Hammond: “Casualty projections?”
Army Generaclass="underline" “High, sir. The asset is closely guarded and is considered a high value target. The men are all volunteers. They know this is a one way mission, and they understand the need.”
Hammond: “And the asset?”
Army Generaclass="underline" (Flips a page on the chart, showing a blown-up picture of Marilyn Buckman.) “Marilyn Buckman is currently being held in the Allegheny County Jail, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! We have managed to insert an agent who reports that Mrs. Buckman is currently being forced to teach classes in knitting and crocheting.”
Navy Admiraclass="underline" “The CIA reports that she will begin baking cookies as soon as they break her spirit. There are reports that a foreign consortium led by Famous Amos has been bidding for her secret chocolate chip cookie recipe!”
Hammond: “NO!”
Air Force Generaclass="underline" “Mister President, we cannot allow enemy powers to gain access to Mrs. Buckman’s cookie technology!”
Hammond: “We can’t let that happen! The mission is approved, but first… LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT!”
Pretty much like everybody in the studio audience, I was laughing hysterically from the moment Marilyn’s picture was shown. Even Marilyn was laughing at it. “I hope your children are seeing this. I am going to want this immortalized in video!” I told her.
“You can be eliminated!”
Later in the show we had part two of the madness. Amy Poehler, the designated Marilyn Buckman impersonator (this required a wig), was sitting in a prison cell wearing an orange jumpsuit, facing several other prisoners, and they were all knitting.
Poehler: “Remember, knit one, purl two!” (The wall next to Marilyn collapses. Two cast members in combat uniforms and carrying guns jump into the room.)
Soldier One: “Mrs. Buckman, we’re Delta Force! We’re here to rescue you!”
Soldier Two: “You have to come with us!”
Poehler: “But we were just going to start talking about mixing different yarns.”
Soldier One: “We have to leave now!”
Poehler: “Ladies, don’t forget what we learned about slip stitch!”
Soldier Two: “We have to go now!” (Both soldiers took ‘Mrs. Buckman’ by the arm and pulled her through the hole in the wall and across a computer generated battlefield. They ended up on a different battlefield set.)
Soldier One: “Status on the extraction?”
Soldier Two: “Not good! We’re surrounded!”
Soldier One: “Casualties?”
Soldier Two: “At least half are down or captured, and the enemy is getting closer.”
Soldier One: “Choppers?”
Soldier Two: “Shot down! We didn’t know the Pittsburgh Police Department had anti-aircraft capability!”
Soldier One: “Ground?”
Soldier Two: “They have tanks. We’ve only got one choice left! You have to prepare Mrs. Buckman for pickup. I’ll join the remaining survivors and hold them off as long as we can!”
Soldier One: “Go!” (Turns to ‘Marilyn’ and opens up a duffle bag.) “Mrs. Buckman, you need to put on this harness.”
Poehler: “The color really doesn’t work with the jumpsuit. Do you have something else, maybe in a light red or yellow?”
Soldier One: “Mrs. Buckman! Please!”
Poehler: “Oh, all right. Oh, damn, I broke a nail!”
Soldier One: “Mrs. Buckman!”(He began helping her.)
Poehler: “What’s this for, anyway?”
Soldier One: (Reaches into the duffle bag and pulls out an inflated balloon, clips it to a wire and lets it free, to float out of sight.) “Ever watch James Bond?”
Poehler: “No. Why?”
Soldier One: “No reason. Have a nice flight!” (Poehler gets lifted up off the stage by the wire, as the soldier kneels down and starts shooting his gun.)
Curiously, Marilyn took a certain exception to the portrayal of her by Poehler I simply laughed at my wife as she stewed.
Charlie must have been the only guy on the planet who hadn’t seen the clips by the time we saw him the next day. My Sunday breakfast was interrupted by Will Brucis when he called wanting to know my official reaction to the skits. I simply told him the truth, that I had laughed until I cried, and then told him the White House wasn’t going to take an official policy stance on Marilyn Buckman’s cookie technology. It was going to be one of those ‘neither confirm nor deny’ moments.
Needless to say, the Sunday morning news shows were all over this whole mess. ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos ran the intro clip in full, and then George asked Fletcher Donaldson about it.
George Stephanopoulos: “Fletcher, you’ve actually been to the Buckman’s home in Hereford, Maryland. Is Marilyn Buckman’s chocolate chip cookie recipe really so valuable that we can’t allow it to fall into enemy hands?”
Fletcher Donaldson: “I can’t answer that, George. I don’t think I’ve ever had one of her cookies. I can say that her jam and jelly recipes are worth protecting.”
George Wilclass="underline" “I’d have to agree with that. I managed to get a jar of Buckman’s Berries Strawberry Jam one Christmas and it was pretty good stuff. It’s interesting, though, to compare Marilyn Buckman with Hillary Clinton, who once famously commented that she had no intention of staying home and baking cookies when she could do something more important. Marilyn Buckman is quite happy baking cookies and being a stay-at-home mother for her children and husband, and she considers that as important as anything else she could be doing, and I applaud her for that.”
That got into a full Roundtable discussion of the two women’s styles and whether Marilyn’s ‘career choice’ was correct and how my extravagant wealth had allowed my wife to be ‘less productive’ or if I had forced her into a ‘subservient’ role. After a bit, Marilyn looked at me and said, “Do you like my cookies?”
I smiled and waggled my eyebrows, and replied, “And your buns, too!”
“Oh my God! You’re awful!” I started tickling her at that, and only stopped when Megan wandered out of her bedroom to find the President of the United States of America and the First Lady of that great nation wrestling on the couch. Still it showed how anything in Washington could be politicized.
Monday morning back in D.C. the political aspects were all over the place. I was treated to the latest on the witch hunt over at the Secret Service. The Senate Finance Committee planned to name a Special Investigator this week, and was dragging their heels on it, trying to delay everything past the end of the year and into the primary season. The Secret Service wasn’t waiting for them, and their internal affairs operation was crawling all over the protection details. It was expected that they would actually be questioning me and Marilyn at some point. I wasn’t precisely sure what that would gain them, but I couldn’t see an upside to stonewalling them.
During the morning staff meeting, something interesting came up, though. Needless to say, SNL had everybody talking, and there didn’t seem to be an end in sight to the merriment. It was Mindy who said, “Why don’t you send Mrs. Buckman out to talk to people?”
“I think that’s how we got into this mess! She went out and talked to people!” I countered.
“No, not protesters! Put her on the late night shows!”
“Huh?” I wasn’t sure where this was going.
Frank wasn’t either, but Will had a curious look on his face. “Keep going,” he told her, making a rolling motion with his hands.
“Marilyn Buckman is one of the nicest and warmest people you will ever meet. Everybody gets along with her. She comes across as a regular person, a nice person, not a Washington person. She can relate to people. Use that! Send her out on tour! Get people on her side and, by extension, your side, and not let this be your average Washington scandal. Let her show them it’s about real people. She comes across as real people.”