The Shadow Cabinet Read Online Free PDF Page A

asked, lighting a cigarette. “What are we gonna do to this grade A Carolina turkey?”
    â€œFry him,” Fuzzy said. “Barbecue him the same way he’s been roasting Washington and the federal bureaucracy.”
    â€œDeep fry,” Wilson suggested, reaching behind him for his raincoat. “Deep fat, maybe pork rind—like what you’ve been chewing for the last hour. Only it’s not going to solve anything. Chew it all you want, but you’re not going to swallow it. You’re just blowing your ears after a day in the pits.”
    â€œWe’re serious,” Buster Foreman insisted. “Come on, get your wig on—give us an idea to work with.”
    â€œHow come you’re so hacked off about Combs? He’s been around for a few years. He’s no worse than a few other senators I could name. He didn’t invent Capitol Hill hypocrisy. So why is it Combs you’re so bothered about? The Senate’s always been filled with small-time chauvinists like Bob Combs.”
    â€œBecause he’s a goddamned self-righteous hypocrite with seven million bucks in his war chest, that’s why,” said Buster.
    â€œHell, yes,” Cyril agreed.
    â€œYou see?” Fuzzy put in quickly. “Cyril’s as sore as the rest of us. Nick’s mad too, aren’t you, Nick?”
    Nick Straus frowned, recalled suddenly from reflections which had nothing to do with Senator Bob Combs or the back room at The Players. “Frustrated, I suppose.…”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with it?” Wilson asked, still looking at Fuzzy. “Sore at what? Because Combs isn’t cherry and the rest of the Senate is? They’re all the same. I know these people. You’re the ones who are cherry.”
    â€œSo how come everyone’s hacked off the way they are?” Buster asked. “Not just us, but everyone?”
    â€œIt’s the way things are,” Wilson offered. “Ask Nick—he’s the historian. Ask him, he’ll tell you.” But Nick Straus faltered, unable to say anything at all. “Everyone’s fed up,” Wilson said. “Not just here. Look at France. Now they’ve got Mitterrand, but no one’s happy. Look at Norway, look at Sweden. It’ll be Schmidt’s turn next in West Germany, then Thatcher’s. Revolving-door presidents and prime ministers, that’s what’s happening. Everyone’s fed up.”
    â€œSo how come?”
    â€œBecause that’s what government has grown to—too small for the problems, too big for the people. Now it’s amateur night in Washington—four years of it. But no one has any answers, just the same old bullshit. In a couple of years, that’ll wash Reagan out too.” He pulled his raincoat across his knees and brought out his car keys. “But that’s not why you guys are talking this way. Do you know why you’re so pissed off, why you’re fed up with Combs, with Reagan, with the Democrats, who’re so dead in the water no one’s even turned the body over yet? Because it’s Monday night and the Redskins lost yesterday. It’s raining cats and dogs and half a million Redskin fans who’re also Washington bureaucrats in their spare time are sitting around the tube, dying again, just like yesterday, watching the Dallas Cowboys kick the hell out of a team that was twenty points better than the Redskins two weeks ago.” He looked at Buster Foreman, beginning to smile. “So while that’s happening, Bob Combs is sitting there on TV kicking the hell out of a few GS-18s who make more money than you do. That’s the problem. The Dallas Cowboys are winners, like Bob Combs and his seven-million-dollar political war chest. The Moral Majority, that’s America’s team, like the Cowboys, like that California sing-along crew in the White House.”
    â€œNow I’ve heard everything,” Fuzzy