Executive orders - Tom Clancy [141]
You think that's what's happening here? Mary Pat asked, beating Ed by half a second.
That's the morning line from where I sit.
You feel confident enough to tell the President that? Ed Foley asked.
Which one? Vasco asked. You should hear what they're saying over at the office. The FBI just took over the seventh floor. That has things a little shook up. Anyway, yes. It's just a guess, but it's a good guess. What we need to know is, who, if anyone, has been talking to them. Nobody on the ground, eh?
The Foleys both looked down, which answered the question.
MR. RYAN'S ALLEGATIONS show that he's learned the shabby part of politics faster than the proper ones, Kealty said, in a voice more hurt than angry. I had honestly expected better of him.
So, you deny the allegations? ABC asked.
Of course I do. It's no secret that I once had an alcohol problem, but I overcame it. And it's no secret that my personal conduct has at times been questionable, but I've changed that, too, with help from my church, and the love of my wife, he added, squeezing her hand as she looked on with soft compassion and ironclad support. That really has nothing to do with the issue here. We have to place the interests of our country first. Personal animosity has no place in this, Sam. We're supposed to rise above that.
You bastard, Ryan breathed.
This is not going to be pleasant, van Damm said.
How can he win, Arnie?
Depends. I'm not sure what game he's playing.
-could say things about Mr. Ryan, too, but that isn't the sort of thing we need to do now. The country needs stability, not discord. The American people are looking for leadership-experienced, seasoned leadership.
Arnie, how much has this-
I remember when he'd fuck a snake, if somebody held it straight for him. Jack, we can't think about that sort of thing. Remember what Allen Drury said, this is a town in which we deal with people not as they are, but as they are reputed to be. The press likes Ed, always has. They like him. They like his family. They like his social conscience-
My ass! Ryan nearly shouted.
You listen to me right now. You want to be the President? You're not allowed to have a temper. You hold on to that thought, Jack. When the President loses his temper, people die. You've seen how that happens, and the people out there want to know that you are calm and cool and collected at all times, got it?
Ryan swallowed and nodded. Every so often it was good to lose one's temper, and Presidents were allowed. But you had to know when, and that was a lesson as yet unlearned. So what are you telling me?
You are the President. Act like it. Do your job. Look presidential. What you said at the press conference was okay. Kealty's claim is groundless. You're having the FBI check out his claim, but the claim doesn't matter. You swore the oath, you live here, and that's that. Make him irrelevant and he'll go away. Focus on this thing and you give him legitimacy.
And the media?
Give them a chance, and they'll get things right.
FLYING HOME TODAY, Ralph?
Augustus Lorenz and Ralph Forster were of an age, and a profession. Both men had begun their medical careers in the United States Army, one a general surgeon, the other an internist. Assigned to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MAC-V), in the time of President Kennedy, long before the war had heated up, both men had at the same time discovered things in the real world that they'd studied and passed over in Principles of Internal Medicine. There were diseases out in the remote sections of the world that killed people. Brought up in urban America, they were old enough to remember the conquest of pneumonia, tuberculosis, and poliomyelitis. Like most men of their generation, they'd thought that infectious diseases were a defeated enemy. In the jungles of a relatively peaceful Vietnam, they'd learned different, occasionally seeing healthy, fit young men, American and Vietnamese soldiers, die before their eyes from