Shining City

by Tom Rosenstiel

  Nash looks at least a decade younger than his fifty-six years. He is tall, with piercing blue eyes and weathered craggy good looks that recall his cowboy ancestry. A political columnist once wrote that he looked like he was “marshal of the whole U.S.,” and the phrase had stuck. Nash is also blessed with a physical grace that he uses to great effect in public. Perhaps the most striking quality about James Nash, though, is that he makes everything look fun—even the presidency. Which, given the state of things, makes some wonder if he is really trying.

  “Peter, you heard about Julius Hoffman?” Nash says.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Glad you’re keeping up.”

  “I try.”

  Nash grins mischievously and, having performed his bartending duties, slides back onto the sofa.

  “Hoffman will be buried in three days. Even before he’s in the ground this town will be wondering who I intend to pick to replace him.”

  Then, mocking a popular refrain in town, Nash adds, “What does Jim Nash want?”

  Two and a half months into his second term, James Nash remains a frustrating enigma to much of establishment Washington. The Right considers him a cipher pulling the country toward oblivion by obstructing their efforts to cut stifling entitlements and regulations. The Left considers him a betrayer and coward for failing to press a progressive agenda once he gained power. A year before the election, virtually no one in town “who was serious” had given him much chance of a second term.

  Nash, however, had built his career on being underestimated.

  He’d started as a public defender in Lincoln—famous, wealthy, impossibly handsome, and working for the poor. He ran for the state legislature at thirty-three. When he sought the governorship eight years later, opponents scoffed at his lack of legislative achievement, but he won with the biggest margin of any Democrat in the state’s history. When he hinted at a run for the White House, the website PoliPsyche called his two gubernatorial terms “diaphanous.” “He stands for nothing,” the Weekly Review declared, “other than hubris, a strong chin, and Paul Newman eyes.” His signature phrase, “Let’s get it done,” sounded like a sneaker ad, a Democratic rival joked. The Wall Street Journal had called his run “pointless” and “vain.” While his better-financed primary opponents focused on one another, Nash won Iowa and New Hampshire without registering in national polls. By March, through superior voter targeting and organization, his nomination had become a mathematical certainty.

  Most people thought the incumbent president, Jackson Lee, lost the election during the first debate. “I knew your father,” the president had said, implying Nash was riding on his famous name. “And he knew you,” Nash countered simply. But something in Nash’s tone made it plain that to know the real Jack Lee was to know he was a fraud. The remark captured a feeling the whole country seemed to be on the edge of accepting. The president’s poll numbers began slipping that night.

  The first term had proven . . . what? Pick your adjective. Stalled? Broken? Polarized? Dysfunctional? Meandering? The same words had been used to describe Lee. Old hands blamed the Common Sense radicals on the right for driving the government incoherently from crisis to crisis. Common Sense advocates countered that their no-compromise tactics might be the only thing that could break the pattern that had put the country on a downward course in the first place.

  In the end, Nash won reelection because a majority of Americans disliked both parties more than they disliked Jim Nash. Whether Nash is a cause or a victim of the dysfunction, people agree on one thing: The government doesn’t work. The same patterns keep playing out. When Nash manages to get anything done, it’s by getting both sides to agree to deals they later regret—and for which their bases punish them.

  The political press, or what is left of it, grants Nash his victories but mostly considers his presidency a series of muddled half-steps. His record, in the phrase now popular at dinner parties around the city, lacks any “clear theory of governance.”

  Whatever one thinks of him, James Nash now has forty-four months left in office—or about twenty-five months of governing time. After that, he enters the final awkward interval of his presidency when people will be waiting for him to leave.

  Nash leans back into the sofa and takes a sip of his bourbon.

  “So what do I want in a new Supreme Court justice, Peter?”

  Rena doesn’t know the president well. He is also the wrong party. His partner, Randi Brooks, is more political—and a Democrat. So why is he here?

  “The Constitution says the president nominates justices and the Senate confirms them. The problem is that everyone else feels they should have a say in picking the next justice. That’s as it should be, given that everyone should feel sovereign in a democratic republic.”

  Nash lifts his glass to toast the sovereign public.

  “It’s wonderful. Unless you happen to be the one responsible for actually picking these people,” Nash says.

  Rena smiles.

  “And what do all my sovereigns want? My own party wants me to pick a true-blue bleeding liberal, someone who will push against all the decisions of a conservative court of the last thirty years.”

  The president nods to the invisible Left and continues.

  “Many in the rival party, the honorable majority, feel that assenting to a liberal pick would be a failure of their leadership, given their control of the Senate and House. They have a constitutional obligation to assert their principles and I have a constitutional obligation to listen.”

  Nash is famous for “thinking aloud” like this, rehearsing ideas and clarifying calculations, frequently with people outside his White House circle. His hero FDR did the same thing.

  “Then there is the realpolitik crowd,” Nash says, “the city’s permanent establishment—lobbyists, the press, and some of my own advisors—who say go for an easy confirmation. The last thing I need, they argue, is a bitter confirmation fight, or worse yet, to lose one. Not in a second term.”

  Nash is smiling. “It’s really quite a fix to be in. When my grandfather was giving out raises during a bad year, he would say, ‘You can either make some people happy and other people mad, or you can leave everyone disappointed.’”

  Rena laughs.

  “So what should I look for in a justice? The Founders said ignore political ideology. A justice has no power to create policy, anyway, no power to propose laws or make them. The only power judges have is their judgment. ‘Merely judgment’ is the phrase James Madison used in the Federalist Papers. So pick someone wise, someone of transcendent character, someone above politics.”

  Nash’s blue eyes are shining.

  “And through most of our history this has worked. Whatever presidents intended, our best jurists have been people of independent judgment and moderate pragmatism—former governors and acclaimed law professors—who often irritated their political sponsors.”

  Nash leans forward, as if to signal, Here comes my point.

  “The problem is we’ve started to politicize the judiciary in a way we’ve never seen before. And it flows all the way down the system. Judges in lower courts, picked for their ideological purity, render partisan decisions and send them to the Supreme Court to be enshrined.”

  Nash picks up his whiskey, looks at it, and then puts it down.

  “This is the great invisible crisis of our country, Peter. It’s more corrosive than what’s happening in Congress. Those fools we can vote out. This,” Nash says, “this goes deeper and lasts for generations.”

  Nash is on his feet.

  “If we are supposed to be a country of laws, not men, then people must believe in the independence of the judiciary that interprets those laws.”

  The president’s movements are compelling. He is constantly breaking rope lines, moving toward people, being unpredictable, using his physical presence to draw your attention, like an actor whose little business with hands or objects steals scenes from other actors.

  “If we want t
o begin to change things in Washington, Peter, we can start by doing it here, with a different kind of nominee for the one part of government that is not supposed to be political. We do it by doing something right that everyone recognizes. That people can rally to.”

  Nash wanders to the big windows overlooking the front lawn and gazes at a TV crew doing a stand-up. A lone figure, a woman correspondent, is bathed in the ghostly radiance of portable lights.

  Rena looks at Carr but can’t see the chief of staff’s expression.

  “Peter, our greatest vulnerability today is that we have forgotten the things that bind us. Through history our points of consensus have been our greatest asset. We weren’t divided by tribal divisions or old national boundaries. We were bound by common ideas. Whenever we were threatened, this made us more unified than our enemies and better able to face our challenges. We are losing that. We are tearing ourselves apart from within. And the Supreme Court, which should be the one part of our government where we are reminded of the things we share, has become part of the division.”

  It’s as impassioned a speech as Nash gives. Delivered for one.

  Nash moves back toward where Rena and Carr are sitting.

  “If I do nothing more as president than begin to change the dynamics of the Court, it would be an achievement. That is the opportunity we have, if we can find a way to do it,” Nash says.

  It’s “we” now. Nash has already put him on the team.

  “Now, if a president wants to do that, to break from this pattern and pick a different kind of judge, it would have to be one hell of a justice. Someone truly different. A paradigm-shifting kind of judicial character. And getting this person confirmed is going to be especially challenging. The nominee won’t have the support of a conventional ideological base.”

  In other words, it’s just the kind of political risk the city devours and spits back up so no one will dare take another risk like it for years.

  “So, such a nominee must absolutely be bulletproof. That means above reproach,” Nash says. “It also means, he or she must have no secrets the White House doesn’t know about beforehand.”

  In other words, this is a bucket of shit. And Nash is going to give it to you to carry around while wearing your nicest charcoal gray suit.

  Nash sits down again and faces Rena.

  “Peter, I want you to do more than scrub the nominee. I want you to get that person confirmed. Run the show. I want you at this person’s side all the way through, you and Randi both. We’ll give you all the support you need, of course.”

  This isn’t what he expected. Rena thought he’d been summoned to help scrub potential nominees or maybe track down a specific rumor about someone. Not own the whole problem.

  And this is a political job. Rena isn’t qualified for it. Randi is. She’s done a lot of court appointments. Why isn’t she here?

  “You’ll work closely with the White House counsel’s office. Spencer will coordinate. But you and Randi will pilot this. Handle the vetting. Prep for hearings. Steward the visits, handle strategy. We’ll be with you the whole way. Peter, I need this person confirmed.”

  The moment Nash stops, Rena realizes he is trapped. For his firm this job would be a step up to a higher profile. Yet helping a president out with something this political isn’t like what he and Brooks normally do with Washington clients—helping broker a deal in the House or getting a moderate senator out of a personal jam that a member from the other party might be in next time.

  If he did this, it would create a breach with his Republican friends. Yet if they refused, it would amount to a similar breach with Brooks’s Democrat allies. And that, in some ways, is just the least of it.

  There is a cost to saying no to a president. If Rena and Brooks turn it down, they won’t likely be asked by any president again. They weren’t important enough to say no. In fact what Nash is proposing, hiring someone to steward a nomination this way, that kind of work is almost never delegated to outsiders.

  That’s the other alarm Rena is hearing. He and Brooks are such an unlikely pair to run this nomination, everything about it tells him something about this is off. Get a Republican to vet and steward a nominee. And if it all goes to hell, Rena and Brooks will take the blame.

  An even more devious thought then enters Rena’s mind. Is it possible Nash wants whoever he picks as a game-changing iconoclastic nominee to fail? Prove that the other side isn’t serious about changing Washington? Use the loss for political advantage? His next choice would fly through. You always get the second nominee. The other side already has its victory. Nash can ram through a much more liberal nominee, and make the GOP like it.

  Is Nash’s White House that Machiavellian? And so theatrical that the president has to put on a show to convince Rena to play along?

  Sure they are. It sounds just like Washington.

  “I have a question, Mr. President. Why us?”

  Nash seems caught off guard at the directness of the question, then smiles.

  “Because, Peter, I cannot afford to have this screwed up. And without blowing sunshine up your ass, you guys—you and Randi and the team you have built—are better at scrubbing people than anyone in town. And because of who you are.”

  Yeah, you don’t want to blow sunshine up my ass.

  “A Republican?”

  “Someone who has a history of taking risks to do the right thing.”

  So he’s going to reference that, the martyred end of Rena’s military career?

  “My history includes paying a heavy price, Mr. President,” Rena says. “I think it’s called losing.”

  Nash smiles again.

  “Yes, Peter, you being Republican helps, too. I need Republican votes to do this.”

  The president’s story has some flaws, Rena thinks. There are plenty of firms in town that could scrub this nominee. Not many of them with a Republican principal would work for the White House. But if you have a nominee who is different enough . . .

  Rena has other questions, but they’re all some variation of the one he can’t ask: Are you screwing me?

  “I need to discuss this with Randi,” Rena says.

  Because everything about this makes me want to say no.

  “Of course.”

  “When we’re ready, we’ll send you a list of names,” Carr says, speaking for the first time. He’s already assuming Rena is aboard. “We’d like your team to vet one of them. We will have different teams vetting the others. Then we will decide on one. When we have decided, then you will do a final vetting. And then we will go forward.”

  After Rena leaves, Carr sits back down and takes a drink. “You really want to do this?” he asks.

  “I do.”

  “You know his past. He’s hard to control.”

  “That, Spence, is why this works,” Nash says.

  Six

  He had bought the row house, a redbrick Civil War–era home near Georgetown, to raise a family with Katie. The bedrooms they intended for children are now guest rooms, though there are rarely guests. Rena mostly lives—reading, working, and too often falling asleep—in the den.

  He eases wearily into the brown leather Morris chair in the room’s corner by the front window. The Arts and Crafts–style furniture that fills the den is about all that remains of the marriage, along with some pots and kitchen knives, and his regrets. Katie had never really liked the heavy angular oak pieces. She thought them too dark and masculine. But she went along with buying them because she knew they made him happy.

  Maybe because he is more tired than usual or unsure where the events of the night will take him, Rena’s eyes move to her photo, which still sits on the library desk. Freckled nose, dirty blond hair, shining eyes, taken four years ago during a visit to his grandmother’s in Tuscany. His feelings about Katie haven’t changed, he thinks, but he feels them less often.

  They met, just for an evening, when he was a senior at West Point, though they both remembered it well. When they met again years la
ter at a dinner party in Washington, it felt as if only days had passed. The differences between them were obvious. Katie had money on her mother’s side and Old Virginia family lineage on her father’s. Rena was an immigrant from Italy, with no family other than his father. She was poised and charmed people with her candor. He had the intense reserve of an outsider who’d learned to fit in by listening. From the moment they met, however, being together always felt like mind reading.

  They never imagined not making it. They never imagined four miscarriages, his crisis in the army, or his pouring his energy into building the business to prove himself to her family. He never imagined his obliviousness. The divorce became “final” thirteen months ago. But divorces never become final, he thinks. They just become real.

  He needs to call Randi. Will she wonder why she wasn’t invited to the White House meeting with him? Will she think something about this request seems odd, as he does? Or will she just be thrilled by the chance to move up to a new level, which this certainly would be? His father, if he were still alive, would be bursting. “The president, Pietro. The president asked for you!”

  In the kitchen he mixes a martini, two parts Grey Goose vodka and one part Dolin vermouth. The first sip should come quickly, as cold as possible, while the glass is still frosted. He feels the thick, icy chill rise up his skull.

  He takes the drink back to the Morris chair. Two walls of the den are lined to the ceiling with books—biographies, some political theory, a few mysteries, but mostly history. “The argument without end,” Dutch historian Pieter Geyl called it. Most Americans barely know the arguments, Rena thinks.

  Rena has always been a digger, and at times, he fears, a grinder, someone who gets by more on sweat than talent. He also is engaged in an accidental profession, one he came to late. So he always assumes how little he knows and always arrives—when he was young to soccer matches and classes, now to assignments or meetings—the most prepared person in the room.

  As he has tried to learn Washington, he has come to think too many of the political debates that grip the country are histrionic and self-defeating: small arguments over policy orthodoxy portrayed as major differences in core principles. The melodrama may be good for lobbying and campaigning and raising money, but it doesn’t solve much. Rena trained to be a soldier, and soldiers have to be pragmatists. Too much faith in orthodoxy loses you wars. Or gets you killed.