Catch-19

Here’s how I imagine it went down:

ADVISER:    You’ve waited 8 years for this chance, what are you going to do with it?

CANDIDATE:    I’m not sure what you mean. I’m going to do what I did last time, only better.

ADVISER:    So you’re going to go out there and lay it on the line? Tell folks the hard truths about what needs to be done? Speak out against the “forces of intolerance” again?

CANDIDATE:    That’s right! All that and more.

ADVISER:    So you plan to lose again.

CANDIDATE:    –

ADVISER:    Sorry, but that’s the plan you’ve laid out. It lost you the first nomination and it’ll lose you this one. I know you think that if you just tell the truth and stand up for what you believe to be right and clearly enunciate how best to fix our problems that the people will all flock to you. Or enough of them will. But they wont. You proved that conclusively last time. Why repeat a failed formula? All that “straight talk” fell on deaf ears. It’s time for some other kind of talk, don’t you think?

CANDIDATE:    What then? Tell them what they want to hear? Or better, just tell them anything to frighten them into voting for me? Should I just do what’s been done for the last 8 years and lie to them?

ADVISER:    Maybe, yeah. If that’s what it takes, that’s what you do. If telling the truth is what it takes, then you do that. If you want to get elected–and you do– then you run a campaign for President, not a campaign to get elected “Most Honest” in your high school yearbook!

CANDIDATE:    [SIGH]    I’ve heard all this before. It’s the same–

ADVISER:    Yes, but then you weren’t listening. And then you didn’t know how bad a failure was in your future.

CANDIDATE:    Fine! I can’t win, I believe you. So should I just give up?

ADVISER:    No, you should win.

CANDIDATE:    You just got done telling me I can’t.

ADVISER:    No, I told you you can win the way you want to run the campaign. You will win the way I want you to run the campaign. You want hear it? I’ll tell you, but you have to listen. And you have to admit that you’re not going to win it any other way.

CANDIDATE:     You’re right. I’m not going to win this my way, or any other way I can think of. So yeah, I’ll listen.

ADVISER:    It’s easy: You say what I tell you to say. That’s all.

CANDIDATE:    That’s all?

ADVISER:    That’s all. You say exactly what I tell you to say. You say what I tell you, when I tell you, to whom I tell you. If I tell you to say the war is a proud moment in history, you say that. if I tell you to say that God wants you to be president, you say that. If I tell you to hug Falwell and cry  tears of joy at his endorsement, you do that. Hell, if I tell you to go out on live national TV and tell the world that you kill puppies with your teeth each night before raping babies, you say that. And if I tell you the next day to say you never said it and that there’s no proof, you say that. John, you just say what I tell you to say and you will be the next president of this great contry.

CANDIDATE:    And when you tell me to say something I find morally repugnant? Or a downright lie? How do I live with that?

ADVISER:    I don’t know. Maybe you’ll be comforted by being the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. Maybe the good you can do in the world will ease your aching conscience. Maybe you’ll start practicing self-flagelation as penance for your sins. Maybe you’ll fall into a bed filled with midget hookers and fluffy piles of cocaine every night in order to forget what it cost you. I don’t know and I don’t care.

CANDIDATE:    That’s a tall order.

CANDIDATE:    Okay. I don’t know what else to do. I’ll give your way a try.

I don’t know enough about politics to know who the adviser is, but I think the candidate should be easy to spot.

I was just feeling sorry for myself a few minutes ago. The usual stuff: fat, unattractive, unemployed, etc. But for some reason my thought took a sharp right turn to Rowen, my 10 year old daughter.

I realised that in 10 years I have never once let her go to bed without hearing me say “I love you”. Even those times when she was busy screaming that she hated me, I made sure she heard me say that. And even those times when I had my doubts about whether it was true (usually those same nights she was screaming that she hated me) I said it and made sure she heard it.

It’s a fairly small thing in the great scope of life. She wont cure cancer because of it. And not hearing it wouldn’t have turned her into a psychotic serial killer who targets middle aged men with children and murders them with princess music boxes while wearing frilly dresses.

But maybe when she’s older and having a bad day — the kind where the whole world has turned to shit and you are certain that nothing and no one has ever loved anything, let alone you — the memory of those “I love you”s, or even just the unconscious knowledge of them, will help her get through it.