Epilogue

The resignation of Frank Cohane as finance chairman of the Committee to Reelect President Peacham was a surprise, coming as it did on the eve of the general election.

The terse announcement said only that he had “fulfilled his mission,” that he was confident that the president would be reelected “in a landslide,” and was eager to get back to skippering his yacht Expensive in the upcoming America ’s Cup race.

The next night, Mrs. Cohane was observed screaming at Frank furiously at the tony Georgetown restaurant Cafй Milano and then abruptly getting up from the table and storming out. This fact was duly reported in the Post’s “Reliable Source” column the next day. The Cohanes put their house up for sale and departed for California a few days later. Mrs. Cohane was still apparently out of sorts, as several people witnessed her in the waiting room of the private aviation terminal at Dulles International Airport barking at her billionaire husband.

The president lost another top aide a few days later when Bucky Trumble, his longtime political counselor, was rushed to George Washington Hospital with a bleeding ulcer. The doctors advised him not to return to the rigors of the campaign.

In a speech in Bangor, Maine, President Peacham announced that he was personally instructing the attorney general to vacate the federal fugitive warrant on Cassandra Devine. Normally, the White House affected a posture of not interfering with supposedly independent actions of cabinet agencies. In this case, the president seemed, if anything, eager to point out that this was his decision and not the AG’s.

At a press conference the next day, he said, “If young people want to go burning their damn”-it was the first instance of a president saying “damn” in public-“Social Security cards, that’s their business. The whole system is so screwed up as it is, that’s not going to make it any worse.” He then announced to an already stunned press corps that if he was reelected, he would appoint Cassandra Devine commissioner of Social Security. “And good luck to the lady if she accepts. And good luck to me if I win. There are times, I have to say, when I almost hope the voters don’t return me to office in November.”

This was fresh, honest talk of a kind rarely if ever heard, and the people responded.

President Riley Peacham won reelection by a narrow margin. When he took the podium to declare victory, it was not altogether clear that he was happy to have won.

Senator Randolph K. Jepperson made a strong showing in the popular vote, less so in the electoral college, the system devised by the Founders in their infinite wisdom occasionally to prevent the right person from winning the presidency. Randy, with Cass and Terry at his side on election night, limped out onto the stage and congratulated President Peacham. He refrained from holding his prosthesis over his head and spent the rest of his speech describing his agenda for the future and why he would make an ideal candidate for president in four years, or eight, or whenever. Whatever.

Frank Cohane’s yacht competed fiercely in the America ’s Cup that fall. On the final race, Expensive suddenly lost steering power on the downwind leg and rammed and sank the French yacht Formidable. The bureau of inquiry found no evidence of damage to Expensive’s steering prior to the accident. The case is proceeding in the French and U.S. courts and the international court at The Hague. Mrs. Cohane subsequently left Frank for the skipper of the Italian yacht Scuzzi-the dashing billionaire industrialist Dino Filipacci, of Milan. No mention of this or the ramming incident can be found on Google.

Gideon Payne’s attempts to portray Elderheaven’s purchase of actuarial software as “a means of ensuring the very best level of care for our beloved senior residents” did not meet with success with the electorate. He came in seventh in the popular vote. Yet he took his fall from grace in stride. Some thought he appeared almost jubilant conceding the election to President Peacham. A month later, he announced that he was stepping down from the leadership of SPERM in order to marry a Russian national, Olga Marilova, a self-described “hospitality worker.” They would retire, he said, to the country and raise a family, “a large family.”

In January, President Peacham nominated Cassandra Devine to be the youngest commissioner of Social Security in U.S. history. ABBA and other Baby Boomer lobbies fiercely opposed the nomination on the grounds that she would “sabotage” Social Security payments to retired Boomers. Her nomination is being championed in the Senate by Senator Randolph K. Jepperson of Massachusetts, in conjunction with a vigorous public relations effort mounted by her former employer and mentor, Terry Tucker.

Massimo Cardinal Montefeltro is currently rector of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Prompt Succor in Rome. Among the Vaticanisti who handicap papal elections, he is rumored to be on the short list of possible future pontiffs after the reign of Jean-Claude I.

Acknowledgments

Thank you, Jonathan Karp, for brilliant editing and splendid collaboration, our sixth; Binky Urban of ICM; Nate Gray at Twelve; Harvey-Jane Kowal at Hachette Book Group USA; Sona Vogel, once again, for superb copyediting; Greg Zorthian for Spider Repellent™; John Tierney, LF; Allen Snyder, Esq., worth every penny; Steve “Dutch” Umin; Jean Twenge, PhD, author of Generation Me; William Butler Yeats; Jolie Hunt (STFU!); Lucy, always; Cat and Conor; and the faithful hound Jake, who never left the author’s side and the tin of Milk-Bone biscuits.

– Washington, D.C.

July 13, 2006

About the Author

Christopher Buckley was born in New York City in 1952, which means he will be eligible for Social Security benefits in the year 2017. If, however, millions of people buy this, his twelfth book, he will consider going away sooner and leaving everyone alone. He is editor of ForbesLife magazine and contributes to The New Yorker. His best-selling novel Thank You for Smoking was adapted for the screen and directed by Jason Reitman.