President Thomas McCormack was sitting at his desk when Wallace walked into his study next to the Oval Office. He was alone, reaching for a sheet emerging from his printer. A briefing book lay open before him, the pages both tabbed with blue labels and tagged with yellow Post-it notes. As Wallace sat down on the couch next to the desk, he could see that the writing on the notes was the president’s. From that alone Wallace concluded that whatever course the president wanted him to run, he’d designed and constructed it himself, and wanted only two people on the field.
Wallace didn’t feel like waiting for the president to meander his way to the issue. Every substantive conversation between them traveled the same route, one that began with their six years serving together, the closeness of their wives, the perfecting of the right and right-center coalition among voters that had won them the White House twice. And ending with self-congratulations on their developing the center coalition in the House and Senate that got more of their own legislation through Congress than any president since Lyndon Johnson.
The president had spent his prepolitical career as a lawyer and never lost the urge or the talent to lay a foundation for the evidence he intended to offer, even if it was obvious.
“Mr. President-”
McCormack shook his head. “This isn’t a Mr. President moment. It’s personal. Me to you. It’s not your political soul that I’m concerned about. It’s something else.” He tapped the binder with his forefinger. “And I’ll shred this thing after we’re done.”
Wallace felt his body stiffen. He hadn’t a clue what was contained in those pages, but he already felt stripped naked, cold and shivering. His mind raced through every misstep and indiscretion in his career, from a fraternity party brawl when he was twenty to his wife’s recent second-guessing his appearance with Manton Roberts.
And the president’s promise to destroy whatever evidence was in those pages felt less like a guarantee of liberation, and more like a garrote around his balls.
McCormack had issued the most widespread records preservation order in the history of the office. There was no e-mail, no confidential memo, no scrap of paper that he hadn’t ordered preserved. The joke at the National Archives was that they still hadn’t figured out a method for storing his unarticulated thoughts.
“Is this about National Pledge Day?” Wallace asked.
“I didn’t know-”
“That’s the point. You should’ve known. You’ve lent the stature of your office-of this administration-to an event you couldn’t control.” McCormack threw up his hands. “Jesus Christ, man, you let them turn the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ into a marching anthem for intolerance.”
“I didn’t let-”
“Then you consented with your silence. It stands in American history as a symbol, an abolitionist song about liberty for everyone, not the liberty of a few to impose their religious beliefs on everyone else.”
McCormack pounded the desktop with his fist.
“Next to the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ and ‘God Bless America,’ it’s the most important song in our history. And those sons of bitches have stolen it.”
“Mr. President, I think that overstates what happened.”
Ignoring Wallace’s defensive stab, McCormack reached for the sheet he’d removed from the printer as Wallace had entered the office.
“Which pledge do you suppose they intend to use,” McCormack asked. “This one?”
Wallace took it in his hands. It was marked, “Confidential. From the Desk of Rev. Manton Roberts,” and contained a single paragraph.
“Go ahead,” McCormack said, “read it.”
Wallace read the words to himself.
I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, and to the Savior for whose kingdom it stands. One Savior, crucified, risen, and coming again, with life and liberty for all who believe.
“No. Aloud.”
Wallace glanced around the room, eyes hesitating on the heat vent and the computer and clock on the desk.
“Don’t worry,” McCormack said. “The place isn’t bugged. Go ahead. Aloud.”
Wallace shook his head. “I can’t say this.”
“I didn’t think so, but you put yourself at the front of a crowd of seventy-five thousand people who did before you arrived.”
McCormack raised his chin toward a framed American flag on the wall above the printer.
“Have you even read what our party platform says about the flag?”
Wallace shrugged. He was surprised that McCormack had paid attention to the platform. In both elections, he’d neither run on it nor run from it. He’d just ignored it.
McCormack flipped to the front of his binder and turned it toward Wallace.
“This is our position. You don’t need to read it aloud.”
Protecting Our National Symbols: The symbol of our unity, to which we all pledge allegiance, is the flag. By whatever legislative method is most feasible, Old Glory should be given legal protection against desecration.
“Do you realize that our party wants people sent to the federal penitentiary for making a necktie out of the thing, and you let these traitors paint a goddamn black cross on it? ”
Wallace pushed the binder away.
“That’s different,” Wallace said. “Desecration means depriving something of its sacred character. This is a Christian nation. Adding the cross confirms it by combining two sacred symbols.”
“Don’t play word games.”
“Anyway it’s free speech.”
“Wrong again. Not according to the Supreme Court. Flag desecration isn’t speech at all. Rehnquist said that it’s no more than a grunt or a roar, no more protected by the First Amendment than a fart in an elevator.”
Wallace had no answer.
They sat in silence for a few moments, then McCormack leaned back in his chair and said, “I don’t understand what’s happening to you. If you’d run Spectrum with the lack of insight and consistency you’ve been displaying, you’d still be selling Bibles and Jesus dashboard ornaments out of your father’s garage.”
Wallace’s face flushed. “I didn’t come over here-”
McCormack held up his palm. “Save it. I’m not done.” He hunched forward, squared the binder in front of him, and turned toward the middle. “Have you read what Manton Roberts has been writing and preaching for the last twenty years? The guy is a goddamn fascist. Listen to this:
Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost, as the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion over every aspect and institution of human society.
“At whatever the cost?” McCormack asked, now glaring at Wallace. “What the devil does that mean? And how many people are supposed to die for the revolution?”
Wallace shook his head. “That’s not what they’re saying. They’re not 1960s Marxist revolutionaries trying to take power by any means necessary.”
“Really? How about this:
Nations are born in revolution, not at the negotiation table. There is no compromise possible for a Christian people. There is only liberty or death. Although a million may fall, the rest shall rise in Glory.
“And who are those million? Remember what he said about 9/11 and Katrina: They were punishments for homosexuality and pornography and for barring prayer from the schools.”
Wallace nodded, for he couldn’t deny that those were the claims Roberts had made.
“How does that not make Roberts’s God a terrorist? Killing both the innocent and the guilty for the alleged sins of a few. How is Roberts’s God any different than a Sunni maniac who plants a bomb in a Baghdad market killing and maiming Sunni and Shia alike? ”
McCormack jabbed a finger at another quote. “And this is the hymn he uses to end every rally:
Seize your armor, gird it on,
Now the battle will be won.
Soon, your enemies all slain.
Crowns of glory you shall gain.
“Is there something about the words ‘battle,’ ‘enemies,’ ‘slain,’ and ‘glory’ that I’m missing? “ McCormack
