Supreme Courtship

“What are you telling me, Dexter?” Terry said over the phone. “You don’t want me with you?”

“No, honey. No, no. No. It’s not that at all. Look it’s-if it were up to me? But Buss and his people, they feel this is the way to go. Ramona’s popular on account of the show. She’s bringing in the Hispanics right and left. Our numbers there are way-”

“Dexter. I’m your wife.”

“Valid point. Valid point. But Buss and his people, they say-the audiences have gotten used to seeing me with Ramona. And, honey, let’s remember-it wasn’t my idea for you not to show up for my a

“Ramona is your TV wife. I’m your wife-wife.”

“Again, valid point. Valid point. Stipulated. Look, baby, it’s only until the election.” He added in a stridently upbeat tone: “Honey, you hate campaigning. The last one I practically had to throw grappling hooks around you to get you out there with me. Think of it as a gift. How many political wives would kill to have a surrogate like Ramona to do all the heavy lifting? Listen, baby, I gotta go. I’m speaking to the NRA convention. You don’t want to keep them waiting. No, no. Armed to the teeth! Ha-ha. Call you first chance I get. Oh, hey, by the way, use the Secret Service guys for whatever, picking up the dry cleaning, shopping. Nice be

Dexter tossed the cell phone to an aide before it could ring again. Minefield ahead, he thought as he made his way toward the podium, inside a phalanx of aides and Secret Service agents, and nothing to do with the U.S.-Mexican border. But now, hearing the ambient sound of the 2,000 members of the National Rifle Association waiting for him to take the stage, he felt the sugar-rush of adrenaline in his veins. Concentrate, he told himself, con-cen-trate. Let’s just get this football into the end zone, then deal with the collateral stuff. Maybe he’d been a little… yes… incautious with Ramona, promising her… but, my God, what a fox. Could get tricky… Well, she’d understand. Sure. Give her a nice-an ambassadorship! Perfect. Maybe even Mexico. She’d mollified some of the angrier Hispanics over the border-mining… Yes, came in handy here… giving those interviews where she said she didn’t really agree with me on it. Yes. Mexico. Or Nicaragua, or one of those places. Okay, Dex. Concentrate. Con-cen-trate. NRA. Jesus, wait a minute… Texas. Texas is voting on the term limit amendment tomorrow. Huge gun state. THE gun state. Wonderful. And they’ve got me speaking to the NRA today? Great scheduling, guys. Okay. Concentrate. Guns. We like guns. They’re so… American. But let’s all agree, we have to be careful with guns. That little incident at the mall in Orlando… the media’s calling it a massacre, that may be putting it a bit strongly, but okay, maybe a little more diligence on the background checks would be in order? The guy had spent the last six years in a psychiatric lockup ward. Should he really be able to buy a gun like that? I’ll have a Big Mac, large fries, and a.38 caliber to go. Well, there are two sides to every issue. But the larger issue is… guns don’t kill people… Bullets kill people… Yes. Without the bullets… Well, if you really want to get down to it, people kill people. Is it the fault of the guns, or the people aiming the… Right. Why don’t we just ban people while we’re at it?

“Ladies and gentlemen, you’ve known him as Senator Dexter Mitchell, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. You’ve known him as President Mitchell Lovestorm of the hit series POTUS. Soon, you’ll know him as President of the United States. Will you please welcome…”

Love this part.

Someone in the audience shouted, “Send in the Nimitz!”

You got it, pal.

PEPPER WAS IN HER CHAMBERS, glumly watching television. Watching daytime TV was not the normal routine for a Supreme Court justice, but this did actually qualify as “must-see TV.” She was following the voting in the Texas legislature.

Texas had ca

Much as the imminent passage of the Presidential Term Limit Amendment made for superheated discussion on the talk shows, the country was becoming alert to the possibility of an impending conundrum, namely: what if the amendment were ratified and President Vanderdamp won reelection? Could he-legally-take office?

That discussion now moved to the nation’s front burner. Panels of experts and scholars were duly convened; also, panels of people who didn’t really know much about it but who sounded as though they did.

One (actual) leading constitutional scholar wrote a much- discussed article for the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, concluding that such an eventuality “might well prove insoluble-the Perfect Constitutional Storm.”

He wrote:

The U.S. Constitution makes no provision for such an unprecedented, indeed, grotesque outcome. But nor should the Founders be held to account for the persistent and adamant incontinence of the American people who, as always, want to have everything both ways: lower taxes and more government services; less reliance on foreign oil, and no domestic drilling; free health care, defined as someone else paying for it; reduced emissions, and enormous cars; wind power, but no windmills in our own backyards; a ban on waterboarding terrorists, but no terrorism; strict border controls, but we’ll still need Manuel and Yolanda to mow the lawn and take care of the kids for $5 an hour and (lo siento) no benefits; and so on, ad nauseam and ad adsurdam. Meanwhile let us hope, let us, indeed, pray, that the state legislatures and the national electorate do not paint us into a corner from which escape is far from certain, and very certainly, messy.

Pepper perused these words while simultaneously watching the voting in Austin. She was suddenly seized with a stomachache, for she understood, more acutely perhaps than anyone else in the entire country, that this dilemma, this about-to-be-dead mouse on the national living room floor, was going to end up right here in the marble palace on her lap.

It was at this moment, as she sat clutching her cramped tummy and watching C-SPAN (FOR: 43, AGAINST: 21) that her secretary buzzed to say that her three o’clock appointment was here.

Presently the door opened, admitting two agents, the director of the Washington field office and-my, my-the assistant deputy director of the FBI. His presence, Pepper surmised, was a gesture of respect. This was after all, the Honorable, the Supreme Court.

The pleasantries made, coffee offered and politely declined, Pepper said, “With all respect, asking the FBI to become involved in all this-it wasn’t my idea. I’d just as soon soak it up and move on.”

The ADD nodded. “Understood and appreciated, Justice. But Chief Justice Hardwether officially requested that we become involved, so the train has left the station.”

“Okay, then,” Pepper said with a side-glance at the TV (FOR: 51, AGAINST: 25). “So, what can I do for you?”

One of the agents said, “Is there anyone here at the Court who might have some motive to embarrass you?”

Pepper smiled. “Yes. Everyone, more or less.”

The agent nodded blankly.

“You read the papers,” Pepper said. “It’s no secret I’m a bit of a”-she almost said catty whompus-“kind of a polarizing figure here. In a divided Court, I might just be the only thing everyone agrees on.”