Ghost Busters
by Kerry Joyce
illustration by F. Andrew Taylor
Washington D.C. at the Smithsonian, the Hope diamond is shrouded in darkness. Dust gathers stealthily on the mighty tyrannasaurus rex. Norman Rockwell’s failed rendering of Richard Nixon’s inner child has no takers, save a lone security guard, bored to tears, and with exactly one million, 118 thousand, 742 minutes left until retirement. In the modern art pantry, Warhol’s soup cans swell with a demonic botulism, reveling in their 15 minutes of obscurity.
Over the bridge, at Arlington National Cemetery, the graveyard shift, now a skeleton crew, looks on helplessly as youthful marauders revel in the night, hurling empty wine bottles at the headstones of our fallen heroes.
With only a four days’ supply of propane left, the clock ticks, as the eternal flame flickers uncertainly before the mortal remains of John F. Kennedy.
Earth trembles, some say, by the tomb of the unknown soldier, as if the indignant vet readies himself to burst forth and proclaim to all the world his name, rank, and serial number.
Meanwhile, nearly a continent away, 10-year-old Davey and his Dad wait futilely for Old Faithful to erupt on cue at Yellowstone National Park.
“I’m sorry, folks,” Mr. Ranger informs them. “You’ll just have to come back another time. That old geyser won’t be gushing until further notice. Ya see, Davey. The government is closed. It’s something called anarchy. But I’m sure Dad can explain all about it on the car ride home. And remember, don’t feed the bears. We’re a little short on paramedics right now.”
Don’t get excited kids. Mr. Ranger was only kidding about the anarchy bit. Back in Washington, the seat of government merely has a bad case of crabs, not prostate cancer, or anything.
By the time you read this, everything will probably be back to normal, or what passes for normal these days. The man who wants to keep his job, President Bill Clinton, and the man who wants to take it from him, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, will do their self-serving best to work out something we all can live with. (If you have a Daddy with a job.)
But first, they’ll have to smooth the ruffled feathers of House Speaker Newt Gingrich. This entire crisis could have been avoided if Clinton hadn’t dissed him on a recent trip to Israel, he claims. It seems Clinton hardly spoke with the Speaker, and even made him exit from the back of the plane on the return trip to Washington.
Say what you want about Nixon. Maybe his attitude was America, love me or leave it. But at least he kept the passport office open so that you could leave. I’ll take All The President’s Men over Newt’s rendition of Boyz In The Hood, any day.
Fear not, all the truly vital coitus without interruptus has been going on as normal: Subsidies for tobacco growers, procurement of obsolete weapons systems, and the usual wheeling and dealing at the world’s largest casino, Capitol Hill.
Beneath the dome of the Freudian edifice there, the 435 member House of the Representatives, in total, appropriate one out of every 20 dollars, yen, pounds, drachmas, qats, and what have you, made anywhere on this planet of five and a half billion odd souls.
It’s a great place to have a friend. The cable companies have Republicans friends, who keep the Democrats from over regulating their business interests with a lot of silly rules about public access and price controls. That’s good for profits. They also have Democrat friends. They keep the Republicans from over regulating cable programming with a lot of silly curbs on artistic expression as it pertains to sex, Sex, SEX. That’s good for profits, too. Still, all these friends cost money. There are no $25, $50, or even $100 tables. And like any casino, the House is supposed to win.
It’s a curious gaming establishment where the idea is to lose under the dome so that you win somewhere outside of it. Only a trained expert called a lobbyist understands how to lose in just the right way.
Imagine you are one of the lobbyists playing poker in Senator Alfonse D’Amato’s office, at a few hundred dollars per hand. You would have to be an idiot to win. You’d also be an idiot if you lost every single hand. That makes the real game painfully obvious. Success lies somewhere in the middle. It takes a pro to know exactly where. It takes a pro to look Senator D’Amato straight in the eye, with the face of the patsy you pretend that you are, and say: “That’s it. I’m going home. You’re too good for me, Al. Were you bluffing on that last hand? Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. And Al, thanks for your help on screwing the spotted owl. It means a lot to the folks who climb 1,000 year old trees with a chain saw for a living.”
We need lobbyists because the unwritten rules change with subtle swiftness, (D’Amato scrapped the poker games a couple of years ago) while the written rules change hardly at all. Last year’s lobbying reform was defeated because the Republicans complained it was more government meddling that would hurt the private sector’s “competitiveness.”
But in Washington, turnabout is not just fair play, it’s the only play. So this year, the Republicans scripted an anti-lobbying measure targeted at public service organizations that receive government grants. An initiative eerily similar to the measure they opposed last year for corporations.
In their defense, the Republicans point out that the legislation does not affect those who spend less than $25,000 on “advocacy.” From which, we can only conclude that on Capitol Hill, 25 grand doesn’t buy very much.
Yes, little Davey’s Dad has a lot explaining to do on the long car ride home to Marin County, California.
Who broke the bank at the House Casino? What brought America to this lowly state?
Was it the 10 million people who’ve moved to hurricane prone Florida in the last 20 years, and who, from time to time, require billions of dollars in federal disaster relief to literally bail them out?
Was it the ardent sports freaks who demand government subsidies (fan-fare) to keep their fleet-footed centerfielders from running off to play in Japan for the Hiroshima Flying Swallows?
Was it the paper profiteers who bankrupted the Savings and Loan industry at a cost to taxpayers of over 100 billion dollars?
Was it the nuclear warhead makers who made a radioactive mess that requires a hundred billion dollar clean up?
Was it the CIA operatives, who recently admitted they knowingly passed on tainted information about the Soviets to the President and Congress, which led to the expenditure of billions of dollars on tactically worthless weapons systems?
Was it the army of assorted lobbyists, deal cutters, and high-priced hangers-on in Washington who thrive like sea gulls at a landfill, in the most gilded of public troughs?
No, Davey. It was welfare moms. The path of the righteous taxpayer is beset on all sides by the tyranny of the welfare mom. But the Republican-controlled Congress and the Christian Coalition will wrest control of the Gozer worshippers in our midst. And they will know who is the Lord.
