Read Online What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Richard Ben Cramer
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Softball game ... what any man might do—but no other politician, no politician who is falling off the mound toward the massed news cameras of the nation, what no politician would do in his nightmares , in front of fifty million coast-to-coast, prime-time votes:
George Bush twists his face into a mush of chagrin, hunches his shoulders like a boy who just dropped the cookie jar, and for one generous freeze-frame moment, buries his head in both hands.
2
The Other Thing
B OB DOLE DIDN’T SEE the ball game. He was working. Probably hadn’t seen a whole game since high school. He knew what he had to know about it. Liked it, sure, as far as that went. Not too far. Might see a few pitches, in passing, on the console thing in his living room. TV, VCR, radio, all in one sort of console, right in front of the easy chair. Everything he needed, if he was home. Wasn’t home much. What would he do there?
Home was kind of small, an apartment in the Watergate, his bachelor apartment, matter of fact. Elizabeth moved in when they got married ten years ago. No, eleven now. That made about ten years she was after him to get a bigger place. She was after him about a lot of things. She didn’t push it, though.
Anyway, the living room was the only real room in the place. Took up about the whole downstairs. On one side, sliding doors led off to a little concrete terrace, where Bob would position a chair on the Astroturf and sit in the sun, if he had a daylight hour to rest. But it was a ground-floor place, so there wasn’t any view to speak of, unless you considered other people’s walls and windows a view. Inside, there was his easy chair, a couch, a breakfront that nobody used much. A foyer led into the living room from one end, and a sliver of a stand-up kitchen led off near the other end. There wasn’t any dining room, or any real table. If the Doles did find themselves home for a meal, it was microwave whiz-bang and TV tables. Upstairs there was a box of a bedroom and a half-room of a study, packed tight with files and papers, the floor space in the middle taken up by Bob’s Exercycle. That was it, as far as home went.
Of course, no one ever saw the place, so they probably had the wrong idea about it. You mentioned the Watergate, people thought of big, luxury places. That ... and maybe one other thing. Actually, he wasn’t living there when the break-in happened. Back in ’72, he still had the house in suburban Virginia, with his first wife, Phyllis. Big house, sunken living room, a real dining room where they could have entertained; three bedrooms, a walk-in garage, yard, everything. Phyllis loved the place. Bob wasn’t home much. He was working. When he was around, he stayed in a spare, monkish room he set up in the basement. Never used the rest of the house. That was when the marriage with Phyllis was coming apart. Maybe that’s why he didn’t want a real house now. Hard to tell. No one had the guts to ask. There was a lot no one dared say to Bob Dole.
He wasn’t the kind to chat about his life—or anything else, either. Not that he was silent, Coolidge in the Cloakroom. No, he was always ready with a joke, always had a greeting for you, most often: “Howy’ doin ’?” or sometimes “How’sa goin ’?”
Dole’s voice was made for the empty distance and mean wind of the prairie. His few words were audible no matter what was going on around, especially the vowels, which would linger and fall with the kind of descending Doppler effect you hear when a race car passes.
“Howy DOOOOnn ? ...”
Meanwhile, Bob Dole was already on to the next greeting, or out of the room altogether. See, he didn’t really want an answer. He was working.
For someone he knew, especially someone who wanted something, he’d always make up a special greeting. At a fund-raiser, he’d spot the guy—say, the lobbyist for the rice growers—who was heading for him, coming at him for something ...
“There he ihhhhhzz ,” Dole would
George Bush twists his face into a mush of chagrin, hunches his shoulders like a boy who just dropped the cookie jar, and for one generous freeze-frame moment, buries his head in both hands.
2
The Other Thing
B OB DOLE DIDN’T SEE the ball game. He was working. Probably hadn’t seen a whole game since high school. He knew what he had to know about it. Liked it, sure, as far as that went. Not too far. Might see a few pitches, in passing, on the console thing in his living room. TV, VCR, radio, all in one sort of console, right in front of the easy chair. Everything he needed, if he was home. Wasn’t home much. What would he do there?
Home was kind of small, an apartment in the Watergate, his bachelor apartment, matter of fact. Elizabeth moved in when they got married ten years ago. No, eleven now. That made about ten years she was after him to get a bigger place. She was after him about a lot of things. She didn’t push it, though.
Anyway, the living room was the only real room in the place. Took up about the whole downstairs. On one side, sliding doors led off to a little concrete terrace, where Bob would position a chair on the Astroturf and sit in the sun, if he had a daylight hour to rest. But it was a ground-floor place, so there wasn’t any view to speak of, unless you considered other people’s walls and windows a view. Inside, there was his easy chair, a couch, a breakfront that nobody used much. A foyer led into the living room from one end, and a sliver of a stand-up kitchen led off near the other end. There wasn’t any dining room, or any real table. If the Doles did find themselves home for a meal, it was microwave whiz-bang and TV tables. Upstairs there was a box of a bedroom and a half-room of a study, packed tight with files and papers, the floor space in the middle taken up by Bob’s Exercycle. That was it, as far as home went.
Of course, no one ever saw the place, so they probably had the wrong idea about it. You mentioned the Watergate, people thought of big, luxury places. That ... and maybe one other thing. Actually, he wasn’t living there when the break-in happened. Back in ’72, he still had the house in suburban Virginia, with his first wife, Phyllis. Big house, sunken living room, a real dining room where they could have entertained; three bedrooms, a walk-in garage, yard, everything. Phyllis loved the place. Bob wasn’t home much. He was working. When he was around, he stayed in a spare, monkish room he set up in the basement. Never used the rest of the house. That was when the marriage with Phyllis was coming apart. Maybe that’s why he didn’t want a real house now. Hard to tell. No one had the guts to ask. There was a lot no one dared say to Bob Dole.
He wasn’t the kind to chat about his life—or anything else, either. Not that he was silent, Coolidge in the Cloakroom. No, he was always ready with a joke, always had a greeting for you, most often: “Howy’ doin ’?” or sometimes “How’sa goin ’?”
Dole’s voice was made for the empty distance and mean wind of the prairie. His few words were audible no matter what was going on around, especially the vowels, which would linger and fall with the kind of descending Doppler effect you hear when a race car passes.
“Howy DOOOOnn ? ...”
Meanwhile, Bob Dole was already on to the next greeting, or out of the room altogether. See, he didn’t really want an answer. He was working.
For someone he knew, especially someone who wanted something, he’d always make up a special greeting. At a fund-raiser, he’d spot the guy—say, the lobbyist for the rice growers—who was heading for him, coming at him for something ...
“There he ihhhhhzz ,” Dole would
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