Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [4]
PAULINE CRAIG: In case something like—well, something like this happens.
JAMES MACKLER: Yes. It’s never happened before. No president’s identity has ever been called into question, until two days ago. We asked our apparent Taft for the presidential ID code. He knew it.
PAULINE CRAIG: He knew it. I see. And you’re more prepared to accept the idea of a total violation of the laws of nature than the idea that a government secret could have leaked.
JAMES MACKLER: There are secrets, and then there are secrets, and then, beyond those, there are the secrets so secret they keep secrets from each other. I don’t know how to explain his appearance after a hundred years, but I do know as an absolute certainty that that man could not know that code unless he used to sit in the Oval Office.
PAULINE CRAIG: Well, let’s ask our second guest, also here via satellite: Dr. Ernest Cho, chief biologist at the Naval Research Laboratory. Dr. Cho, the intelligence community IDs this man as William Howard Taft. What does science have to say about the fact that it’s impossible?
ERNEST CHO: Pauline, I know this is all incredible, but—we’ve got two things to address, the if and the how. The if is pretty straightforward: the Smithsonian collection has vintage samples of President Taft’s hair. We spent yesterday running a DNA test, and it was a match. Genetically speaking, that man is either William Howard Taft or his brother. And, of course, his brothers have been dead and buried for a century.
PAULINE CRAIG: Well, gee, are you sure about that?
ERNEST CHO: Ah, yes. We’ve—we’ve checked. Sorry, I know that’s unpleasant, but there’s no room to be sloppy with something like this. On top of the DNA, every physical identifying trait also matches President Taft’s medical history, which is well documented. His wife was obsessed with his health. There are a lot of records. As for how he could have vanished for a century and still be not only alive but unaged—we don’t know. Ah, there are certain hunter-gatherer tribes in New Guinea that are able to arrest the human metabolism by absorbing a mixture of arboreal fungi, but nothing that approaches this magnitude. Mr. Taft, for his part, has no sense of time having passed whatsoever. He tells us he thought he’d just sat down outside and dozed off while walking to Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration.
PAULINE CRAIG: In 1913.
ERNEST CHO: Yes. There certainly have been cases of human hibernation reported occasionally throughout history. They’re far-fetched, obviously, and science is reluctant to accept the truth of things that cannot be explained. But every scientific tool we’re able to apply to this situation tells us that, this time, the far fetched is true. He’s Taft.
PAULINE CRAIG: Human hibernation. Well, if any human was going to hibernate, I guess it makes sense that it would be one who looks like a bear. Our final guest is preeminent Taft historian Susan Weschler of American University. Professor Weschler, you’ve been working on a biography of President Taft for years. Would you say you know him better than anyone else living today does?
SUSAN WESCHLER: Uh, thank you, Pauline, that’s very kind. I suppose that’s true. But being the foremost authority on Taft is like being the foremost authority on—on Luxembourg.
PAULINE CRAIG: I don’t follow you.
SUSAN WESCHLER: Luxembourg is a tiny little nation surrounded by Germany, Belgium, and France. It’s overshadowed by its more powerful, more popular neighbors, so people never give it any thought. Taft is like that. His term was sandwiched right in between Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, two of the most exalted presidents we’ve ever had.
PAULINE CRAIG: I