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Normally, my favorite inside source speaks in a reserved manner, keeping his emotions hidden as though he were playing high-stakes poker. But there was excitement in his voice last week when I finally reached Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
We found it,
he bubbled. We've figured out how
to wire the 2004 election.
So the Committee was behind Ralph Nader's announcement? He might matter in a couple of close states.
No, Nader did all that on his own. Not that the
Committee would discourage any well-meaning idealist from
seeking the presidency, of course, unless the candidate was
some dingbat like Ross Perot who could cut into the voter
base we need.
I took another guess. If the incumbent keeps sliding in the polls, then Osama bin Laden will be captured sometime around Oct. 10, and he will be carrying a map that shows the way to a hidden nuclear-arms production facility in Iraq.
Who told you that, Quillen?
It was just my imagination, I assured him. I was trying to think of an event that could well guarantee four more years, and that came to mind.
You're sure you didn't get it from one of our
people?
He had the tone of a policeman interrogating a
teenager about a sixpack. Again I assured him that this was
just guesswork.
Sorry, Quillen. These days you can't be too careful.
Let's get back on message here. The one thing that is going
to insure that the right candidate wins the presidential
election is the proposed constitutional amendment that
defines marriage as a union of one man and one
woman.
The president had announced his support for it last week, I observed. But it looked like a non-starter.
Why do you say that?
Ziegler asked. Because it's
so difficult to amend the U.S. Constitution. First it would
have to pass by a two-thirds majority in both the House and
Senate of the U.S. Congress. Most Democrats probably oppose
it, and doubtless there are Republicans who actually
believe the party's talk about leaving state matters to
states. And there are potential procedural delays, like the
prospect of a Senate filibuster.
All that is true,
Ziegler said, but it's still
a winner.
Even if it did emerge from Congress, I said, it would still have to be ratified by 38 state legislatures. There have to be at least 13 states where it wouldn't pass.
Again, you're right,
Ziegler conceded. But the
political value of this amendment does not come from the
chance that it might actually become part of the
constitution. It will come from the struggle.
How will that work? I wondered.
Start with the current situation,
Ziegler said.
The announcement of White House support for the
amendment was on every front page, right there with the
marriage licenses in San Francisco and the legislative
contention in Massachusetts.
Indeed it was, I agreed.
And when people are paying attention to that, are
they paying attention to the 2.3 million jobs that have
been lost since 2001? The 33 percent rise in unemployment
since the inauguration? To the erosion of our Bill of
Rights? To the missing weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq?
Before he got too wound up, I interrupted him. His logic was clear, I told him. Even if the marriage amendment had no chance of being adopted, it would crowd out other news that might work against the Committee's agenda.
That's part of it,
Ziegler said. We want those
NASCAR dads to be concerned about 'protecting the sanctity
of marriage,' not whether they'll have a job on Monday
morning, or discover that it's been moved to India or
China. But there's more.
How so?
It's a great wedge issue that will work at all
levels; if we spin this right, then even candidates for
state legislature will have to take a position, and we'll
make sure they get an 'anti-family' rating if they aren't
enthusiastic supporters of the amendment.
So it's just politics, I sighed. A charade designed to divert attention away from issues that the current administration could do something about, and turn the focus to a piece of political theater with no chance of passage.
Absolutely,
Ziegler said. And since I know
you're going to write about this, I also know that this
scam worked on you.
He laughed and hung up.
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