The Corcoran Affair by Philip Lentz

Author:Philip Lentz [Lentz, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Thrillers / Political
Publisher: Ink Start Media
Published: 2022-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

McCord was a bit stunned when the president told him of his conversation with his wife. He shouldn’t have been, of course. For a man whose job it is to anticipate everything, this one should have been easy to see coming. Lisa, a true believer, morphing from aggrieved wife into avenging conservative, using blackmail to keep the Corcoran presidency keeled to the right. As McCord thought about it, he realized the only surprise should have been why it took this took—six months. Why didn’t it happen earlier? he wondered. But he knew Lisa Corcoran long enough and well enough to know she that wasn’t going to play the “little woman” role for too long. And, to be honest, he wasn’t all that unhappy about it. Maybe this would give Corcoran the spark he needed to get back on his game, to regain his spirit, to realize what was at stake.

“You know, she’s right,” McCord told the president gently. “We have been drifting these last few months. We’ve been letting events push us, not the other way around. We’re not driving the agenda anymore.”

“I know, I know,” Corcoran said, exasperated. On top of all his other troubles, he now had to contend with an ambitious wife who had him over a barrel. “I don’t have the energy I used to, Jack. I seem to see things one day at a time, just hoping to get through that day and then the next and the next and the next. My life seems to be run by these damn drugs. I live from pill to pill. Politically, I have trouble seeing through to the end game now.” He paused for a second. “When I get back from Wyoming, I want an election year game plan. Not the campaign—I know how to win a campaign—but for the presidency. Where do we push, what do we emphasize, how do we frame the campaign—let that be our guide. Trade and immigration—that played well in the first campaign. Let’s bang on those issues again. We’ve been quiet on them for too long, trying too hard to get along on the Hill. And China. Why aren’t we pushing them harder on human rights? Let’s put that back to the top of the agenda. Let’s get the liberals riled up. That’s the best way of mobilizing our troops. On immigration, let the other side explain why red-blooded Americans are being pushed aside by strange-speaking foreigners. Oh yes, one other thing I’ve been thinking about. Term limits for federal judges.”

McCord’s eyes widened. This was an old chestnut, batted back and forth during the early days of Corcoran’s presidential campaign. The rabid right-wingers loved it—a good way to get all those Democratic judges off the bench and replace them with Corcoran judges. But cooler heads suggested it would be seen as an attempt to intimidate judges who now have life-long appointments and the idea was dropped. Anyway, McCord thought, now that Corcoran was president and could name his own judges,

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