Sunday, May 11, 2008
"Who is that man in the grip of elm tree? It is I, the 41st president of the United States of America."
Jun 23, 2004 | It was Alexander Washington Hamilton's turn first. He had three minutes for his opening remarks, and as he was introduced, he adjusted his lapels and microphone, fixing his eyes on some indeterminate space near his stomach. When the red light on his podium glared, he raised his head and slowly looked into the audience -- handpicked, much like a jury by the respective staffs of the candidates -- and he cleared his throat. He opened his mouth, then seemed to change courses, deciding at the last moment to address what was going on just outside the hotel.
"I am very honored to be here before you tonight," he said into the camera, level-eyed and unblinking. "But before I go on, I want to take this opportunity to send a prayer out to a man I admire a great deal. A man who has served this country for 50 years, and who is, as we speak, still dangling from a tree in the parking lot."
There were a few scattered claps, and then the whispered scoldings directed to the clappers. No one knew how to react.
"Thus, I would like to cede my remaining two minutes to silence," Hamilton said, nodding his head in a convincingly solemn way, "silence which I hope you will use to say a prayer for J. Junior Inferior Sr. May he get down safely from the tree in the parking lot."
At that, Hamilton stepped back from the podium and lowered his head. Awkwardly, but with haste, the other two candidates, Carol O'Mealy and J. Junior Inferior Jr., also took one step back and did the same. Silence briskly washed through the hall and soon everyone, all 350 audience members and staff members, were praying. The live shot, gripping and so perfectly quiet, of the three candidates bowing their heads, was interrupted only when the camera trained on the stage dipped for a moment, as the cameraman lost his hold on it, having decided to join in sending his wishes to the Almighty that the former president be freed from the tree that currently held him.
It had happened in a matter of seconds, and the media had caught everything, and within a few minutes, the conscious world, pretty much all however-many billions of them, knew about Senior's botched landing and subsequent internment in the clutches of the great tree. The guilty gust of wind, traveling off the river and swirling through the parking lot like a wee tornado or twee tsunami, had sent the Montana/Senior parachute soaring away from the runway and into a group of elms lining the parking lot. Their chute was quickly enmeshed in the elm's brittle gray branches, and after the initial jolt, Senior and Montana had found themselves thankfully injury-free but in need of a gardener or tree surgeon riding a very tall cherry picker.
That was an hour ago, the beginning of their entanglement. For the ensuing hour, the debate organizers had fretted and fumbled, but, having assumed that help was soon on the way, had decided to go ahead with the debate, albeit 30 minutes or so later than planned. Meanwhile, the news outlets had about a billion people worldwide riveted to their televisions, watching the former president of the United States hanging from a 70-foot elm.
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