It’s been quite a week here in Washington, no doubt about it. Let history record for all posterity that, between Sunday, August 21, and Sunday, August 28, in the Year of Our Lord 2011, Washington DC had both a bone-shaking, monument-breaking 5.8 earthquake and a hurricane named Irene.
Plenty of folks consider these to be obvious examples of God’s Wrath, of course, but they differ considerably on their conceptions of what He is punishing us for. Ask a TEA Party zealot and they’ll tell you He’s kicking Washington’s butt because the liberals have led America astray; ask a progressive Democrat and they’ll say it’s because He’s angry at Washington for coddling those greedy worshipers of Mammon on Wall Street; ask a Zionist fanatic and they’ll say He’s meting out Divine Justice for our betrayal of Israel; ask a Wahhabi Sunni Moslem extremist and they’ll tell you it’s because this city is the home of the Devil Himself. But no matter who’s right about the Almighty’s motives, let me assure you, dear reader, this week Washington DC got a serious dose of what it has coming. Certainly not all of it, I know, but definitely enough to get our attention.
The earthquake struck as I was concluding a consultation with a member of the Senior Executive Service, a type of federal employee who is, generally speaking, both less qualified than and considerably better compensated than the highest level garden-variety civil servant, the GS-15. Murcia started out as a contractor, working for a typical Beltway Bandit firm. He was placed on a project to develop a budget projection system for the EPA, and promptly slithered into a cozy position directly employed by the Agency as a member of the SES. While the budget projection system turned out to be a multi-million-dollar code-driven fiasco, the manifest failure of which was orchestrated in large part by Murcia himself, he nevertheless managed to parlay an early combination of theatrics and outright lies into a transfer to an even more highly paid position at DOI, leaving the EPA project to the Assistant Delivery Order Project Officer, a dolt of the first water who was eighteen months away from retirement. In all, it was a textbook example of how to get into and succeed in the Senior Executive Service.
We were talking about IT capital planning and the Federal Enterprise Architecture model when the quake hit. Since we were in downtown DC – as regular readers of this Web log know, my office has a picture window which looks out onto the White House – my first reaction was to assume it was an explosion. It was Murcia’s too, and, I’m sure, that of thousands of others in the DC area at that moment.
“What’s that,” he nervously ejaculated, “a… gas main blowing up?”
No, he didn’t say what all of us here in Washington have in the back of our minds – a terrorist bomb. Nobody here would ever make such a statement, because it’s too true. But as a matter of fact, the folks at the Pentagon operated on the terrorist bomb assumption for nearly an hour, proving, as many have previously observed, that military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.
As anyone who has lived through both knows, however, the amplitude envelope of an explosion is nothing like that of an earthquake, and after about ten seconds of constant, intense shaking, I replied, “No, it’s an earthquake.”
“Earthquake?” Murcia shouted as he bolted from his chair. “Oh [expletive]!”
Then Murcia did what practically every federal employee in Washington did that day, which was to run out of the building, stand on the sidewalk and frantically try to call everyone they knew with their cell phone. As might be expected, the Washington DC cell phone network crashed in about ninety seconds, leaving me to observe the remarkable spectacle of a street jammed with federal employees – GS, SES, GM, AD and all – each and every one of them furiously punching the keys on their government-issued Blackberry, completely mystified about why the damn thing was dead. And there, ladies and gentlemen, were your tax dollars at work.
As for the hurricane, well, as I write this, my house in Great Falls, Virginia, is filled to overflowing with my neighbors. They are here because I have a reputation for hospitality during natural disasters, such as blizzards and hurricanes; because I have a well-stocked larder, wine cellar and liquor cabinet; and, most of all, because they know I have a capacious backup electrical generator, and the local power companies have already informed everyone in the DC Metro area – in advance – to expect hurricane Irene to knock out the lights.
So far though, not much is happening. We Washingtonians were warned to expect high wind conditions and drenching rain by this afternoon, but at the moment, it’s getting dark outside and what we’ve seen so far doesn’t even measure up to a decent August tidewater thunderstorm. What’s that? The telephone in my study! I’ll return shortly.
Okay, I’m back. It was Dr. Condoleezza Rice, calling from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business in California, where it’s three hours earlier than in Washington. Here’s a transcript of our conversation.
Tom: Hello?
Rice: Hi, Tom, this is Condoleezza Rice.
Tom: Dr. Rice? Well, this certainly is an honor. How are you?
Rice: I’m the Denning Professor in Global Business and the Economy, that’s how I am.
Tom: Of course. And what can I do for you, Professor Rice?
Rice: You can help me out with this damn Gaddafi problem, that’s what.
Tom: Oh, right – you mean the problem brought to light in the media and subsequently placed under the microscope of international scrutiny by the Libyan rebels, who, while ransacking and looting Colonel Muammmar Gaddafi’s compound in Tripoli this week, found his secret stash of Condoleezza Rice pictures.
Rice: Yeah… those.
Tom: They were all part of his big… ah, shall we say… infatuation with you, weren’t they? The one he developed when you visited Libya while Secretary of State in the Bush 43 administration?
Rice: Um… yes, I suppose so.
Tom: He had an evening meal with you, during which he gave you a large diamond ring, a handmade lute, and a golden locket with his picture in it, all valued at over $200,000.
Rice: Uh-huh; yeah, that’s correct.
Tom: And now, all these years later, we find out he had this… well, I guess you’d call it a slam book…
Rice: No, you wouldn’t, because a guy’s buddies all write stuff about the girl in a slam book.
Tom: Okay, there’s another term for it, then?
Rice: Yes, there is, but since you’re a man, I wouldn’t expect you to be familiar with it. On the other hand, teenage girls know all about them. They’re called crush books.
Tom: So, when Colonel Gaddafi compiled this photo album dedicated to… ah… the object of his unrequited affections… he was, essentially, behaving like a sixteen year old girl?
Rice: No, he was behaving like a thirteen year old girl.
Tom: Hmmm… I don’t suppose there are too many people who would find that terribly surprising.
Rice: And I’m sure you’re right, but nevertheless, these last few days have been very… awkward for me, as I am sure you can imagine.
Tom: More awkward than when Gaddafi called you “Leezza, Leezza, Leezza, my darling black African woman,” on Al Jazeera back in 2007?
Rice: Yes, more awkward than that.
Tom: More awkward than when he said, “I admire and am very proud of the way she leans back and gives orders to the Arab leaders?”
Rice: Yeah, more awkward than that, too.
Tom: Really, really awkward, huh?
Rice: Extremely.
Tom: Sort of like the head cheerleader and homecoming queen who’s dating the star quarterback and a cinch for valedictorian being stalked by that weird, pimply Goth kid who dresses like Marilyn Manson and doesn’t bathe?
Rice: Right! Exactly like that. And now all those back-stabbing opportunists I used to work with in the Bush administration are using that as an excuse to snicker at me. So – can you help me out with that?
Tom: Well, hell, considering all the business I got from the Bush State Department, I’d be a real piker if I didn’t, doc. What’s on your mind?
Rice: What’s on my mind is, how do I make this go away?
Tom: Okay, in that case, I’m just wondering, of course… there’s no chance that the Libyan rebels are going to find any… shall we say… ah… racy pictures of you at Gaddafi’s place, are they?
Rice: What? I should say not! There are absolutely no such pictures of me anywhere on Earth, much less at that crazy old pervert’s bunker in Tripoli!
Tom: No possibility even, for example, of a picture of you in a bikini, for instance, maybe eating a popsicle?
Rice: No, none at all.
Tom: You’re sure?
Rice: Positive. For the record, I have never been photographed in a two-piece bathing suit of any kind, much less a bikini, nor have I ever been – nor would I ever be, for that matter – photographed eating a popsicle, whether dressed in a bathing suit or any other attire whatsoever.
Tom: I guess the same thing goes for ice cream cones?
Rice: That’s affirmative.
Tom: You mean, Dr. Rice, that you don’t like ice cream?
Rice: No, that’s not what I said. Everybody likes ice cream. I just refuse to eat it out of a cone, that’s all. I only eat it out of a dish. That way, if somebody takes my picture, they won’t see me… well, you know… what they’ll see is Dr. Condoleezza Rice, enjoying ice cream with a spoon, like a proper lady, that’s what.
Tom: And not, by any chance, a banana split?
Rice: Under no circumstances would I eat a banana split.
Tom: And why is that?
Rice: Because of the banana. You don’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure that one out.
Tom: So you might have been photographed eating a hot fudge sundae.
Rice: That’s possible.
Tom: Cherry on top?
Rice: Look, actually, the fact is, I don’t eat ice cream in any form very often.
Tom: How about hot dogs?
Rice: Any time I eat any sort of sausage product, it’s always on a plate with a knife and fork.
Tom: So there’s no chance of a random snapshot of you wrapping your lips around a foot-long?
Rice: No chance – zero, zip, nada.
Tom: Okay, then, how about pictures of you down on your knees? Do any gardening?
Rice: No. My hobby is classical music, and all I’m thinking right now is thank God I play the piano and not the clarinet.
Tom: Yes, that’s very fortuitous, indeed. No chance of somebody having taken a photograph of you in your front yard, drinking from the hose, then?
Rice: None.
Tom: And you never do any sunbathing, either, I suppose?
Rice: Kindly explain to me why a black person would sunbathe.
Tom: Some of you do, you know.
Rice: Not me. There are no pictures of me lying in the sun or at a tanning salon, for that matter, anywhere. Seriously, forget about it.
Tom: And you’ve never been to a nude beach, of course.
Rice: As I said – no person alive has ever seen me in anything more revealing than a one-piece bathing suit.
Tom: Have you ever been in a situation where you were wearing a T-shirt and it got wet?
Rice: Not in public.
Tom: And what about all those things you did at Dick Cheney’s Undisclosed Location back in the day?
Rice: You and I both know any photographs taken there would be (a) unauthorized and (b) classified Top Secret.
Tom: True. In that case, Dr. Rice, in my considered opinion, as long as there will never, ever be any photos of you that aren’t completely, utterly and totally proper discovered anywhere in Libya, I would advise that you continue to respond to all inquiries regarding this situation with statements that either declare or imply that Muammar Gaddafi was and remains a completely deranged madman who might just as well have decided he loved Bugs Bunny.
Rice: That… ahem… well, it seems to me you could have employed a better choice of words.
Tom: Oh, yeah… um… who might just as well have decided he loved Elmer Fudd?
Rice: Okay, that’s better.
Tom: One more question. Have you ever considered dating Janet Reno?
Rice: That huge, clanking old diesel? Gimme a break!
Tom: Just curious. I wish I could chat some more, but I have a house full of guests who are anxious to turn things into a hurricane party if I don’t exercise some due diligence.
Rice: My sympathies. Thanks.
Tom: You’re welcome, doc. Goodbye.
So, here I am, having spent fifteen minutes dealing with my increasingly inebriated and boisterous guests, and another thirty typing up this post, and it’s nearly half past nine, and no sign of hurricane Irene. Is it possible that the Good Lord has changed His mind and decided to spare the DC Metro Area from an inundation of Biblical proportions? Will Dr. Rice manage to scrape Colonel Gaddafi off her Prada shoes? Can the Park Service repair the earthquake cracks in the Washington Monument? And when will the United States finally emerge from the Great Recession? Visit this site next week for the exciting continuation of the American saga from Inside the Beltway, in another thrilling episode of Tom Collins’ World Wide Web Log.