Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [225]
The President had scheduled the trip well in advance. It was a customary courtesy for the chief executive to maintain a low profile during the opposition's convention. It was just as easy to work at Camp David - easier in fact since it was far easier to shoo reporters away. But you had to run the gauntlet to get there. With the Marine VH-3 helicopter sitting and waiting on the White House lawn, the President emerged from the ground-level door with the First Lady and two other functionaries in tow, and there they were again, a solid phalanx of reporters and cameras. He wondered if the Russians with their glasnost knew what they were in for.
"Mister President!" called a senior TV reporter. "Governor Fowler says that he hopes we weren't involved in the bombing in COLOMBIA! Do you have any comment?"
Even as he walked over to the roped enclosure of journalists, the President knew that it was a mistake, but he was drawn to them and the question as a lemming is drawn to the sea. He couldn't not do it. The way the question was shouted, everyone would know that he'd heard it, and no answer would itself be seen as an answer of sorts. The President ducked the question of… And he couldn't leave Washington for a week of low-profile existence, leaving the limelight to the other side - not with that question lying unanswered behind him on the White House lawn, could he?
"The United States," the President said, "does not kill innocent women and children. The United States fights against people who do that. We do not sink down to their bestial level. Is that a clear enough answer?" It was delivered in a quiet, reasoned voice, but the look the President gave the reporter made that experienced journalist wilt before his eyes. It was good, the President thought, to see that his power occasionally reached the bastards.
It was the second major political lie of the day - a slow news day to be sure. Governor Fowler well remembered that John and Robert Kennedy had plotted the deaths of Castro and others with a kind of elitist glee born of Ian Fleming's novels, only to learn the hard way that assassination was a messy business. Very messy indeed, for there were usually people about whom you didn't especially want to kill. The current President knew all about "collateral damage," a term which he found distasteful but indicative of something both necessary and impossible to explain to people who didn't understand how the world really worked: terrorists, criminals, and all manner of cowards - brutal people are most often cowards, after all - regularly hid behind or among the innocent, daring the mighty to act, using the altruism of their enemies as a weapon against those enemies. You cannot touch me. We are the "evil" ones. You are the "good" ones. You cannot attack us without casting away your self-image. It was the most hateful attribute of those most hateful of people, and sometimes - rarely, but sometimes - they had to be shown that it didn't work. And that was messy, wasn't it? Like some sort of international auto accident.
But how the hell do I explain that to the American people? In an election year? Vote to re-elect the President who just killed a wife, two kids, and various domestic servants to protect your children from drugs… ? The President wondered if Governor Fowler understood just how illusory presidential power was - and about the awful noise generated when one principle crashed hard up against another. That was even worse than the noise of the reporters, the President thought. It was something to shake his head about as he walked to his helicopter. The Marine sergeant saluted at the steps. The President returned it - a tradition despite the fact that no sitting President had ever worn a uniform. He strapped in and looked back at the assembled mob. The cameras were still