The Accidental President

Harrison Standish Tate, the President of the United States of America, sprawled on one of the two slightly faded beige sofas that flanked his grandiose desk and stared at the ceiling of the Oval Office with unseeing eyes. Completely oblivious to the luxurious trappings of the nation’s power center, his mind was focused inwardly. After two years in office, he was no longer intimidated by his surroundings. Not only was he unimpressed with what he had accomplished in rising to this pinnacle of power, he regretted the fact that fate had contrived to lift him so high. Indeed, he considered himself a coincidental president. He now believed that the two decades he had spent as Sheriff of Loudoun County Virginia were the happiest and most rewarding of his life. If he had known then what he knew now, he would have resisted the seductive call of political ambition and not have pursued the offices that formed his staircase to the presidency. “Mr. President, the cabinet is assembled and waiting for you,” Grace Hanson called to him from the doorway. Grace, his loyal secretary, had accompanied him on his fateful journey from sheriff to chairman of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors to lieutenant governor to governor of Virginia. The interruption brought Tate back to the present. He turned. “Thank you, Grace. I’ll be along shortly.” Grace nodded obediently but made no effort to hide the concern etched on her face. “Their lordships will benefit from spending a few congenial minutes with their peers,” Tate called after her as she closed the door softly behind her. Tate briefly considered the members of his cabinet, not one of whom did he consider a trusted friend or ally. He had appointed them to their current exalted positions, and each had been selected out of political expediency. Several had been competitors for the office that Tate now held, and not one of the rivals considered him qualified for the office. Tate did not disagree with them on this point, at least. Tate had served as governor of Virginia for four years, a job with a one-term limit, and he had been considering a dubious run for the senate when a deadlocked convention had turned to him as a compromise candidate, a man from a no longer influential state. A full two centuries had passed since Virginia had earned its reputation as the birthplace of presidents. The convention had viewed Tate as a man with a limited electoral track record and no known political vices, an appraisal that amused Tate, particularly the emphasis on no known. The delegates had selected him because they considered him unflawed, something that could not be said about the other candidates. Standing a mere five foot six inches high and weighing less than a hundred and forty-five pounds, Tate, the genial son of an old and distinguished Virginia family, did not threaten anyone. At most, he had a diminutive presence. “I should fire the whole damned bunch of them,” Tate declared as he rose from the couch. In his opinion, the individual members of the cabinet had so compromised themselves and their principles to reach their current positions that they were all empty shells. To a man, they were now devoted to one thing, attaining the office that Tate now held. Self-interest constituted their only motivating force. He despised all politicians, including himself. As he exited through Grace Hanson’s office, he paused. “I really don’t want to do this.” Grace smiled encouragement to her boss who she worshipped. “Is the pompous asshole in there?” Tate asked, using the language of the streets that he had acquired as sheriff. Tate referred to Alexander Hamilton Sperry, his secretary of the treasury. “Waiting for his fifteen minutes of glory,” Grace, who knew firsthand how cops talked, recognized that Tate was just venting. “It might come sooner than he thinks,” Tate grumbled. Grace laughed. “I think you need some time off.” “Me too,” Tate agreed, surprising Grace. “Cancel everything on my schedule for this afternoon.” “Do you want me to alert the Secret Service?” “That’s the last thing I want. They would ruin everything.” “Yes sir,” Grace called after Tate as he started for the door where he paused again. “Find out where Gif is.” Tate referred to Colin Gifford, an old friend currently working as chief of the Office of Special Investigations of the Virginia State Police. “Should I give him a heads up?” “Of course not,” Tate laughed. “We don’t want him to go into hiding. Just find out where he is without letting him know that we are looking for him.” “Good morning, Mr. President,” the Secret Service agent standing watch outside the door to the Cabinet Room greeted Tate. “Good morning, Charles,” Tate responded amiably. He waited for the agent to open the door and then entered to confront a room of chattering, self-important men and women, all sitting around the highly polished elliptical mahogany table. At Tate’s direction, this meeting included only the fifteen secretaries plus the vice president and Tate’s chief of staff. The usual assortment of aides, assistants, and note takers had been excluded. This promised to be an acrimonious meeting, and Tate anticipated that the principals would prove to be more than adept in leaking details to the media in a self-serving and self-promoting manner, thus rendering the spear-carriers superfluous. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Tate smiled as he made his way to his chair in the center of the table where he sat facing John F. Walker, the vice president. Following precedent, Tate had personally chosen John F. Walker for the job. Walker had been the junior senator from Alabama, a position he had held for only two years when selected to compete as Tate’s running mate. A John Edwards lookalike, Walker’s public persona was everything that the diminutive Tate privately envied. Assuming that the voters would share that feeling, Tate made the same mistake that the first George Bush made when selecting Dan Quayle. Tate’s enemies reacted just as Bush’s had. They recognized a political threat when they saw one and focused on Walker as a primary target, hoping to destroy the man before he had the chance to realize his potential. “Good morning, Mr. Vice President,” Tate smiled at Walker as he lowered himself into the presidential chair. Tate hated the damned chair. An engraved brass plate saying “The President,” reserved it for Tate. The grandness of it all did not bother Tate; it was the high back that did. A small man, Tate was sensitive to the fact that the chair was simply too big for him. He suspected that the others felt that he was too small to be president and that they privately ridiculed him for how he looked out of place when he sat in the ostentatious thing.