Cartwright works at the State Department, where he has the second most terrible job – he’s an expert on Middle Eastern politics. (The most terrible job at the State Department, by the way, is serving as an expert on Latin American economics.) He visits my office for a consultation about once every five or six weeks, and we usually discuss the finer points of Middle Eastern foreign policy. But today, it was different. I could tell something was seriously wrong the moment he entered and flopped down on the couch – Cartwright has always selected the chair immediately to the right of my desk. That’s the one closest to me, in which the clients with the greatest insecurities and emotional requirements always sit. They need to be my confident; I must be their friend, an older sibling, that loving parent they never had, or sometimes, even their confessor. Believe me, when someone who has been consistently choosing that seat for six years sprawls out on the couch like one of the most dissolute and desperate souls who avail themselves of my services, I notice.
“I’ve been betrayed, Tom!” Cartwright moaned, staring at the ceiling. This was a cry of pain to which I was quick to offer succor, because Cartwright, like every other Washington bureaucrat, gets (and, frankly, deserves) no sympathy from his associates (Washington bureaucrats have no friends, and contrary to the advice that if you want a friend here you should buy a dog, even their dogs despise them), his spouse (most often another pathetic example of the species), his children (who, due to decades of close association, almost universally see right through him and his pretensions) or, for that matter (and quite deservedly, I might add), anyone else in the entire world. Given that, it’s money in the bank for me, anytime I can successfully convince someone like Cartwright that I contribute a murine fundament about what happens to them.
“Oh, my God, that’s tragic!” I lied. “By whom?”
“My… protégé,” he choked out disconsolately, lingering in self-pity on every syllable. “That little [expletive]! That amoral, scheming, pusillanimous [expletive] kisser! Four years, I’ve been… his mentor… yes, that’s it, Tom… his mentor! Ever since he graduated from Georgetown and joined the Foreign Service! And what do I get for it? A stab in the back!”
“What did he do?” I inquired, feigning my best air of interested concern.
“Well…” Cartwright began, clearing his throat ostentatiously, “it’s sort of a long story; but basically, he recorded me under some rather… ahem, compromising circumstances… uh… criticizing the Secretary of State.”
“Hillary Clinton?” I interrupted. “He got an audio recording of you saying negative things about her?”
“A video recording,” Cartwright clarified. “High definition, at that.”
“What were you saying?” I continued.
“That… well, Tom, you and I both have forgotten more about the Middle East than that big-boned, chipmunk-cheeked, conniving old bimbo ever knew. And I was… in the company… of one of the… ah, this last summer’s… interns at the time… oh, about a week ago, and I’d, perhaps, had a bit too much to drink, as happens to us all from time to time. So, in the course of our… conversation… I let it slip that the real reason the current round of Arab-Israeli peace talks are on the rocks isn’t the West Bank settlements issue at all.”
“It’s not?” This was certainly the first I’d heard of anything like that from Cartwright.
“No,” he shook his head, “not at all. The real reason they’re getting nowhere is that neither Netanyahu nor Abbas can stand her!”
“But aren’t,” I asked, knowing better, of course, but nevertheless cautious not to reveal too much, “the peace talks being mediated by Special United States Envoy George Mitchell?”
“You don’t seriously think for a minute,” Cartwright sighed wearily, “that a meddling, controlling, castrating, incompetent [expletive] like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton could leave something as important as Middle East peace negotiations to a bunch of men, do you?”
“Golly gee whizz,” I conceded, “I guess not.”
“Well,” Cartwright sobbed, “that’s what that sneaky little [expletive] got on his video – me telling that piece of tail from Wellesley the real truth about why the Obama Administration can’t do [expletive] with the Middle East peace process! And you know what he did with it? He made damn sure Hillary Clinton saw it, that’s what! And now, Tom, I’m totally [expletive]!”
“Oh, come on,” I rationalized. “You’re career Foreign Service! Furthermore, you’re entitled to your opinion, too! What’s the problem?”
“The problem is,” Cartwright growled, “as Secretary of State, she can re-assign me! And I’m afraid of what that reassignment might be!”
“Such as what?” I inquired, exaggerating just a tad in order to control the conversation more effectively. “You already have the most terrible job in the Department of State, don’t you?”
At that, Cartwright sat up and stared at me with a truly uncharacteristic intensity. “Oh yeah? How about if Old Thunder-Thighs appoints me United States Ambassador to Outer Space?”
“You mean,” I asked, astounded, “like the media has been saying the United Nations appointed Dr. Mazlan Othman, head of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, the UN Ambassador to Outer Space?”
“Yeah,” Cartwright confirmed, “just like that!”
“Well,” I dryly observed, “you may not have heard, but on Tuesday, October 5, she called a press conference and told the world that she does not, in fact, hold UN ambassadorial status with respect to any extraterrestrial governments.”
“Sure,” Cartwright conceded, “but, on the other hand, that’s probably because, under international law, in order to have ambassadorial status, that outer space alien government has to grant her diplomatic credentials. So actually, I think she just called that press conference to take advantage of a technicality in order to obfuscate the real issue!”
“Well,” I acknowledged, “she is, in fact, an experienced and skillful UN diplomat, so yeah, I have to give you that one, I guess. There’s no way I can disprove it, I don’t think.”
“And that’s just the obvious part of recent events,” Cartwright told me confidently. “Look at what happened, just last week on September 27! A group of former US Air Force officers addressed the National Press Club, right here in Washington, and revealed that alien spacecraft are real!”
“Um… I’m not entirely sure,” I cautiously reacted, “that they actually proved anything down there at the National Press Club luncheon, and we must bear in mind that various former US Air Force officers have been telling the press – and pretty much anybody else who would listen – that UFOs are alien spaceships since about 1948.”
“Okay, okay,” Cartwright shot back, waving his hands in a dismissive manner. “Sure, sure – let’s just forget about those brave, highly educated, extremely intelligent US Air Force officers – who are, after all, only members of the most scholarly, objective, scientifically erudite and intellectually brilliant military officer corps ever to exist in the entire expanse of human history – of course, no doubt about it, [expletive] them and anything they [expletive] say – what the [expletive] would they know, anyhow, right? No, let’s consider the Vatican instead. How about, three days before that National Press Club lunch, the Vatican’s astronomer in residence, and, I might add, curator of the Pope’s personal meteorite collection, Guy Consolmagno, said that he’s getting ready to baptize extraterrestrial aliens?”
“More accurately,” I chided, “I think Monseigneur Consolmagno said that he would consider it a religious duty to baptize them, not that he expects to do it any time soon.”
“Do you think,” Cartwright demanded in a hushed, conspiratorial tone, “that after seventeen years in the State Department, I don’t know weasel wording when I hear it?”
“Of all things,” I vouched, “I would never assume that.”
“Well, all right then,” Cartwright concluded with a satisfied air, “we now agree that I have a legitimate concern here, don’t I? Space aliens are arriving soon, and if Hillary Clinton takes revenge on me for bad-mouthing her by appointing me United States Ambassador to Outer Space, then I’m going to have to… deal with whatever weird-[expletive] mother-[expletives] come slithering out of that [expletive] space ship, won’t I?”
“Of course,” I mollified. “I’ve seen fewer years of service at the State Department convince people of far more improbable things, make no mistake about it. So, let’s assume, then, that (a) Secretary Clinton does, in fact, appoint a US Ambassador to Outer Space some time in the near future; (b) the person she appoints is you; and, (c), shortly thereafter, nine-foot tall, three-legged, multi-tentacled extraterrestrial space aliens from Planet Gliese 581g land on the White House lawn and emerge from their shuttle craft while their immense mothership, hovering silently overhead, blots out the sun from Arlington, Virginia to College Park, Maryland, asking to speak with our designated representative.”
“I knew,” Cartwright panted as he fought off an impending panic attack, “that if anyone would understand my situation perfectly, it would be you!”
“Thanks,” I said cordially. “But frankly – what’s the big problem? You meet with them, negotiate for a while, hold a press conference to introduce them to the media…”
“And end up going back with them!” Cartwright exclaimed, fairly exuding anxiety. “Spending year after year in some barely inhabitable place, attending interminable state dinners eating God knows what in the company of slimy, bug-eyed monsters…”
“Just like,” I pointed out, “the Swiss legation in Pyongyang, North Korea.”
“Tom,” Cartwright insisted, “which part of ‘I don’t want to head the American Embassy on an alien planet’ is it you don’t understand?”
“Very well,” I proposed, “how about this, then? You meet with them, negotiate for a while, hold a press conference, arrange for President Obama to eat dinner with them – instead of you having to do it – and then appoint a delegation lead by that protégé you’re mad at to actually go to Planet Gliese 581g while you stay back here in Washington.”
Cartwright considered my suggestion for a moment, then posed what he obviously regarded as a very deep question. “What’s my excuse for staying here in Washington?”
“Why,” I declared in my most officious voice, “to lobby Congress on the behalf of the Administration for ratification of the Treaty of Perpetual Friendship that you, yourself are going to negotiate with the Grand Intergalactic Council! You do remember, of course, that the reason the Senate must ratify all United States treaties is that they are incorporated by reference into the Constitution itself!”
“True,” Cartwright mused. “So, okay, let’s say I manage to forestall things a while with that strategy. Eventually, the treaty negotiations with the extraterrestrials will end, though. Then what?”
“Then,” I explained, “you sell the book you’re going to write about negotiating a treaty between the United States of America and aliens from outer space, take early retirement from the State Department, go on the lecture circuit, do a book tour, appear on television and radio talk shows, start your own branded, monetized Web site and get a cushy position at the university or think tank of your choice!”
“Brilliant!” Cartwright declared as he sat bolt upright on the couch. “God damn it, Tom,” he enthused, “your advice is worth every penny of the taxpayer’s money I spend on it!”
“Thanks,” I modestly responded.
“But one thing bothers me,” Cartwright worried aloud as he got up and stretched, turning to look out the picture window of my office at the White House. “All this… sounds very good. But is it… in fact… actually… feasible?”
“I’m sure we would both agree it is,” I assured him, “if we thought about it carefully, given what we both know about world politics.”
Cartwright’s eyebrows shot up, skeptically. “How so?”
“Hey, come on,” I jocularly chided, “it’s a pretty safe bet that the United States Senate will ratify a treaty with aliens from outer space before there’s peace in the Middle East.”
Cartwright froze, staring out the window at the White House.
“Isn’t it?” I pressed.
“Yeah,” Cartwright murmured, then turned to me. “Now that you mention… it sure as hell is.”