VII
"Okay, here we go." Jed tucked away his reading glasses into his pocket and straightened up.
"How's the teleprompter?" Sam called from the sidelines.
"It's fine," he asserted. A little less clear without the glasses, perhaps, but not so bad he had to squint. Bitch though he might about this damn health crackdown, he had to admit he hadn't had another incident of blurry vision in months. Now that nasty winter cold had left his chest and he could breathe clearly, he felt better than he had in years. He waited for someone to give him the signal.
"Where's CJ?" Leo asked, after a moment's awkward pause.
"She's on her way," Sam supplied, looking around. He was hovering anxiously on the sidelines, next to a dour-looking Toby.
Josh straightened up in his seat. "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States," he announced somewhat half-heartedly in her stead.
"I think we knew that," Jed said dryly.
"Sir." That was a little sharp; Leo never had much patience for his wandering off the script at these rehearsals. Jed glanced up at the teleprompter, and began to read.
"Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President. Members of Congress, distinguished guests, and my fellow Americans." As always, he tried to hide the faint tremble of an amused smirk at setting Congress and distinguished guests in distinctly separate categories. "I come before you today to speak of a time of great trials and great triumphs."
Ha! He'd been practising that one all day. Jed was convinced Toby put in some of these tongue-twisters specifically to provide himself with the opportunity to tear his own remaining hair out over his president's helpless mangling of them.
Back to the script. "This last year has seen much turbulence-" He was interrupted as Josh scraped his chair out of the way to let CJ past. "Well timed, that man," he noted wryly.
"Sorry."
"Sorry!" They both winced.
"Keep going, Mr. President." Leo waved a hand.
"This last year has seen much turbulence, but without upheaval, there can be no progress; without bold moves, there can be no successes; without challenges, we can never hope to achieve our full potential. And America is a country of great potential, we are a people of great potential-" his emphasis became a little wobbly as he grew distracted by CJ, Toby and Sam whispering together- "striving... uh, constantly striving towards a union of- kids, am I keeping you from something more interesting?"
Leo twisted around irritably to see what had caught his attention. "Is there something-?"
CJ hastily held up a hand. "Uh, no, sorry, Mr. President, go ahead with-"
"Lubbock County's going to be a thing," Toby cut in bluntly. Josh rubbed his face and sighed explosively, while Leo shot him a dark look that Jed recognised full well as his 'I thought we agreed we wouldn't bring that up in front of the president?' glare.
Naturally, it piqued his interest. He peered at Toby over the podium. "What's going on, Toby?"
"John Rossiter's parents have been speaking to the press," Sam piped up helpfully. "They say their son was murdered, and they want to bring charges against the girl and her parents, both for the shooting and for impugning their son's name, and for-"
"I think we get the gist," Leo cut him off pointedly. "Mr. President, this is something we need to focus on after the State of the Union. Toby, you can put gun control on the agenda, but not right now. We've already got forty-five groups lobbying for changes to the text, we're walking a tight-rope with Hoynes, and the last thing we need to do is bring a whole new controversy on board. After the speech."
"Carry on, Mr. President," Josh urged in agreement, sitting forward.
It took him a moment to relocate the thread of his speech. "Constantly striving towards a union of..." Union, union, union- ah. "...Hearts, minds and ideals. We, as a people, have many colours and many faiths; we may vote differently, think differently, talk differently, live differently... but we are all Americans. A union of similar minds is as worthless as a wall made out of grains of sand; it is our differences that bind us together and reinforce us."
He straightened up a little as he got to his favourite part; the part where he could remind the country, and himself, that they really were doing some good up here.
"To that end, last year I made a vow to the American people to seek out and bring an end to institutionalised discrimination in all its insidious forms, and already we have made great strides in that direction. Last summer, the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' rule was repealed, allowing patriotic Americans everywhere to serve our in country's armed forces without secrecy or fear of reprisal for being open about their sexual orientation. We passed measures to make sure that threats of violence against religious and ethnic communities are treated with due seriousness, and local police forces have the information available to them to quickly recognise and combat patterns of attacks." He shifted position.
"Equal rights for every American means opportunities for every American; there must be healthcare, education and security for all. Last year, we extended federal health programs to cover a further three million disadvantaged children, and introduced successful pilot schemes in three states to help combat the level of teenage pregnancy in poor neighbourhoods."
He paused for breath, and Toby immediately jumped in - or perhaps 'shuffled in' would be more appropriate, considering the interjection was a dissatisfied mumble. "I don't like this beginning. The tone is all wrong."
Jed narrowed his eyes at him. "What's wrong with my tone?"
"We sound too self-satisfied." Toby grimaced and rubbed his face. "I said right from the beginning, we have to be- We need to be ready to-"
"We shouldn't be trumpeting our accomplishments?" Josh leaned back in his chair to shoot him a look.
"Yes, but not right off the bat. We need to emphasise how much we still have to achieve."
"To which the American public says 'Well, what the hell did we elect you for, then?'" Leo glowered.
"Sometimes I wonder myself," Jed put in, but nobody was listening to him.
"This is a pep rally, Toby, we can't play the 'good ideas that got voted down' card in front of Congress," CJ pointed out sensibly.
Not when Congress were the ones doing all the shooting down. Sensing that this discussion was going to go on a while, Jed took the opportunity to grab a gulp of water.
"It's been a pretty rocky year-" Sam began diplomatically, and Toby immediately cut him off.
"Yes it has, and sitting back and mouthing off about how much good we've done just makes us look like we're living in a dream world."
"We have done good," CJ reminded him.
"Yes, but not enough of it. We don't want to go out there and tell the American public 'Well, we think we did reasonably okay this year, and by golly, that's good enough for us'."
"By golly?" Sam wondered. Toby glared at him.
Jed wandered down from the podium, sat down and put his feet up.
"We want to come out saying 'We did some good this year, but we're not satisfied with that, and we're gonna do more, and we're gonna be running twice as fast to catch up the time we missed'. We've got to come out fighting."
"Fighting what?" Leo demanded pointedly.
"Everything," Toby shrugged after a moment. Jed had to smile. That right there was a pretty succinct summation of the Ziegler MO.
"Toby, right now our biggest priority is getting this over with without a complete disaster."
"Yes it is, and that's exactly the problem. Leo, this is a- this is a retirement speech!" He waved the papers in his hand emphatically. "Dwelling on past victories, glossing over the problems, and pretending the future doesn't exist. It's so neutral we might as well put a life-size photograph up there and play classical music for eighty minutes!"
"Personally, I think that's a great idea." Once again, nobody listened to him. Jed cleared his throat for attention, and straightened up. "Hi. Hello. This is your president speaking. Is there any chance we could possibly-?"
"Sorry, Mr. President," they chorused, with varying levels of sheepishness.
"Toby, your point is well taken, and we can think about shifting things around a little to bring more focus onto our goals for the next year." Neither Toby nor Leo looked happy at this attempt at suggesting a compromise, but hey, what was new? "But for the moment, let's just concentrate on the current draft and see if we can get it licked into shape." He cracked a smile. "Now, who can tell me where the phrase 'licked into shape' comes from?"
"Oh, holy God." Leo buried his head in his folded arms. Jed ignored him.
"I'm gonna say it has something to do with... cows," Josh said sardonically.
"Wrong, but nice try," he allowed. "Claudia Jean?"
She shook her head at him, but smiling. "I'm gonna go out on a limb, and guess it doesn't have anything to do with getting to the middle of a tootsie roll?"
He smiled, satisfied to have a piece of knowledge to impart that no one else could come up with. "In ancient times-"
"Such as back when this meeting started?" Leo wondered.
"In ancient times," he repeated, "people used to believe that bear cubs were born as little shapeless balls of fur. They saw the mother bear tending to her newborn cubs, and assumed that she was, in fact, literally licking them into the shape of a baby bear."
"Aww." CJ chuckled, looking delighted by that mental picture, and Sam grinned. Josh rolled his eyes good-humouredly.
"And this is relevant to the current situation, how?" he wondered.
"Broadening your knowledge is always relevant, Josh!" he said expansively, standing up. "Now, should we get back to this speech?"
"Please," said Leo, into the palm his chin was resting on.
"Just go straight on to the next section, Mr. President," Sam advised.
"Okay." He got back up to the podium, and found his place. "Ahem. In order to improve the lives of Americans everywhere, we must not become insular and isolated, but look beyond our borders to the larger international community, and do our bit to establish America's place as a friend to developing nations and a supporter of human rights everywhere. Thanks to the initiative spearheaded by Congresswoman Wyatt, the annual foreign aid budget has already been increased from eight billion dollars to fourteen billion, with plans to raise it by a further four billion within the next two years..."