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Authors: Jim Geraghty
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the time the purchase is actually approved.” She savored a long sip of her martini, a “Montreal Madam”—Absolut Kurant, Grand Marnier, and a splash of cranberry juice.
“Just a few more rungs on the GS ladder, we’ll have more authority and be able to do things the way they were meant to be,” Jamie insisted, motioning to their waiter for a second Stockholm 75.
“I … should be director of communications,” Lisa said, feeling the first wave of giddiness and tipsiness from her Negroni. “My boss is a translucent yes-man to Humphrey.”
Lisa found work at the agency particularly frustrating. A quintessential type-A personality, she had, through hard work and determination, always been able to get what she wanted before this. Within the agency’s Department of Communications, she had quickly deluged her boss with perfectly proofreadmemos with ideas she deemed ingenious and irrefutably exciting. The first four generated increasingly terse rejections. The fifth generated a meeting with Humphrey.
“I’m in a communications office. I thought the point of this job was to communicate,” she said, quietly pleased with the direct simplicity of her plea.
“Communication is a dangerous weapon, my dear, only to be unsheathed carefully and when needed,” Humphrey said. “We want to ensure the world is watching on our best days and looking elsewhere the rest.”
“I’m not gonna quit,” Lisa said, extinguishing her cigar into one of the club’s deep ashtrays. “I can persuade these old dogs. The world’s changing. The Internet. These guys don’t even realize how much they’re hurting themselves. The whole reason Americans distrust government is because of a lack of communication, and if agencies just opened up and communicated better, Americans wouldn’t be so reflexively right-wing and antigovernment.”
They concluded, with a mix of hope and certainty, that everything would change when they were promoted and out of these low-level positions. And then they danced.
They had hoped that the guys in the club would join them, but most of the men were content to drink, smoke, and watch them dance instead.
NOVEMBER 1994
U.S. National Debt: $4.7 trillion
Budget, USDA Agency of Invasive Species: $91.2 million
As the evening progressed, Humphrey consumed a bit more scotch than he had planned. While he had proven that he could get more money for the agency in every fiscal year since 1977,he had always worked with an easily distractible Republican president and a pliable, helpful Democratic Congress, or at least a Democratic House. One way or another, he always overcame resistance to his perennial argument that
yes, everyone agrees controlling spending is very important, and there are many other places to study closely for cuts in next year’s budget, but the activities of the Agency of Invasive Species really need more funding than last year, not less
. Always. Year in, year out.
But tonight’s election returns were showcasing the unthinkable: Republicans were winning on a scale not seen in fifty years. That blasted lunatic Newt Gingrich was about to become Speaker of the House.
Even worse, a familiar name had cropped up in some of the coverage of the impending political tsunami. In the outer suburbs of Philadelphia, one of the Congress’s most easily forgettable political weather vanes, three-term Democratic representative Bob Leere, found himself suddenly saddled with all of the failures of Congress under the Clinton administration: Hillarycare. Tax hikes. An invasion of Haiti. A surgeon general who wanted to teach masturbation in schools. A baseball season that ended without a World Series.
The Republicans had found a square-jawed, middle-aged man who had impeccable Reaganite credentials, experience in government and Washington policy fights, and about a decade’s worth of business success to self-finance much of his campaign. He spoke with particularly convincing passion when he pledged to hold the
“Just a few more rungs on the GS ladder, we’ll have more authority and be able to do things the way they were meant to be,” Jamie insisted, motioning to their waiter for a second Stockholm 75.
“I … should be director of communications,” Lisa said, feeling the first wave of giddiness and tipsiness from her Negroni. “My boss is a translucent yes-man to Humphrey.”
Lisa found work at the agency particularly frustrating. A quintessential type-A personality, she had, through hard work and determination, always been able to get what she wanted before this. Within the agency’s Department of Communications, she had quickly deluged her boss with perfectly proofreadmemos with ideas she deemed ingenious and irrefutably exciting. The first four generated increasingly terse rejections. The fifth generated a meeting with Humphrey.
“I’m in a communications office. I thought the point of this job was to communicate,” she said, quietly pleased with the direct simplicity of her plea.
“Communication is a dangerous weapon, my dear, only to be unsheathed carefully and when needed,” Humphrey said. “We want to ensure the world is watching on our best days and looking elsewhere the rest.”
“I’m not gonna quit,” Lisa said, extinguishing her cigar into one of the club’s deep ashtrays. “I can persuade these old dogs. The world’s changing. The Internet. These guys don’t even realize how much they’re hurting themselves. The whole reason Americans distrust government is because of a lack of communication, and if agencies just opened up and communicated better, Americans wouldn’t be so reflexively right-wing and antigovernment.”
They concluded, with a mix of hope and certainty, that everything would change when they were promoted and out of these low-level positions. And then they danced.
They had hoped that the guys in the club would join them, but most of the men were content to drink, smoke, and watch them dance instead.
NOVEMBER 1994
U.S. National Debt: $4.7 trillion
Budget, USDA Agency of Invasive Species: $91.2 million
As the evening progressed, Humphrey consumed a bit more scotch than he had planned. While he had proven that he could get more money for the agency in every fiscal year since 1977,he had always worked with an easily distractible Republican president and a pliable, helpful Democratic Congress, or at least a Democratic House. One way or another, he always overcame resistance to his perennial argument that
yes, everyone agrees controlling spending is very important, and there are many other places to study closely for cuts in next year’s budget, but the activities of the Agency of Invasive Species really need more funding than last year, not less
. Always. Year in, year out.
But tonight’s election returns were showcasing the unthinkable: Republicans were winning on a scale not seen in fifty years. That blasted lunatic Newt Gingrich was about to become Speaker of the House.
Even worse, a familiar name had cropped up in some of the coverage of the impending political tsunami. In the outer suburbs of Philadelphia, one of the Congress’s most easily forgettable political weather vanes, three-term Democratic representative Bob Leere, found himself suddenly saddled with all of the failures of Congress under the Clinton administration: Hillarycare. Tax hikes. An invasion of Haiti. A surgeon general who wanted to teach masturbation in schools. A baseball season that ended without a World Series.
The Republicans had found a square-jawed, middle-aged man who had impeccable Reaganite credentials, experience in government and Washington policy fights, and about a decade’s worth of business success to self-finance much of his campaign. He spoke with particularly convincing passion when he pledged to hold the
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