Executive orders - Tom Clancy [298]
The chief of the Civil Rights Division had only to read off the fourteen names. He didn't need to call up the paperwork on their cases. He knew them all. This one, at the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, had reversed a lower-court ruling and written a lengthy opinion questioning the constitutionality of affirmative action-too good a discourse, it had persuaded the Supreme Court in a sharply divided 5-4 decision. The case had been a narrow one, and the affirmation of it in Washington had been similarly narrow, but the chief didn't like any chips in that particular wall of stone.
That one in New York had affirmed the government's position in another area, but in doing so had limited the applicability of the principle-and that case hadn't gone further, and was law for a large part of the country.
These were the wrong people. Their view of judicial power was too circumscribed. They deferred too much to Congress and the state legislatures. Pat Martin's view of law was different from his own. Martin didn't see that judges were supposed to right what was wrong-the two had often debated the issue over lunch in conversations spirited but always good-natured. Martin was a pleasant man, and a sufficiently good debater that he was hard to move off any position, whether he was wrong or not, and while that made him a fine prosecutor he just didn't have the temperament, he just didn't see the way things were supposed to be, and he'd picked judges the same way, and the Senate might be dumb enough to consent to the selections, and that couldn't happen. For this sort of power, you had to pick people who knew how to exercise it in the proper way.
He really had no choice. He bundled the list into an envelope and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket and made a phone call for lunch with one of his many contacts.
* * *
31 - PRESS
THEY DID IT FOR THE morning news, so pervasive had become the influence of television. This was how reality was defined, changed, and announced. A new day had surely dawned. The viewer was left in little doubt. There was a new flag hanging behind the announcer, a green field, the color of Islam, with two small gold stars. He started off with an invocation from the Koran, and then went into political matters. There was a new country. It was called the United Islamic Republic. It would be comprised of the former nations of Iran and Iraq. The new nation would be guided by the Islamic principles of peace and brotherhood. There would be an elected parliament called a majlis. Elections, he promised, would be held by the end of the year. In the interim there would be a revolutionary council comprised of political figures from both countries, in proportion to population-which gave Iran the whip hand, the announcer didn't say; he didn't have to.
There was no reason, he went on, for any other country to fear the UIR. The new nation proclaimed its goodwill for all Muslim nations, and all nations who had friendly relations with the former divided segments of the new land. That this statement was contradictory in numerous ways was not explored. The other Gulf nations, all of them Islamic, had not actually enjoyed friendly relations with either of the partners. The elimination of the former Iraqi weapons facilities would continue apace so that there would be no question of hostility to the international community. Political prisoners would be freed at once-
And now they can make room for the new ones, Major Sabah observed at PALM BOWL. So, it's happened. He didn't have to phone anyone. The TV feed was being viewed all over the Gulf, and in every room with a functioning television the only happy face was the one on the screen-that is, until the scene changed to show spontaneous demonstrations at the various mosques, where people made their morning prayers, and walked outside to display their joy.
HELLO. ALI, Jack said. He'd stayed up reading the folders Martin had left, knowing that the call would come, suffering,