after two previous mistakes, we cannot afford
to withdraw this nominee. I don’t know why we’re even discussing this. There’s no choice, Lyle. And aside from the politics,
you’ve heard the President say it a hundred times—Parham is the man.There’s no
chance
he’d withdraw him. Parham is the President’s
man.
He’s been nominated and he’s going to stay nominated.”
“So your advice is …”
“After every advisor who can pack into the Oval Office sees the video of that girl—I don’t think there’ll even be an argument.
This is
not
a negative, Lyle. We just got very, very lucky.”
“That’s your position.”
“That’s my position.”
“And you’re gonna stick with it right up to the minute your face hits the concrete.”
“I am. Definitely. Absolutely.”
9
H elen Bondell loved to fight and she loved to win, but she did not like to be ugly. Not physically ugly—she was thirty-two,
blonde, and just this side of gorgeous—but even the most accomplished charmers in Washington, the ones who knew what she did,
could not keep the contempt from their eyes. They called her unprincipled.
In fact, her principles were so huge they blocked the horizon, so wide and towering you had to pull back to get a look at
them. All Helen Bondell wanted was to
help.
She did whatever she could to get certain legislation passed, reminding herself when the blood flew that the legislation
helped the people she wanted to help, people like impoverished, husbandless, jobless mothers who wouldn’t be helped unless legislation imposed penalties for
not
helping them.
Her natural habitat was the battlefield, and it was covered with blood. The sword in her hand was the Freedom Federation,
an alliance of public-interest groups with a zeal for “social change.” A
Washington Post
reporter had asked her to define the term.
“Well,” said Helen, green eyes sparkling with a charm younger lobbyists practiced in front of mirrors, “social change is whatever
the Freedom Federation says it is.” Helen loved to shock (those helpless mothers couldn’t shock—who would care what they said?),
and she had found that nothing shocked more powerfully than candor.
“In other words,” the reporter said, “it’s whatever
you
say it is.”
“I think that’s probably fair.”
Her cocky willingness to thrust her head above the parapets, to invite attacks on her eccentric honesty, made good copy, which
was part of the game. Sometimes it was the whole game.
She knew what was right and what was wrong, and if you agreed with her she didn’t care what label you carried or who you slept
with. What she hated were the people who were wrong, knew it, and didn’t care.
She admired compassion and honesty. Her late husband—who’d had both, plus courage—had been blown away (literally, a bomb landed
under his table) at a café in Algiers. The media said Islamic fundamentalists. She hadn’t even known he was out of the country.
He was an international banker—Third World investments, multinational loans, barter agreements, economic recovery projects.
Butwhile he wasn’t looking—or maybe while he was—his business became mixed with politics and ended in terrorism. He’d been smart,
informed, and so were his friends. She knew her husband had been doing what was right.
And so was she. People on the other side said she’d set new standards for dirty fighting. New standards. In a business whose
hallmark was an absence of standards. If you won you were great. If you lost you were—well, you weren’t anything, you were
as close to invisible as live humans ever get.
And anyway, the standards weren’t hers. She had created and cultivated a reputation for ruthlessness, knowing that the meaner
she was thought to be, the nicer she could actually be. Myths were important in Washington. If you could convince people you
were what you had to be, it left you free, sometimes, to be what you wanted
to withdraw this nominee. I don’t know why we’re even discussing this. There’s no choice, Lyle. And aside from the politics,
you’ve heard the President say it a hundred times—Parham is the man.There’s no
chance
he’d withdraw him. Parham is the President’s
man.
He’s been nominated and he’s going to stay nominated.”
“So your advice is …”
“After every advisor who can pack into the Oval Office sees the video of that girl—I don’t think there’ll even be an argument.
This is
not
a negative, Lyle. We just got very, very lucky.”
“That’s your position.”
“That’s my position.”
“And you’re gonna stick with it right up to the minute your face hits the concrete.”
“I am. Definitely. Absolutely.”
9
H elen Bondell loved to fight and she loved to win, but she did not like to be ugly. Not physically ugly—she was thirty-two,
blonde, and just this side of gorgeous—but even the most accomplished charmers in Washington, the ones who knew what she did,
could not keep the contempt from their eyes. They called her unprincipled.
In fact, her principles were so huge they blocked the horizon, so wide and towering you had to pull back to get a look at
them. All Helen Bondell wanted was to
help.
She did whatever she could to get certain legislation passed, reminding herself when the blood flew that the legislation
helped the people she wanted to help, people like impoverished, husbandless, jobless mothers who wouldn’t be helped unless legislation imposed penalties for
not
helping them.
Her natural habitat was the battlefield, and it was covered with blood. The sword in her hand was the Freedom Federation,
an alliance of public-interest groups with a zeal for “social change.” A
Washington Post
reporter had asked her to define the term.
“Well,” said Helen, green eyes sparkling with a charm younger lobbyists practiced in front of mirrors, “social change is whatever
the Freedom Federation says it is.” Helen loved to shock (those helpless mothers couldn’t shock—who would care what they said?),
and she had found that nothing shocked more powerfully than candor.
“In other words,” the reporter said, “it’s whatever
you
say it is.”
“I think that’s probably fair.”
Her cocky willingness to thrust her head above the parapets, to invite attacks on her eccentric honesty, made good copy, which
was part of the game. Sometimes it was the whole game.
She knew what was right and what was wrong, and if you agreed with her she didn’t care what label you carried or who you slept
with. What she hated were the people who were wrong, knew it, and didn’t care.
She admired compassion and honesty. Her late husband—who’d had both, plus courage—had been blown away (literally, a bomb landed
under his table) at a café in Algiers. The media said Islamic fundamentalists. She hadn’t even known he was out of the country.
He was an international banker—Third World investments, multinational loans, barter agreements, economic recovery projects.
Butwhile he wasn’t looking—or maybe while he was—his business became mixed with politics and ended in terrorism. He’d been smart,
informed, and so were his friends. She knew her husband had been doing what was right.
And so was she. People on the other side said she’d set new standards for dirty fighting. New standards. In a business whose
hallmark was an absence of standards. If you won you were great. If you lost you were—well, you weren’t anything, you were
as close to invisible as live humans ever get.
And anyway, the standards weren’t hers. She had created and cultivated a reputation for ruthlessness, knowing that the meaner
she was thought to be, the nicer she could actually be. Myths were important in Washington. If you could convince people you
were what you had to be, it left you free, sometimes, to be what you wanted
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