former position, combined with his personality. There’s no way, frankly, that Bill Clinton can keep his fingers out of any reasonably warm pie, literal, physical or metaphorical; and in that last category, he’d be constantly undermining not only his dear wife’s work as Secretary of State, but also President Obama’s, most likely on a daily basis. Then, of course, there are the numerous financial entanglements Bill and Hillary both have, all over the world, with everybody from the Gnomes of Zurich to the Sultan of Swot, each of which would compromise the authority of, and simultaneously cast suspicion upon, anything Hillary did in her capacity as Secretary of State. And, of course, there’s the obvious media feeding frenzy attraction of a former President’s wife serving in another President’s administration – I mean, really, who, I beg to know, would the rest of the world consider to be in charge here, anyway? Obama? Hillary? Bill? Would some shadow cabinet composed of former Clinton advisors compete for air time on television and credibility on the op-ed pages with the official Obama cabinet? No, madame,” I concluded, “the whole thing is a total can of worms. But worse than that, there’s a critical aspect of this question I’m afraid you have completely overlooked.”
Her face fell at the mere suggestion. “What?”
“The fact,” I pointed out, “that the United States of America hasn’t used its State Department for anything significant since Richard Nixon was President.”
A long silence ensued as she stared out the window at the White House. “Not since Nixon?”
“Sad,” I told her emphatically, “but true, nonetheless. Henry Kissinger, you see, had a number of ideas that the Foreign Service didn’t consider to be, ah, let us say, entirely kosher. So he basically restructured the foreign relations capability of the Executive Branch so that everything important rested with the Executive Office of the President and its associated councils, leaving the State Department to deal with things like passport administration, foreign aid programs, minor propaganda organizations like the Voice of America, and liaison with the United Nations, Red Cross, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and other such relatively inconsequential stuff.”
“No [expletive]?”
“But yes, Venceremos,” I affirmed, “we have no actual State Department.”
“No [expletive]?”
“Correct. Only a sham carnival side show, operating out of Foggy Bottom, the most important function of which, I might add, is to hand out the prestigious ambassadorships to places like France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Sweden, England…”
“England?” Suddenly, a modicum of animation returned to Mariátegui’s face. “I’m pretty sure Hillary speaks English. Think she could be the United States ambassador to Queen What’s-Her-Name?”
“Madame,” I stated confidently, “there is no doubt in my mind that Queen What’s-Her-Name would be absolutely delighted.”