Truth - Al Franken [2]
Punch drunk with anticipation of the coming Democratic ascendancy, we cobbled together an opening monologue:
As you have probably heard, John Kerry was elected President yesterday. We’ll get to that soon. But first, I want to pick up where I left off with the case against George W. Bush. Now, as I was saying yesterday, nothing illustrates Bush’s incompetence more than the looting of hundreds of tons of high-grade explosives from the al Qaqaa ammo dump. But it’s not just incompetence.
The plan was that I would milk the conceit for a minute or so, and then my cohost, Katherine Lanpher, would talk me out of it. Then I’d take the high road for a moment—“This wasn’t just a victory for John Kerry, it was a victory for a movement; the young people of America have changed the course of history forever; now’s the time for healing and reconciliation after four years of bitterness”—and then we’d get into the good stuff: gloating. We’d play “We Are the Champions,” and then play Bush’s concession speech, and then play “We Are the Champions” again, this time singing along, and then play the concession speech with our snarky comments over it. “You blew it! You had it in your hand, and you blew it!” and “Hey, Karl Rove! Mister GENIUS!!!” . . . stuff like that.
Over gales of laughter, we started riffing. What jobs would former Bush administration officials take? Cheney, of course, would be CEO of Halliburton again. Colin Powell would collect board directorships. Bush would become senior vice president of Halliburton, after being rejected as commissioner of baseball.
And what about Rumsfeld? He’d honor us with a fake phone call and, as usual, he’d disrupt the interview by asking himself rhetorical questions. It might be my last chance to do my Rummy impression, which I had recently perfected.
Am I happy Kerry won? No.
Could the election be interpreted as a repudiation of the wars I mismanaged? Maybe.
Should I take responsibility? No. Why should I?
Will I be secretary of defense in the new administration? Probably not.
Am I going to leave the Pentagon? No way.
Are they gonna try to remove me? Sure.
Is this some kind of coup? You could call it that.
Have I gone crazy? You tell me.
We left the hotel for the Kerry victory party in Copley Square, high-fiving each other and feeling as if we were on top of the world. Little did we know that we were about to begin a nightmarish death spiral into the fiery pits of electoral obliteration. (Though not, as I will painstakingly document later in this chapter, by a substantial margin.)
Bouncing cheerfully into the lobby of the Fairmont Copley Hotel to pick up our press credentials, I spied a friend, a grinning Ed Markey. With Senator Kerry in the White House, the way would finally be clear for the tireless, handsome Massachusetts congressman to run for Senate. And from there, who knows? We bumped chests in the manner of victorious cavemen.
Next I saw Gene Sperling, former—and, now, future—economic adviser to the president. His face was alight. “We’ve done it,” his glowing face seemed to say.
“We’ve done it!” I said to Gene.
“That’s what I just said,” answered Gene.
“Oh,” I responded, “I thought that was just your face.”
Gene shot me a weird look. But the awkwardness could not survive the building excitement we were both feeling. We hugged. More awkwardness as we disentangled ourselves, followed again by shared joy.
But tonight would not just