overall; he was smart and affable enough when the camera was off and professional enough when the camera was on. CBS had been no friend to Ryan’s first presidency, and they certainly seemed to be continuing the pro-Kealty slant through this campaign, but Josh Ramirez was just a foot soldier in their army, a working stiff, and Ryan didn’t blame him.
Ryan had been kicked around in the media long enough not to take it personally. Some of the things the media said and wrote about him, virtually accusing him of everything from stealing money from the elderly to taking lunches from school kids’ mouths, were nothing if not incredibly personal.
Still, Ramirez wasn’t as bad as some of the others. The general media’s collusion in Kealty’s reelection campaign was prevalent. A few weeks back, a guy at a Kealty Q&A in Denver had the temerity to ask the President of the United States when he thought gas prices would drop back down to where he could afford a road trip with his family. Kealty, in a moment that must have made his minders groan, shook his head at the question from the working stiff and suggested that the man see this as an opportunity to go out and buy a hybrid vehicle.
Not one of the major media outlets or wire services ran the quote. Ryan himself brought it up the next morning at an electric motor plant in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, making the obvious point, seemingly lost on Kealty, that a family having trouble filling their tank might have trouble purchasing a new car.
Five minutes after making the quip, as Jack climbed back into his SUV to leave the motor plant, Arnie van Damm just shook his head. “Jack, you just delivered a great line that no one but those people on that factory floor will ever hear.”
Arnie was right. None of the big media outlets ran it. Van Damm promised Ryan he could not count on any “gotcha moments” by the mainstream media against Ed Kealty. No, all the “gotcha moments” would go against Jack Ryan.
Liberal bias in the media was a fact of nature. Like the rai outlets n and the cold, Ryan just dealt with it and moved on.
Ramirez opened the debate with an explanation about the rules, then a lighthearted story about arguments between his elementary school children, finishing by joking that he hoped the two men in front of him would “play nice.” Ryan smiled as if the comment was not outrageously patronizing, and then the moderator began with the questions.
Ramirez’s line of questions started out in Russia, moved to China, to Central America, and then to the United States’ relationships with NATO and allies around the world. Both Ryan and Kealty addressed the CBS anchor directly with their answers, and they avoided any fireworks, even agreeing on a few topics here and there.
International terrorism was all but avoided until the second half of the ninety-minute debate. Ramirez turned to the subject by lobbing a softball to Kealty, a question about a recent drone hit on a compound in Yemen that had taken out an Al-Qaeda operative wanted for bombing a nightclub in Bali.
Kealty assured America that once reelected, he would continue his carrot-and-stick policy of high-level engagement with anyone, friend or foe, who would come to the negotiating table with America, while at the same time eliminating America’s enemies when they refused to negotiate.
Ramirez turned to Ryan. “Your campaign has attempted to position you as the candidate who is the best choice in America’s fight against those who would do us harm, but when you were President, there were fewer successful targeted killings of high-level terrorists than under President Kealty’s first term. Are you willing to accept that you no longer can lay claim to the title of terrorist hunter?”
Ryan took a sip of water. To his left, he could sense Kealty leaning in slightly, as if to make a show of listening to how Ryan would answer this one. Jack kept his attention on Joshua Ramirez as he spoke. “I would like to suggest that President Kealty’s drone attacks, while unquestionably taking some of the terrorist leadership off the table, do little to fight a successful war in the long-term sense.”
Kealty leaned back in his chair, waving the comment away as if it were preposterous.
“And why is that?” Ramirez asked.
“Because if I’ve learned one thing in my thirty-five years of public service, it is that good intelligence is the key to good decision-making. And when we go to the trouble to identify someone, some terrorist leader who has an absolute treasure trove of intelligence resources in his head, only as a last resort should we be blowing him to pieces. An unmanned aerial vehicle is an important asset, but it is only one asset. It is only one tool. And it is a tool, in my opinion, that we are overusing. We need to exploit the hard work that has been done by our military and intelligence people in identifying the target in the first place, and we need to do our best to exploit the target.”
“Exploit it?” Ramirez asked. He really did not expect Ryan to question the uptick in UAV assassinations.
“Yes. Exploit. Instead of killing the man we’re after, we need to try to learn what he knows, who he knows, where he’s been, where he’s headed, what he’s planning, those sorts of things.”
“And how will President Jack Ryan do that?”
“Our intelligence community and military should be allowed to, when possible, detain these people, or we should pressure the governments hosting these people to pick these men up in the field and turn them an al over to us. We need to give our forces, and the forces of our allies, our
“And once we have them?” For the first time in tonight’s debate, Kealty blurted in, directing his comment toward Ryan. “What do you suggest? Bamboo shoots up the fingernails?”
Joshua Ramirez lifted a finger off the desk in an extremely gentle wag, a feeble and ineffective means of admonishing Kealty to play by the agreed-upon rules of the debate.
Jack ignored Kealty himself but addressed the question: “Many people say we cannot derive intelligence from means other than torture. My experience knows that to be untrue. Sometimes it is difficult to encourage our enemies to be forthcoming; they are not only highly motivated but they are also very well aware that we will extend them privileges and rights they would never extend to any prisoner they hold. It doesn’t matter how kindly and gently we handle their prisoners, they will kill and torture our people whenever they get them.”
The CBS anchor said, “You speak about these ‘means’ that we have at our disposal to coax information from our enemies. But just how effective are they?”
“A very fair question, Josh. I can’t go into the procedures that were in place when I was at CIA or when I was President, but I promise you that our success rate getting intelligence from terrorists was much better than my opponent’s tactic of blowing up people from an altitude of twenty thousand feet. Dead men tell no tales, as they say.”
Ramirez turned halfway to Kealty before the President began his rebuttal. “Josh, my opponent would risk American lives unnecessarily by sending our kids in the military into harm’s way in the most dangerous places in the world just for the chance to interrogate an enemy combatant. I assure you, interrogations under a Jack Ryan presidency will be beyond what is allowed in the Geneva Conventions.”
It was Ryan’s turn to rebut. He forgot his happy face, but he took care not to look at Kealty, instead keeping his focus on the annoying reflections in the glasses of Joshua Ramirez. “First, I consider our fighting men and women to be just that, men and women. Many of them are young, a heck of a lot younger than President Kealty and I, but I bristle at the description of them as kids. Second, the men and women who work in those elite units of the military and intelligence communities who are tasked with the admittedly difficult and dangerous job of capturing our enemies in the field are professionals, and they go into harm’s way with regularity already. Often for the policies of my opponent, which, I believe, aren’t getting us anywhere.” Now he looked to Kealty with a polite nod. “You are absolutely right about that, Mr. President, that is a very, very difficult duty to give anyone”—then back to Ramirez —“but these men and women are the best in the world at this type of work. And to the last man, and the last woman, I truly believe that they know that their hard work saves American lives. They understand their duty, a duty they volunteer for, and a duty that they believe in. I have nothing but the most tremendous respect for our UAV crews.” He paused. “I’m sorry, unmanned aerial vehicles. It is an incredible resource operated by incredible people. I just feel that at the strategic level, we should be doing a better job directing our assets to exploit our intelligence successes to the highest possible degree, and I do not believe we are doing that under Ed Kealty’s administration.”
Ramirez started to say something else, but Ryan continued, “Joshua, your networa, ealk reported just the other day about the capture in Russia of the leader of one of the most deadly rebel groups in the Caucasus region
