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anything?
    Haven't they any idea what this job is all about?
    The whole thing is so patently absurd! And yet
    there are those Boy Scouts, in uniform,
    marching in the streets of the nation's capitaland
    those signs:
    GO BACK TO CALIFORNIA,
    SENSUALIST, WHERE YOU BELONG
    POWER TO THE PENIS? NEVER!
    REPRESSION-LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!
    SPIRITUAL COACH (solemnly, taking the arm of
    the shaken President) : Mr. President, forgive them,
    they know not what their signs say. TRICKY: Oh,
    Reverend, Reverend, I assure you, under ordinary
    circumstances I would bend over backwards to
    forgive them. I like to think that I am the kind of
    man who can find it in his heart to forgive his worst
    enemy. Why, not only have I forgiven Alger Hiss,
    but when I was elected President, I sent him an
    anonymous telegram expressing my gratitude for all
    he had done in my behalf. And that man was a
    perjurer! Listen, I would actually have forgiven
    Khrushchev himself, yes, right there in that kitchen,
    if it had
    TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 33
    been politically expedient to do so. Just look what I'm
    up to right now: I'm in the very process of forgiving
    Mao Tse-tung, who by my own estimate has enslaved
    six hundred million people!
    But I am afraid, Reverend, that where these Boy
    Scouts are concerned, we are fighting for a principle so
    fundamental to civilized life, that even a man of my
    magnanimity must rise up and say "No, this time you
    have gone too far." Reverend, they are trying to
    prevent me from winning a second term!
    SPIRITUAL COACH: I see . . . I see . . . I must
    confess that I had not thought of it quite that way.
    TRICKY: It is not a pleasant way to have to think
    about it. All of us would prefer to look with charity
    and respect upon our fellow human beings, whatever
    their race, creed, color or age, and to treat them
    according to the tenets of our religious beliefs.
    Certainly no one in this country wishes to appear more
    religious than I do. But sometimes, Reverend, people
    just make being religious impossible, even for
    someone who stands to gain as much from that
    posture as I do. SPIRITUAL COACH: But if such is
    the case, if these Boy Scouts, for some
    incomprehensible reason, are out to destroy your
    political career by casting doubt upon your Sunday
    school morality, perhaps it would be best for you to go
    on televi-
    34 OUR GANG
    sion and give the people the facts as they really are. As
    you did when they accused you in the 1952 election of
    being the recipient of an illegal political fund. The
    Checkers Speech. TRICKY (intrigued) : You mean
    give it again?
    SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, perhaps not the very
    same speech.
    TRICKY: Why not? It worked.
    SPIRITUAL COACH: True. But I wonder, Mr.
    President, if it addresses directly the issue at hand.
    TRICKY: Maybe not. But you know, Reverend, when
    you're dealing with wild and reckless charges like
    these, when you're in the midst of a crisis such as this
    one, that could snowball overnight into political
    disaster, then you sometimes have to do what works,
    and leave things like the issues themselves for later.
    Otherwise, I'm afraid there might not be any later.
    SPIRITUAL COACH: Well, I'm not a politician, Mr.
    President, and I must admit that I may be hopelessly
    naive to believe that The Truth Shall Make Ye Free.
    But I do think that if instead of giving the Checkers
    Speech again, instead of itemizing your earnings over
    the years and telling how much money you owe your
    parents and so on, you were now to make a similar
    address, in which you presented to the nation an
    itemized account of your sexual experiences, giving
    exact dates from your appointment calendar-when,
    TRICKY HAS ANOTHER CRISIS 35
    where, and with whom-you might well feel secure in
    leaving it to the American people to judge whether or
    not you are an advocate of fornication.
    TRICKY: You mean, go on TV with the appointment
    books ...
    SPIRITUAL COACH: Yes, and leaf through them
    page by page, until at last you come