The Bear and the Dragon

“Sir, I’m not the President,” the Globe replied, as she sat down, avoiding the question, but not the embarrassed blush.

“Mr. President,” began the San Francisco Examiner, “whether we like it or not, China has decided for itself what sort of laws it wants to have, and the two men who died this morning were interfering with those laws, weren’t they?”

“The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King interfered with the laws of Mississippi and Alabama back when I was in high school. Did the Examiner object to his actions then?”

“Well, no, but-”

“But we regard the personal human conscience as a sovereign force, don’t we?” Jack shot back. “The principle goes back to St. Augustine, when he said that an unjust law is no law. Now, you guys in the media agree with that principle. Is it only when you happen to agree with the person operating on that principle? Isn’t that intellectually dishonest? I do not personally approve of abortion. You all know that. I’ve taken a considerable amount of heat for that personal belief, some of which has been laid on me by you good people. Fine. The Constitution allows us all to feel the way we choose. But the Constitution does not allow me not to enforce the law against people who blow up abortion clinics. I can sympathize with their overall point of view, but I cannot agree or sympathize with the use of violence to pursue a political position. We call that terrorism, and it’s against the law, and I have sworn an oath to enforce the law fully and fairly in all cases, regardless of how I may or may not feel on a particular issue.

“Therefore, if you do not apply it evenhandedly, ladies and gentlemen, it is not a principle at all, but ideology, and it is not very helpful to the way we govern our lives and our country.

“Now, on the broader question, you said that China has chosen its laws. Has it? Has it really? The People’s Republic is not, unfortunately, a democratic country. It is a place where the laws are imposed by an elite few. Two courageous men died yesterday objecting to those laws, and in the successful attempt to save the life of an unborn child. Throughout history, men have given up their lives for worse causes than that. Those men are heroes by any definition, but I do not think anyone in this room, or for that matter anyone in our country, believes that they deserved to die, heroically or not. The penalty for civil disobedience is not supposed to be death. Even in the darkest days of the 1960s, when black Americans were working to secure their civil rights, the police in the southern states did not commit wholesale murder. And those local cops and members of the Ku Klux Klan who did step over that line were arrested and convicted by the FBI and the Justice Department.

“In short, there are fundamental differences between the People’s Republic of China and America, and of the two systems, I much prefer ours.”

Ryan escaped the press room ten minutes later, to find Arnie standing at the top of the ramp.

“Very good, Jack.”

“Oh?” The President had learned to fear that tone of voice.

“Yeah, you just compared the People’s Republic of China to Nazi Germany and the Ku Klux Klan.”

“Arnie, why is it that the media feel such great solicitude for communist countries?”

“They don’t, and-”

“The hell they don’t! I just compared the PRC to Nazi Germany and they damned near wet their pants. Well, guess what? Mao murdered more people than Hitler did. That’s public knowledge-I remember when CIA released the study that documented it-but they ignore it. Is some Chinese citizen killed by Mao less dead than some poor Polish bastard killed by Hitler?”

“Jack, they have their sensibilities,” van Damm told his President.

“Yeah? Well, just once in a while, I wish they’d display something I can recognize as a principle.” With that, Ryan strode back to his office, practically trailing smoke from his ears.

“Temper, Jack, temper,” Arnie said to no one in particular. The President still had to learn the first principle of political life, the ability to treat a son of a bitch like your best friend, because the needs of your nation depended on it. The world would be a better place if it were as simple as Ryan wished, the Chief of Staff thought. But it wasn’t, and it showed no prospect of becoming so.

A few blocks away at Foggy Bottom, Scott Adler had finished cringing and was making notes on how to mend the fences that his President had just kicked over. He’d have to sit down with Jack and go over a few things, like the principles he held so dear.

What did you think of that, Gerry?”

“Hosiah, I think we have a real President here. What does your son think of him?”

“Gerry, they’ve been friends for twenty years, back to when they both taught at the Naval Academy. I’ve met the man. He’s a Catholic, but I think we can overlook that.”

“We have to.” Patterson almost laughed. “So was one of the guys who got shot yesterday, remember?”

“Italian, too, probably drank a lot of wine.”

“Well, Skip was known to have the occasional drink,” Patterson told his black colleague.

“I didn’t know,” Reverend Jackson replied, disturbed at the thought.

“Hosiah, it is an imperfect world we live in.”

“Just so he wasn’t a dancer.” That was almost a joke, but not quite.

“Skip? No, I’ve never known him to dance,” Reverend Patterson assured his friend. “By the way, I have an idea.”

“What’s that, Gerry?”

“How about this Sunday you preach at my church, and I preach at yours? I’m sure we’re both going to speak on the life and martyrdom of a Chinese man.”

“And what passage will you base your sermon on?” Hosiah asked, surprised and interested by the suggestion.

“Acts,” Patterson replied at once.

Reverend Jackson considered that. It wasn’t hard to guess the exact passage. Gerry was a fine biblical scholar. “I admire your choice, sir.”

“Thank you, Pastor Jackson. What do you think of my other suggestion?”

Reverend Jackson hesitated only a few seconds. “Reverend Patterson, I would be honored to preach at your church, and I gladly extend to you the invitation to preach at my own.”

Forty years earlier, when Gerry Patterson had been playing baseball in the church-sponsored Little League, Hosiah Jackson had been a young Baptist preacher, and the mere idea of preaching in Patterson’s church could have incited a lynching. But, by the Good Lord, they were men of God, and they were mourning the death-the martyrdom-of another man of God of yet another color. Before God, all men were equal, and that was the whole point of the Faith they shared. Both men were thinking quickly of how they might have to alter their styles, because though both were Baptists, and though both preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Baptist congregations, their communities were a little bit different and required slightly different approaches. But it was an accommodation both men could easily make.

“Thank you, Hosiah. You know, sometimes we have to acknowledge that our faith is bigger than we are.”

For his part, Reverend Jackson was impressed. He never doubted the sincerity of his white colleague, and they’d chatted often on matters of religion and scripture. Hosiah would even admit, quietly, to himself, that Patterson was his superior as a scholar of the Holy Word, due to his somewhat lengthier formal education, but of the two, Hosiah Jackson was marginally the better speaker, and so their relative talents played well off each other.

“How about we get together for lunch to work out the details?” Jackson asked.

“Today? I’m free.”

“Sure. Where?”

“The country club? You’re not a golfer, are you?” Patterson asked hopefully. He felt like a round, and his afternoon was free today for a change.

“Never touched a golf club in my life, Gerry.” Hosiah had a good laugh at that. “Robert is, learned at