Supreme Courtship

by Christopher Buckley

  Once, famously, on his way into a state funeral at the National Cathedral, a reporter for one of the smaller cable TV new channels stepped forward to ask for a brief comment. One hour and fifteen minutes later, Senator Mitchell was still talking as the casket emerged, carried by the honor guard. One of his fellow senators was heard to remark, “Wouldn’t it have been simpler to ask him to deliver the eulogy?” The tape of the interview is a cult classic and plays three or four times a year during the wee hours. Some consider it the best argument around for 24/7 cable TV.

  Dexter was now in his midfifties, at the age when men begin to take cholesterol-lowering and penis-elevating medications. Now in his third decade of public service, he had a solid career behind him: prosecutor, congressman, three-term senator from the great state of Connecticut. For the last four years, he had been Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, generally referred to as “the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.” And true enough: if you wanted to wield a federal gavel, you first had to get past his.

  He was good-looking, in a shiny sort of way. He’d had his front teeth capped. They were now so blindingly white that when he bared them, you could almost hear a little tingg! and see a star of light reflect off the incisor, just like in the commercials. He cheerfully admitted to having Botox injections, and even had a nice line about it: “I need all the help I can get. My job involves a lot of frowning.” He had an attractive wife named Terry, attractive children, and an attractive beagle named Amtrak. (Senator Mitchell sat on the Transportation Subcommittee and fought fiercely for subsidies for America ’s railroads, especially the one that ferried him from Stamford to Washington and back.)

  If a computer were programmed to design a president of the United States, it might very well generate Dexter Mitchell. Everything about him seemed, indeed, calculated. And yet for all his qualifications, Dexter somehow added up to less than the sum of his considerable parts. His epic loquacity was not an asset. Successive campaign advisers had tried without success to get him to give briefer answers, but nothing had stemmed the logorrheic tide, the tsunami of subordinate clauses and parenthetical asides, the inexorable mudslide of anecdotage. His campaign “listening tours” were occasions of mirth among political reporters, since it was the people he met who did the listening. Dexter Mitchell would happily express himself on any issue, at any time, at any place.

  He had run for president three times. The first time, he raised $12 million and came in third in the Iowa caucus. [3] The second time, he raised $20 million and came in fourth. The third time, he raised $22 million and came in seventh. He was undeterred. Somewhere over the rainbow he heard the people chanting, Mit-chell! Mit-chell! But by now he had begun to acquire a slightly used feel; “certifiably preowned,” as one pundit put it uncharitably.

  When he declared his intention to run a fourth time, his wife, now working as a K Street lobbyist representing-as it happened-the U.S. rail industry, replied in no uncertain terms that she would not spend one more weekend, one more day, one more hour, one more minute at some coffee shop in Iowa, pretending to care about ethanol, or indeed any biofuel; or for that matter about the price of wheat, corn, soy, or anything that emerged from the loamy topsoil of the Hawkeye State. Dexter sulked off to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, to drown his sorrow in feverish multilateral panel discussions on climate change and globalization.

  Contemplating his thwarted presidential ambition, Dexter decided that a more sensible-and permanent-avenue to greatness would be to become a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. And why shouldn’t he? He was ideal for the job. In fact, he asked himself, why hadn’t he thought of it sooner? He berated his friends for not having thought of it first.

  It was this conviction, along with a refreshing absence of modesty, that had prompted him to call Hayden Cork some months before and request an Oval Office meeting with the President. He gave an equivocal reason, saying only that it was “important and confidential.” The President groaned at the prospect, but agreed.

  On arriving, Dexter plunked himself down and said to the President (we know all this from a tape recording in the archives at the Vanderdamp Library): “My information is that Brinnin’s gone nuttier than a granola bar. You and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but I’ve always respected you.” (Three weeks before, Dexter had called President Vanderdamp “the worst president since Warren G. Harding.”) “But I say let’s put aside whatever philosophical disagreements we have. I’d like you to consider putting my name forward as a successor to Brinnin.”

  There is a brief, perhaps eloquent, silence on the tape. Then Dexter continues: “Now, why do I propose myself? Frankly, because I think I’m the right person for the job. Why do I think that? I’ve narrowed it down to five reasons. Well, six. Don-if I may-when I first started practicing law over three decades ago…”

  The tape continues on for twenty-six minutes. In the background, you can hear the President reaching for an imaginary-and much craved-EJECT button. At several points he tries to arrest the wall of sound with comments like, “I promise to give it the consideration it deserves.” But Mitchell, having only gotten as far as reason number three (paragraph four), soldiers on.

  Eventually, a door opens and an aide advises the President that his next meeting is now imminent (an almost certain lie). Vanderdamp’s exhalation after the door has closed on his loquacious visitor is reminiscent of a man who has at long last reached a desperately sought urinal.

  The President did not nominate Dexter Mitchell to succeed Justice Brinnin, for at least five reasons. When Cooney’s nomination was released to the press, the President told Hayden Cork to leak it that Mitchell’s name had not been on the short list-or even on the long list. (The ever-protective Hayden wisely ignored the instruction.) Mitchell was thus, to put it mildly, undisposed to treat the President’s nominees kindly. Nor did he. After wiping Cooney’s and Burrows’s blood and brain matter from his gavel, he smiled and said-with uncharacteristic concision-“Next?”

  CHAPTER 5

  It was just after four o’clock on Monday, which gave Pepper less than an hour to give the President her answer.

  The day’s taping had gone well. Buddy was in a good mood. She was summoning the courage to introduce the dreaded topic when he said, “You given any more thought to my idea?”

  “What idea, sug?” she said.

  “The prison,” he said excitedly, as if suggesting they hop on the next flight to Paris.

  “Baby, something’s sort of… come up.”

  Pepper took a deep breath and explained the reason behind the visit to Camp David. Buddy listened in silence. He looked like a man being informed by his doctor that the MRI had found something.

  “I guess he is a fan,” Buddy said.

  “It would appear.”

  “So,” Buddy said, “what did you tell him?”

  “Well, I wasn’t about to tell him anything until you and I had a chance to talk it over.”

  Buddy let out what sounded like a sigh of relief.

  “What was that?” Pepper said.

  “Jesus, you had me going there. I thought you’d accepted.”

  “No. But I’d kinda come around to thinking that I might. I need to call him with an answer before five.”

  “Well, better call him.”

  “Oh, thanks, honey. I really-”

  “And tell him you can’t.”

  Pepper stared. “Why would I tell him that?”

  Buddy gestured, as if the answer were self-evident. “Baby, we’re going into Sweeps Week.”

  “Sweeps Week trumps… this?”

  “Ah, look,” Buddy said, “Vanderdamp’s a total loser. They’re about to impeach him. Look what happened to his last two nominees-and they were serious guys.”

  “If you’re trying to talk me out of this,” Pepper said somewhat coolly, “you’re not going about it the right way.”

  “Hey, I think it’s great he asked you. Fantastic publicity for the show. Hadn’t thoug
ht of that.”

  “Buddy,” Pepper said. “We are not having a satisfactory conversation here.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don’t know. You might try something like, ‘Congratulations, honey. Right proud of you.’ ”

  “Congratulations. Proud of you.”

  “You left out the ‘honey.’ And don’t choke yourself getting too excited.”

  “Baby, this makes no sense.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “Did you also tell him you have two years to go on your contract?”

  “No, we didn’t really get into that.”

  “You can’t just walk away from everything we’ve created,” Buddy said.

  “Baby, it’s the Supreme Court. My country’s calling.”

  “Well, tell it to call back.”

  “Sweetheart-”

  “You have obligations, Pepper. And not just to me. What about your millions of devoted viewers? Are you just going to tell them ‘Fuck off’?”

  “Actually,” Pepper said, “I wasn’t going to put it quite that way. And if they’re really fans, I don’t suppose they’re going to shoot themselves on account of I’m moving on from a TV show to the Supreme Court.”

  “This ‘TV show,’ as you put it so condescendingly, is the only reason you’ve been asked to sit on the Court.”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Pepper said, folding her arms across her chest.

  “I get it. I’m the one you’re telling to fuck off.”

  “No,” Pepper said, “but keep this up and you might just hear those very words before this conversation is concluded.”

  “You can’t do this to me.”

  “I’m not doing it to you. And by the way, who appointed you center of the universe?”

  “You want to go to court? Fine, let’s go to court. For breach of contract!”

  “Well, aren’t you the thorny rose.” Pepper sighed. “Thank you for being such a honeybee for me and making the moment so special. I’ve got to call the President. You want to stick around and tell him yourself to go fuck himself?”

  CHAPTER 6

  Tuesday morning, Senator Dexter Mitchell was in his office on Capitol Hill when the phone rang. Graydon Clenndennynn calling, mandarin in chief.

  The two men knew-and loathed-each other. Graydon referred to Mitchell (in private) as “a jumped-up mediocrity.” Dexter referred to Graydon (in public) as “an insufferable, overpaid egomaniac.” Both points of view had some merit.

  The phone call was like a meeting on the plain of battle when representatives of the about-to-clash armies came forward to offer terms and bribes by which carnage might be averted.

  “So,” Graydon Clenndennynn said, “habemus papam.” He enjoyed lording his knowledge of arcana over Mitchell.

  Mitchell said, “I didn’t go to boarding school, Graydon. Try it in English.”

  “It’s what they say at the Vatican when they’ve elected a new pope,” Graydon said, yawning from jet leg. “It appears we have a nominee. This is the obligatory courtesy call.”

  “All right.” Dexter took a pencil and poised it above a legal pad, an old habit from his prosecuting days. “Shoot.”

  “I’m going to say something to you, without prejudice,” Clenndennynn said. “Agreed?”

  “All right,” Mitchell said, suddenly curious.

  “You will most likely deduce that this name did not originate with me.”

  You old fox, Dexter thought.

  “That said,” Clenndennynn continued, “I have given the President my word that I will do everything I can to move the nomination forward. And that is my intention.”

  “All right, Graydon. I get it. You’re behind it one thousand percent. Is it Runningwater?”

  “No. Cartwright.”

  Dexter Mitchell’s mind raced. Wasn’t there a Cartwright on the Sixth Circuit…?

  “Judge Pepper Cartwright,” Graydon said.

  “Did you say Pepper Cartwright?”

  “Yes.”

  “Pepper Cartwright.”

  “Yes.”

  “The TV judge?”

  “The same.”

  Dexter Mitchell leaned forward over his desk and massaged his forehead, still tender from that morning’s injection of live botulinum cells. “What the hell, Graydon? Is this your idea of a joke?”

  “Far from it. It is the President’s view, and I must say I agree with him, that the last two nominations devolved into grotesque spectacles, thanks to you. So now he’s trying another tack. You have to give him credit. It’s out of the box, as they say. Are you familiar with the expression?”

  “Those hearings were full and fair. It’s not my fault if-”

  “Let’s dispense with the folderol, shall we? He sent you two men, two lions of the bar. Men of distinction, ability, probity. Reputations you could eat off. You turned it into a reprise of the Salem witch trials.”

  In moments of stress, Dexter Mitchell had a tendency to laugh unpleasantly. It came out as a high-pitched staccato burst, a sort of cackle. One observer likened it to the sound geese make when being force-fed. He had done it once or twice during the presidential debates, causing some in the audience to wonder if they really wanted to hear four years of it in the White House.

  “That’s just-aack!-absurd!”

  “Please. It was unseemly.” Unseemliness was the worst sort of crime to Graydon Clenndennynn, worthy of the death penalty.

  “I’m sorry you and the President feel that way. I happen to disagree. Let me point out that-”

  Clenndennynn was not about submit to a marathon Dexter Mitchell harangue. “Have you seen her television show?” he said.

  “What? No,” Dexter lied.

  “Maybe you should. Everyone else in America seems to. She’s very popular, I gather. A tall, cool drink of tequila. Yes. From Texas, too. Her grandfather was a sheriff.”

  “I don’t care if she’s descended from Sam Houston. This is unacceptable. It’s an insult. A travesty. This is-”

  “Unacceptable?” said Clenndennynn in his woodiest voice. “Unacceptable? To whom?”

  “To the United States Senate!”

  “Well, before you go speaking for the entire United States Senate, you might spend five minutes thinking about how the country is going to react. We happen to think it will go for her in rather a big way. Look up her ratings if you don’t believe me. So, there we are. Courtesy call concluded. Good day, Senator. Always good talking with you.”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I get it. This is some kind of vendetta?”

  “Oh, please, Senator. Let me point out a very basic fact to you about the man you and your distinguished colleagues like to call Don Veto. Donald Vanderdamp isn’t Sicilian. He’s from Ohio. He’s a nice, really not terribly complicated man from-I can never pronounce it-Wapakoneta. Two boys grow up in Wapakoneta. One was good in math and became the first man to walk on the moon. [4] The other was president of the student council and became President of the United States. My idea of diversity. But if you prefer to think of it as a vendetta, why not? Adds a bit of garlic to the stew.”

  “Well,” Dexter said, “you can tell Don Veto that he’s going to wake up with a horse head in his bed.”

  “Threats, Senator? Well, if that’s how you want to play it, what about that pathetic call you made on him in the Oval Office, begging to be appointed to the Court. He hasn’t told anyone about that. Up to now.”

  “For the record, I did not ‘beg.’ I gave him six perfectly compelling reasons why I would be a reasonable, logical choice for the Court.”

  “He fell asleep after number three. Good-bye, Senator. See you on the field of honor.”

  CHAPTER 7

  How did it go with Mitchell?”

  The President and Clenndennynn were watching television in the family quarters upstairs at the White House. Pepper’s nomination was leading the news.

  “He’s going to chop off a horse’s head and hav
e it put in your bed.”

  “Good,” the President said. He was absorbed in the TV, which was playing that morning’s Oval Office announcement. “Gosh, she’s attractive.”

  “Yes,” Graydon said like an old water buffalo commenting on a butterfly that had just alit on its horn. “Quite attractive.”

  “She’s going to do just fine. You watch.”

  “I’ll be doing more than watching. I called Felten, Risko, and Bristz,” Graydon said. (Other senators on the Judiciary Committee.) “I can’t say they were pleased, though Bristz seemed amused. I think they’re all a bit embarrassed over Cooney and Burrows.”

  “Darn well should be. This town has become more toxic than a waste dump. Eighteen more months to go. I count the days.”

  “You manage to make the presidency sound like a penitentiary. You’ll be the first president since Johnson not to seek reelection. You know what they’ll say.”

  “I don’t care what they say.”

  “I know. But you might try. This midwestern imperturbability can be overdone.”

  On the TV screen, the President and Pepper were sitting side by side on the fauteuils in front of the fireplace, cameras snapping away, a boom mike hovering like a bat above them.

  “Mr. President, do you watch Courtroom Six?”

  “Never miss it,” the President said. “My favorite show. After Bowling with the Stars.”

  “Judge Cartwright, are you qualified to sit on the Supreme Court?”

  “I doubt I’m qualified to be a clerk at the Supreme Court.”

  The reporters laughed.

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “What I’m told.”

  “Judge Cartwright, is it true you’re planning to continue with your show while the nomination process goes forward?”

  “If you were in my position, would you quit your day job?”

  More laughter.

  Vanderdamp chuckled and slapped Graydon on the knee. “That’s my girl. You tell ’em, Pepper. Oh, this is going to be rich. Rich, Graydon.”