Around about Halloween, my dear sister Rose had finished making it clear to me, over the course of several conversations, that Thanksgiving was to be held at my house this year. There are a number of reasons for that, none of which Rose gave me, of course, because she didn’t need too. I already knew the facts – due to the Great Recession / Jobless Recovery and the Mortgage Meltdown, respectively, her husband Hank has been out of work for quite while now, and his brother’s family lost their house and had to move in with Hank and Rose’s, thus leaving them all living together with their large Catholic families in a single detached unit home on a quarter acre lot in Fairfax, Virginia. At least it’s a fairly large suburban house – it certainly needs to be. And recently, Hank’s brother’s wife, Shannon, also lost her job, leaving Rose and Hank’s brother the only gainfully employed adults in a domicile with many, many mouths to feed. So yes, I knew – this year, simply buying the food for a respectable Thanksgiving feast would work a infeasible hardship upon their mutual family finances. Therefore, as Rose put it, this year was “my turn” to host Thanksgiving for everybody at my home in Great Falls.
“Everybody” naturally included my brother Rob Roy, his wife Katje and their son, Jason, as well as my friend Cerise. I also invited Veronica, my ex-girlfriend from college who moved here from California awhile back and established herself as my room mate after her ex-husband’s beach side mansion in Malibu – which she never bothered to insure – burned down in one of those periodic giant wild fires for which the Golden State is so justly famous.
Thirty pound turkey? Forget about it; I went with two twenty pounders, one stuffed with traditional bread crumbs, poultry herbs and slivered almonds, the other with a true Tidewater favorite – corn bread, oysters and walnuts. Cerise made her best attempt at NPR cranberry relish, a bizarre concoction of fresh cranberries, onions, sour cream, horse radish and white sugar, the recipe for which starts out – I kid you not – by putting the cranberries and onions through an old-fashioned sausage meat grinder with the blades set to Fine Cut, and from there on only gets weirder (the rumors that consuming even one bite of this concoction turns people into Socialists are manifestly untrue, however – while maybe it’s as pink as Pepto Bismol, it is, in fact, a politically agnostic relish). Veronica proved that even a Hollywood/Washington courtesan can cook by preparing a huge baking dish of scalloped Yukon potatoes and another one of macaroni and cheese with Vermont cheddar, Italian Romano and Monterey jack – I guess making all those congressmen, senators, Beltway bandit CEOs, lobbyists and generals comfortable inclines her toward comfort food. Not to brag, but I made everything else, including a bucket of hot chestnuts, brined in Celtic gray Atlantic sea salt and Evian water, that I roasted with a genuine functioning early nineteenth-century antique appliance in the living room fireplace, and six pies for dessert – pumpkin, sweet potato, squash (all with different spicing schemes), mince, and two pecan, one made with black strap molasses and another with buckwheat honey. There was plenty of whipped organic grass-fed heavy cream with dashes of Mexican highland vanilla extract and Barbados sugar, the way I like it, whisked fresh right before serving, as well as eight flavors of ice cream I had made and frozen over the preceding weeks, plus Amazon rainforest chocolate sauce, Belgian caramel and melted Minnesota wild marshmallow to go with those pies. Want a slice with chocolate, peach and strawberry smothered with three toppings? Sure! Want seconds? There were no leftovers.
It is a strangely quiet and oddly magical time that permeates a home after good Thanksgiving dinner, one that lasts up to half an hour, even if there are, as there were indeed, a large number of children present. Some say it’s an amino acid, tryptophan, in the turkey meat, others that it’s the carbohydrate overload, everyone slipping, however briefly, into a mild diabetic coma. Whatever it is, it’s a special moment, and it was during that mysterious annual hiatus that Hank, my dear sister Rose’s husband, clutching a Coors beer, a six pack of which he had made sure to bring, confronted me in the library, where I had made my self cozy next to the fire with a substantial glass of 1976 Château d’Yquem Sauternes (and, no, I didn’t serve any of that at Thanksgiving dinner) while Cerise and Veronica made gal talk in the den.
“How about Newt Gingrich?” Hank opened.
“What,” I volleyed back, “you’ve decided to dump Rick Perry already?”
“I think I’ve given him all the chances a true conservative could,” Hank told me with a frank tone. “But I just don’t think he has what it takes to be President of the United States.”
“In other words,” I responded with more than a hint of cynicism, “he doesn’t have what it takes for you to ride his coat tails to a cushy job here in Washington.”
“In other words,” Hank rationalized, “Rick Perry’s not electable.”
“Oh really?” I gently taunted. “What makes you say that?”
“Well,” Hank sighed as he plunked down – rather too heavily, in my humble opinion – on the genuine Napoleon III love seat, “with me, it started when he was in that debate with the other Republican candidates and he couldn’t remember the name of the third federal cabinet level department he wanted to eliminate. After he did that – and everybody started talking about it, of course – it started make me feel, I donno, kinda unsafe, I guess. What if the Chinese call in all their loans or something, and we have to nuke them, and here’s President Rick Perry and he can’t remember the secret codes to launch the missiles?”
“Actually,” I informed Hank, “there’s an officer from the Pentagon who follows the President around with an attaché case that has the nuclear launch codes in it. But, on the other hand, I would agree that a presidential brain freeze during a national crisis of any sort would be highly problematic.”
“Uh, yeah,” Hank nodded. “’Problematic’ – that’s the word, right there. I mean, here we’ve got DHS. We need DHS to keep the Mexicans on the other side of that huge electric fence the next Republican President is going to build down on the border, and to keep the Arab terrorists from exploding things downtown in Washington, and to keep the Moslems from setting up sharia law here in Virginia, and stuff like that. And here, on the other hand, we’ve got DHHS, which isn’t anything but a bunch of liberal welfare programs and job-killing regulatory agencies. What if Perry was President and he got DHS all mixed up with DHHS, huh? There’s only one letter difference, after all – what if he eliminated the wrong one? That could be… I donno… disastrous, that’s what! And furthermore, what if Rick Perry got elected President, came to Washington, started eliminating government agencies and forgot the Department of Education… again? Then we’d still be stuck with it – subverting family values with textbooks about children with lesbian parents, trying to stop prayer in schools, and pushing for teachers to tell students that the theory of evolution is anything more than just a theory! It’s a case of…”
“Ah, actually,” I interjected, “Governor Perry remembered the Department of Education. It’s the Department of Energy that he forgot.”
“Oh… well,” Hank shrugged. “Same difference. What if he forgets about DOE? Then we’ll be still be stuck with… um… uh…”
“The Bonneville Power Administration,” I helpfully volunteered.
“Uh, yeah,” Hank nodded. “And… um…”
“The National Nuclear Security Administration,” I added.
“Sure,” Hank concurred. “And… uh…”
“The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management,” I suggested.
“Uh, yeah, and…” Hank stammered.
“The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,” I prompted.
“Yeah, yeah!” Hank pounced. “And that one, there! The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission! Evil! Evil! What if Perry forgot to get rid of that?”
“Oh, sure,” I shrugged, “anybody can see continued function of the FERC would definitely be bad news for America, no doubt about it. So – you’ve developed an admiration for Newt’s superior memory, then?”
“Among… other things,” Hank proclaimed haughtily.
“Such as?” I goaded.
“The man obviously has what it takes to defeat Barack Obama in a one-on-one debate,” Hank confidently declared. “The mind of Newt Gingrich is like a steel trap.”
“You mean,” I posited, “that it’s dangerous, prone to rust and functions best when well oiled?”
“Exactly!” Hank exclaimed, after which his face fell at the realization of what he had said. “Ah, well, that is… not quite. I mean, he’s got a lot of important new ideas.”
“Such as what?” I inquired.
“Such as… well,” Hank fumbled, “such as the press… you know… the media?”
“Yes,” I acknowledged.
“Well,” Hank assured me grandiosely, “Newt Gingrich thinks they’re all full of [expletive]!”
“Okay,” I dryly responded, “and what is new and important about thinking that?”
“I… uh… I donno,” Hank admitted. “But it’s true, isn’t it? And Newt Gingrich knows it! Also, he’s for states’ rights.”
“So was Jefferson Davis,” I pointed out. “What’s new and important about that?”
“All right,” Hank conceded, “maybe states’ rights isn’t new, but a lot of people…”
“Like George Wallace,” I interrupted.
“… think its important. Yeah, yeah, sure, I know what you’re thinking, but what was so bad about George Wallace?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I told him. “We’re Catholics.”
“Oh come on, Tom,” Hank protested, “if George Wallace was alive today, he wouldn’t hate Catholics! He’d just use the doctrine of states’ rights to make sure white guys can still get into medical school – and so would Newt Gingrich. Anyway, Gingrich wants to replace Social Security with private alternatives.”
“An idea which is important to anyone who is expecting to collect anything for all the FICA they have paid for the last few decades, perhaps,” I allowed, “but also an idea that’s as old as the hills and twice as dusty.”
“Fine,” Hank huffed. “How about this – he wants to get the economy booming again by removing regulations on energy production.”
“An idea which is important to anyone who is expecting their local climate to remain stable, or maybe not get killed by a storm surge if they live near the ocean; but hardly new – wasn’t it Sarah Palin who said, ‘drill, baby, drill,’ way back in 2008? Nothing new there – it’s the same tired stuff just about any of the current Republican candidates are spouting. What makes Newt any different?”
“Repeal Obamacare…” Hank muttered.
“Nothing new there,” I observed. “That’s the knee-jerk platform position of every other Republican candidate.”
“Tax cuts…” Hank mumbled.
“Ditto,” I cut in.
Hank sipped his beer and stared into the fire for a long moment. At last, he spoke. “Newt Gingrich wants a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution.”
“I thought you told me,” I politely complained, “that Newt Gingrich is intelligent. But that issue aside, what’s new about a balanced budget amendment?”
“Oh, [expletive],” Hank grumbled. “Nothing, I guess.”
“You know what?” I asked.
“What?” Hank challenged.
“I happen to know one thing Newt Gingrich thinks that actually is new and important. He wants to empower Congress to fire federal judges who render decisions Congress doesn’t like.”
“Oh, really?” Hank’s expression brightened.
“Yes,” I assured him, “Newt’s own official campaign Web site says he wants to, and I quote, ‘Restore the proper role of the judicial branch by using the clearly delineated powers available to the President and Congress to correct, limit, or replace judges who violate the Constitution,’ unquote.”
“So, okay, then,” Hank responded cheerily, “there’s something we can work with – he wants to allow Congress to fire federal judges who make stupid decisions. Pretty cool idea, huh?”
“In light of the fact,” I mused, “that it’s the only truly original idea Newt Gingrich has come up with so far, it would seem to me that it offers a unique insight into his mind.”
“And what do you see?” Hank pressed me expectantly.
“Mussolini.” The word hung in the air. A distant police siren wailed in the night. “And do you know what I’m thankful for this fine evening of the fourth Thursday in November, in the Year of Our Lord 2011?”
“What?” Hank implored.
“I’m thankful that, because he has announced such an atrocious, insane idea as a major part of his campaign platform, it is now extremely unlikely Newt Gingrich will ever be President of the United States of America.”
“But… but… how can you say that?” Hank moaned. “I want… I mean, I need… that is, I have an obligation to work for a conservative candidate in order to save America from godless secular humanism, black helicopters, water fluoridation, creeping gay conspiracy, odd disturbing foreigners and five cent environmental taxes on plastic grocery bags! I can’t volunteer for the Romney campaign, Tom, I just can’t! He’s too liberal!”
“Nevertheless,” I solemnly intoned, “Mitt Romney will be the nominee. I know a lot of Republicans are appalled by the idea, but Mitt is like the rich kid who’s captain of the football team, and whose daddy owns the local auto parts factory or whatever; and the Republican Party is like the small town Homecoming Queen. It’s inevitable. Sure, Romney’s a lying, nasty creep, even if he is sort of good looking. Sure, he will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and sure, he doesn’t believe in anything except getting that. And yes, the Republicans can keep right on dating all their other suitors, because none of that matters, eventually they will have to take Mitt to the altar – or the Republican National Convention podium, whatever – and say those vows that taste like vomit rising from the back of their throats. And they will be profoundly disgusted. But they will do it, because, of all the Republican candidates, only Mitt Romney is actually electable. They will do it because only Mitt Romney is not such an obscene, extreme, revolting nut job that he makes the average independent voter’s stomach lurch and churn like a badly loaded washing machine on the spin cycle, as do all the other Republican candidates. And that, in turn, is because, like the Democrats, the Republican Party has done such a terrible job representing the American people, even life-long members of those parties are deserting them in droves to vote, if not actually register, as independents.”
Silence reigned over us again for a protracted period. In other parts of the house, we could hear the sounds of the Thanksgiving dinner wearing off as the little children stirred to play, make mischief and pick fights with one another while their parents and older siblings aroused themselves to react. Hank drained his beer and gazed at me beseechingly.
“Rick Santorum?”
“Before you volunteer for that particular bozo’s campaign,” I advised, “you had better Google his name.”