12 March 2009
 
The Lawyer

(Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Thomas Friedman)
 
I sighed. There was too much on the plate. The rough quartos of the Spring Quarterly were strewn on the wide mahogany desk that faces the tall plate-glass windows of the office complex in Tunnel Eight. The red light in the center of the phone was blinking an accusation at me, and the number “5” was prominently displayed.
 
The production people? What about the nationwide march in Pakistan? The Joint Staff was nervous about that. The protestors had been expected to leave Quetta this morning, and a showdown was brewing between the titans of the moment: Prime Minister Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto, and that oily bastard Nawaz Sharif.
 
At the end of the day, the situation in Islamabad is the key to the Northwest Territories, which are the key to Afghanistan and the nickel-plated keys to the atomic arsenal. The protests look eerily similar to the ones that proceeded the imposition of emergency rile in November 2007, and this was all happening in the middle of the Obama Administrations big policy review. Someone in town might need a wild opinion, and I made a note on the pad in front of me to follow up.
 
The Mexicans had arrived early in the parking lot far below, and they were attacking the crumbling concrete with jack-hammers and gusto. The noise associated with the renovation was going to make working a challenge- there is nothing worse than a conference call with jack-hammers, unless it is the sound of kids and dogs in the background while everyone is trying to act professional. You can’t see the bunny slippers on the speaker phone.
 
Return the calls first, I thought. If you return calls the world continues to turn. If you don’t, it all starts to fall apart. I frowned. You can never tell how long people will talk, and I have always been a man to shoot the wolf nearest the sled. The lawyer was closest.
I reached over and hit the button to the receptionist.
 
“Send the Lawyer back, Mattie. Let’s get this over with. And why are the Mexicans here? I thought the parking lot replacement started tomorrow.”
 
“They had some time on their hands since another job fell through and they want the billable hours. I’ll walk the Lawyer back now, Vic.”
 
I counted four potatoes as I imagined Matilda uncoiling herself from the sleek Eimes-brand Chair in the reception area.
 
She is one of the little luxuries I permitted myself after the click-through revenue stream started to pick up. She is decorative enough, but that isn’t why I hired her. When she slips on those severe European glasses she is all business, and she can run a SharePoint site and craft an xCel-brand spread sheet like nobodies business.

I don’t like the product placement very much- I sipped some of that heavenly Dazbog-brand Russian roast coffee- but there are some things you have to do to get by.
 
Still, I don’t know how long the little luxuries can be maintained. That is why the lawyer was here. There had been a commotion after the story got through editorial review yesterday, and it made me wonder if laying-off the fact checkers had been the wisest decision the Board had made.
 
It had come down to Mattie or the Fact Checkers, and Mattie’s deep blue eyes and ripe curves had won the day. 
 
The door swung open and Mattie winked. I gave a half-hearted wave as the Lawyer marched in and took a seat in the armchair in front of my desk.
 
His dark eyes glittered and his goatee made him look like Mephistopheles.  He clicked open the pair of locks on his brief case. They went off like little gunshots.

“Short and sweet, Vic. You have done it again and the Firm is about out of patience with you. The copy from yesterday’s story was on the verge of being picked up by Drudge- you know the significance of that.”
 
“I heard,” I said, dreading what was to come. I pulled Cohibo-brand Dominican cigar crafted from tobacco grown by hardy peasants from Cuban seed from the Dunhill humidor on the desk and rolled it in my finger.
 
“Well, it is not going to happen. Goddammit, can’t you keep your Laureates straight?”
 
I winced and fished for my silver Zippo-brand lighter in the pocket of my slacks.
 
“Paul Krugman of the New York Times, and the Princeton Economics Department and Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy, got the Nobel, not Tom Friedman.”
 
I carefully twirled the cigar in the flame of the Zippo, a remarkable piece of classic American design.
 
The Lawyer leaned forward toward me, radiating intensity. “Friedman lives in the Op-Ed land of “Smugistan,” and peddles facile conventional wisdom.” He gave a thin smile, like he had just summed something up to a jury.
 
“All right. I swear I will do better. But the Earth is Flat, you know. It is a common enough mistake.”
 
“Not for someone who is trying to claw his way to the top of the bloggosphere, you jerk. Take some time. Check your facts.”
 
“OK, OK, it was the Pulitzer, not the Nobel. I was getting to an important point, and Freidman is right. The Administration is trying to do too much all at once. There is a war on the border in Mexico. Afghanistan is falling apart. The Pakis are about to lose control of their arsenal. The North Koreans are going to lob a satellite in the general direction of Tokyo and LA. And a trillion dollars for health care on top of a banking system in collapse?”
 
“Give Obama a break. He has been in office seven weeks. As a national cheerleader during a bad economy he is no FDR, but he is making structural changes that most of the country knew we’ve needed for nearly two decades now.”
 
He removed a piece of paper from the briefcase and slid it across the desk. I picked it up and glanced at the subject line.
 
“I’ll save you the time. It is what we call a Non-punitive Letter of Caution. After the run-in with Rahm Emanuel’s people we decided that the next time you got too far out of the box, we would have to start documenting your specific performance.”
 
I wanted to wad the thing up in a ball and throw it on the brilliant geometric pattern of the hand-knotted Iranian tribal rug in the corner. I got a great deal on it from Kardashian’s in Ballston.
 
The lawyer’s face softened. “Of course the economy is important. Paulson and Bush did nothing less than plunder the Treasury on the way out of office for their Wall Street friends.”
 
He actually smiled, which was un-nerving. “This lawsuit filed by Hank Greenberg against AIG will likely reveal that Paulson personally intervened to ensure that much of the AIG bailout money in fact went to his buddies at Goldman Sachs, his alma mater. He even held a press conference, incredibly irresponsible and damaging to public confidence, to quash the sensible direction Sheila Bair of the FDIC.”
 
“I think Sheila is hot. Certainly the hottest chief the FDIC has had since I have been in town. Is she available?”
 
“Keep your libido out of this, Vic. She suggested a perfectly reasonable plan to stabilize the home mortgage crisis. Any bank accepting TARP bailout funds should be required to agree to “cram down” authority in adjusting the mortgages.” He scowled in contempt.
 
“Paulson said “NO!”
 
“Yeah, point taken. But the Bushies are gone, and the new guys are trying too much too fast, and they are going to screw up some stuff that is really big and really long lasting. You have to deal with the wolf nearest the sled first or it will tear you to pieces.”
 
“The new administration is trying to deal with these things structurally now, and you don’t need to pile on with the whiners who are saying “Wrong direction! What! More taxes?” You gotta take the medicine to get better. The stock market will come back. The sky is not falling. We’ve screwed up for a long time, spent like drunken sailors on unnecessary wars and allowed the plundering of the Treasury by the last Administration. Now enjoy the rehab.”
 
“I’m a sailor, and I drink. I resent the comparison.”
 
The locks on the briefcase snapped shut and the Mexican jack-hammers rattled on the concrete outside. The Lawyer put on his game face and got up.
 
“You have been warned, Vic. Mind your business. Check your facts. We are going to be keeping track.”
 
The air seemed to go out of the office when the door closed behind him. I blew a cloud of blue smoke toward the window. I hate ineracting with the legal staff. Now, what the hell am I going to write about this morning?

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com