This 44-part series began running in WCT Nov. 8. Readers can read all the installments to date at www.windycitymediagroup.com .
From the journal of John 'Jack' Quincy Adams, Chief Secret Service Special Agent in Charge, The White House. Code Name: One.
Part 13. The Real Laura ( cont'd )
Jack Adams, the Secret Service agent charged with assassinating President George W. Bush and being held for psychiatric evaluation, is telling about his ongoing affections for his high school sweetheart Laura Welch, who later became Laura Bush. In this scene Jack is telling the psychiatrist about the second of two fateful trips abroad with the First Lady that revealed to him just how unhappy she was.
In 2005 Trailblazer requested I accompany the First Lady on a trip to the Middle East, and looking back on all that has transpired, that trip was the last bit of peace and quiet we had. Shortly after that everything began to unravel for the administration. For the whole country.
Our stops were Jordan, Israel, and Egypt and she was there trying to put a softer face on the war on terror, to make it look like women supported the war, too.
The morning of Sunday, May 22, in Amman she toured a school and some small businesses with Queen Rania. In Egypt, she visited the set of Sesame Street, or Alam Simsim, a television program funded by the U.S. government. Things went well in both of those countries. Israel was another matter.
Protestors were out in force, both Palestinian and Israeli. She met with Jewish women as well as Muslim women, but we disturbed a women's study group when we visited the hilltop compound known as Haram as-Sharif to Muslims and Temple Mount to Jews. By the time we got outside Israeli police had to help us fend off the crowd until we got her into the limo and out of the area.
'They have no right to put you in those situations and you should tell them that.' I was venting in the hotel room that night after our state dinner. I went to the bar to fetch her a nightcap.
'I don't have any choice, Jack. This is what the president's wife does.' I always loved how she absolutely refused to use the term 'First Lady'.
'They're lucky you don't tell them how you feel about how far off base they all are on the gay marriage and adoption issue.'
'I wish he could separate church and state in his head,' she said. 'George really does believe he's on a divine mission here. This is what he feels he was born for, the way he feels Reagan was born to bring down Communism.'
I didn't want to tell her there was no comparison. ( I think she came to that conclusion on her own during Hurricane Katrina, when he didn't know what to do until he flew back to D.C. and met with the PR people from the RNC. ) I did, however, want to tell her about all the visits from James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, and Ralph Reed from the Christian Coalition. They were in the West Wing every week lobbying staff if they couldn't get to him. Now Reed was talking about running for Lt. Governor and was looking for a commitment to support his campaign. It was like the whole country had gone crazy. I kept thinking about something one of the interns had said in the Mess a while back. 'It's getting so that I can't tell the Muslim theocracies from our own. Bush and bin Laden could be drinking buddies.'
'Look, you have a right to a life, too. Why shouldn't you speak your mind once in a while. Why can't you have your own ideas? Look at your predecessors. Look at Hillary Clinton, for God's sake.'
'I certainly don't want to be Hillary Clinton,' she said.
'No, of course not. That's not what I meant. I just meant that you are such a great First…such an asset to him, to the party, to everybody. They ought to cut you some slack. It makes me mad.'
'It's very sweet of you, Jack. But I don't need you to defend me. Not in that way. I'll be all right. You just worry about doing your job.' There was a tone in her voice now that said she was glad I had asked, and yet something had shifted. I had gotten too close. We were Protector and Protectee again suddenly. I decided to ignore it.
Follow this 44-part serialized book in Windy City Times for the next several months. See www.WindycityMediaGroup.com for past columns.