neighborhood commission, which is overwhelmingly liberal, appears uninterested in pursuing.
What Edgar Franklin wants is this: to meet with my husband in order to share his thoughts about why the war is futile and the United States ought to bring home the troops. It was in the spring of 2005 that Edgar Franklin’s only child, Nathaniel “Nate” Franklin, was killed by a roadside bomb in a northern province. Already, Edgar was a widower, his wife, Wanda, having died of colon cancer in 1996. Edgar himself served in Vietnam—he was drafted at the age of nineteen—and he remained in the army for thirty years, ultimately being deployed to six combat zones and becoming an officer. In print and television interviews, of which there have been more with each passing day, he doesn’t casually trash my husband. He isn’t loquacious, or sloppy with words. He says, “I did not in good conscience feel that I could remain silent.” Naturally, he has been censured by several former military colleagues.
His plaintiveness, his trim build and fastidious dress and terse commentary—they are haunting me. I asked one of my aides to find out if Colonel Franklin is, as his son was, an only child, and I was greatly relieved to learn he isn’t. Raised in Valdosta, Georgia, Colonel Franklin is the second of five siblings, all the others sisters: Deborah, now fifty-eight, still in Valdosta and running a day care from her home; Pamela, who would be fifty-three but is deceased (she suffered from diabetes); Cynthia, fifty, a homemaker in Dallas; and Cheryl, forty-seven, a paralegal in Atlanta. Cynthia is also a military parent—her son is a Special Forces soldier serving overseas—and disavowed her brother’s actions on Thursday in
then refused to make further public comment; according to the article in today’s
Cheryl joined Colonel Franklin yesterday in Washington.
When the story broke last Wednesday, Charlie told me, “You can’t let the opposition dictate the terms of the conversation,” and later that day, when Hank Ucker and I passed in the hallway outside the Map Room—Hank is now Charlie’s chief of staff—he said, “The president tells me the Franklin fellow has gotten under your skin, but trust me, Alice, capitulating to his demands would set a dangerous precedent. You can’t let the opposition dictate the terms of the conversation.” There is no doubt in my mind which of them borrowed the phrasing from the other; we all have known one another far too long.
Charlie emerges from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist, his torso bare. Although the presidency has aged him, as it has aged all the men who’ve held it—his hair is grayer now, his face more lined—he is still extraordinarily fit and handsome. He comes over and kisses me on the nose. “How’d I mess up the world today?”
“There’s a Broadway production of
that got a great review,” I say.
“What are they saying about Ingrid?”
In what I intend to be a neutral tone, I say, “They’re mostly trying to gauge her stance on abortion.” Ingrid Sanchez, Charlie’s Supreme Court nominee, was a U.S. attorney in Michigan and then a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. She is a practicing Catholic and a lay ecclesial minister of her local church, and though she has made no official statement on the subject, she is widely assumed to be pro-life. She also appears to have an impeccable record, and the fact that she’s female makes protesting her nomination trickier for women’s groups, which isn’t to say they’re staying quiet. Charlie’s last appointee, the new chief justice whose confirmation occurred in September 2006, is conservative as well, though his views on abortion, even after his first term, remain ambiguous. If Ingrid Sanchez is confirmed, it is possible that the Court will vote to overturn
v.
While this makes me uncomfortable, the matter is not in my hands, and it’s scarcely as if Charlie doesn’t know my views; the whole country knows my views. Shortly before Charlie’s first inauguration, the anchor of a national morning news show asked if I thought abortion should be legal, and I said, “Yes.” Asked by the same anchor in 2004 whether I had changed my mind, I said, “No.” Though I didn’t expand on the topic in either instance, both times the question was one I had agreed in advance to answer.
“Typical of the
” Charlie says, and his nostrils flare in irritation. “Here Ingrid’s got nearly three decades of legal and judicial experience, and they’ve got to reduce it to one issue.”
“Sweetheart, I think that’s to be expected. The Republicans are as curious as the Democrats.” While Charlie reads no newspaper on a regular basis, relying instead on briefings from his staff, his contempt for
is particularly intense. This is ironic, given that in the eighties, when we were in Halcyon in the summers, he and Arthur would drive an hour and twenty-five minutes to Green Bay to buy the
Sunday edition; they would call ahead to a grocery store to reserve their copy.
I push off the sheet and duvet and stand, wrapping my arms around Charlie and inhaling the scent of his neck and shoulders. “You smell very clean,” I say. I reach for the slim leather folder on his nightstand and open it. These folders—an identical one is on my nightstand—contain our schedules for the day. Before we go to bed, we each receive both our own and each other’s.
On his plate today: intelligence and FBI briefings, a late-morning speech at a conference for small-business leaders in Columbus, Ohio, a fund-raising luncheon in Buffalo, and a meeting with his economic advisers back in the Oval Office this afternoon, before and after which he’ll make calls on Ingrid Sanchez’s behalf. Tonight at eight o’clock there is a White House gala titled “Students and Teachers Salute Alice Blackwell,” which I find quite embarrassing. As Hank reminded me when he got me to agree to it in April, Charlie’s approval ratings have dipped to 32 percent, while mine rest at 83 percent; I am allegedly the second most admired woman in the United States,
