It wouldn’t go down that way. That was no iconic moment. This woman was about to undermine the nation’s unity in order to place blame, not on the terrorists who had committed the atrocity, but on the government that tried to stop it. Prescott could feel his stomach clench in anger. Instead, he stopped, looked directly at the woman, and then held up his hands to the Secret Service. “Stop,” he said. “Let her speak. We are all grieving.”
One of the Secret Service men had his hand on the woman’s upper arm by this point. She shook it off roughly. Then she started pushing her way to the front of the crowd, shoving members of the press aside. Prescott waited for her, seething quietly. When she got to the front, she climbed up onto the makeshift stage. Prescott could see the hatred in her eyes, could feel the rage. Her hands were shaking. In one of them was a photo. She held it up: a picture of her husband, gray mustache, heavyset, sixties. The microphones picked up her words. “Have you seen my husband, Mr. President?”
He shook his head dumbly.
“I didn’t think so. He drives that bridge every single day to get to his job. I’m sure he was on it when it collapsed. You promised, Mr. President, to keep us safe. I know, because I voted for you. You promised that bringing our troops home would change everything, that ending those wars would make us safer here at home. And now I’m asking,” she choked back tears, “if we’re really safe. How can we be really safe after this? My husband won’t ever come home again, probably, because you didn’t keep us safe. He served his country in Vietnam, and he came back to this country, and all he asked was that our country honor his service. How can you keep us safe?” She stared at him, eyes glowing.
And he suddenly saw a way forward. He leaned forward, let a tear roll down his cheek, and hugged her. She tried to pull away, initially; he held her tighter. Finally, he felt her sob against his chest, the tension go out of her body. The cameras flashed around him.
The moment.
Time stood still. This was the image he’d been seeking ever since his election: Compassionate. Caring. Strong.
Now he waved for a couple of Secret Service agents to come forward and usher her from the stage. They moved quickly; within moments, he was onstage alone again, the sun reflecting brightly off the river.
He spoke slowly, deliberately.
The moment.
“We have made mistakes,” he said, gesturing to the woman. “I have made mistakes. Those mistakes were made out of a desire for revenge against others, out of a desire to strike back against those who hurt us. We go to war to protect ourselves, but we end up weakening ourselves. Vengeance is God’s, we know. Our job is to build.
“And build we will. Safety does not lie in aggression. It does not lie in defensiveness. It lies in our continual demonstration to the world that we will build, no matter what comes. Together, we will raise this bridge again, greater than it ever was before. Together, we will rekindle our relationship with each other, frayed and fractured thanks to the exigencies of war.
“We will not be hampered by the past. Our swords will be beaten into plowshares.” He motioned out over the thousands of American troops now working along the shoreline. “Our bravest and finest men and women will be put to work rebuilding; no more nation-building abroad. Thousands upon thousands of those men and women are coming to New York, to rebuild, to revitalize. It’s time to build ourselves up here at home.
“Now, some will ask whether such actions bring safety. And here is what I say: Safety does not come through the fear of the gun or the height of our walls. Safety comes from love. Yes,” he continued, “love. Love for each other. Care for each other. Sacrifice for each other. And that’s what I’m going to ask of all Americans now. Not anger, not lashing out, not blame or knee-jerk reactions. Love. Love your neighbor. Love your country. Stand together. And together we will rise. For in times like this, in times of tragedy and horror, it is love we most need.”
He paused for one moment more, looking out at the New York skyline. The cameras clicked.
The moment.
The president relaxed in his hotel room after the speech, flipping through the channels. The coverage was nearly universally ecstatic, though one guest commentator on Fox News had the gall to ask whether the president had any leads on the perpetrators. The host, uncomfortable with politicizing the moment, moved the guest quickly off the point. The chyron read: “PRESIDENT: A TIME FOR LOVE.” Over and over, channel after channel, the footage of the hug played as if on a continuous loop.
The knock at the door disturbed Prescott’s reverie. Tommy Bradley peeked his head in. “Come in, Tommy,” said the president magnanimously, muting the television. “Have you seen this fucking coverage?”
Bradley grinned weakly. “It’s phenomenal, Mr. President. Just phenomenal.”
“Let’s see them try to stop the Work Freedom Program after this, eh?”
“Mr. President…”
“What is it? Spit it out.”
“Did you know that Brett Hawthorne is in New York?”
“No, but why the hell should I care where he is? He’s a free man, isn’t he?”
Tommy bit his lip. “Well, you see, it’s what he’s doing here that could be problematic. I just got word from my guy at JFK that he’s digging around flight manifests, and that he’s asked to see pictures of Arabs first.”
“Jesus Christ. Racial profiling? Right after the ‘love’ speech?”
“And they say that the media probably will figure it out pretty soon. I mean, these things have a way of leaking.”
“Je. Sus. Christ. Who the hell gave him authority for this?”
“My guy didn’t know the answer to that.”
“Well, track down the general. Should have left that pain in the ass in Iran. Jesus.” And he turned up the volume to hear himself speak once again, his voice blaring through the hard-wooded presidential suite: “Vengeance is God’s, we know. Our job is to build.”
Ellen
GOVERNOR DAVIS’S REFUSAL TO SEND the National Guard to New York sparked a firestorm across the nation. He cited precedent—hadn’t the governor of California refused a federal request to place National Guard troops on the border?—but in the aftermath of the bridge attack, he didn’t get much sympathy. “Everyone knows that Texas thinks of itself as its own little country,” shouted one MSNBC commentator into the camera, “but this time, their hick governor has shown himself to be deeply unpatriotic. You don’t get to be a star on the flag of the United States and then go AWOL when your country needs you. John F. Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’ In Texas, Bubba Davis says, ‘Ask not what you can do for your country, ask how you can leave them hanging in their time of need.’”
Davis stood fast, though. He refused the requests for the National Guard, redeployed them to the border. He told the media that the crime rate across the state had dropped dramatically. He pointed at the rapidly dropping illegal border crossings, explained that the drug trafficking had been cut dead.
It didn’t help. Day after day, the media ran with the story: a president calling for love and unity, and a southern secessionist governor looking like George Wallace. Never mind that Davis had stood with the marchers of the civil rights era: he now stood on the side of the Old South, the media proclaimed.