Free The Last Debate by Jim Lehrer Page B

Henry said. “But so is Barbara.”
    “This must be what it’s like when four thieves get together,” Barbara said.
    “All right, all right,” said Howley. “I won’t press the point any further now.”
    Howley had had some early misgivings about what he called “the hand he was dealt.” He meant the fact that the black and the Hispanic were really kids who had no business on this panel. Affirmative action run amuck was the way he saw it. He was fine with Joan Naylor, although he could tell she was pissed about something. He considered the possibility that she had wanted to moderate this debate and was still sore about being passed over.
    Joan Naylor, too, was not overjoyed by the presence of Henry Ramirez and Barbara Manning. Those two don’t have two weeks’ experience between them, she thought. The whole world knows why they are here. But being on a presidential-debate panel ought to be only for people who have been at this awhile, no matter what.
    Barbara Manning, though happy she was out of her coma, knew she had to be careful or she’d go too far the other way. Come on too loud, too much. Sometimes she couldn’t stop herself. It was the way she got through tough things in her life, and it always worked, and, God knows, this qualified as a tough thing in her life. White boy Howley and white girl Naylor certainly got their noses and their tails in the air over this. But why not? This is a high-nose-and-tail affair. Relax, Barbara, she told herself over and over. Relax. Everything is going to be all right. Poor old Henry Ramirez. It’s too bad they couldn’t come up with one with a little more age and experience and smarts. Hey, look who’s talking! I’ll bet that’s what the others are thinking about me right now! Well, so what? Here I am! Here he is!
    Henry Ramirez was wondering when they were going to start talking about the questions they would ask Greene and Meredith. That’s what this is all about, he thought. All of this preliminary stuff is just wasting time. Mike Howley is certainly an impressive guy. Just the way he ought to be. It’s too bad he didn’t remember me. When I get to be in his shoes I probably won’t remember every little gringo reporter from Texas who comes along to kiss my ring either. Where did they get this black lady? African American, sorry. She’s so hyper she’s about to come out of that shiny black skin of hers. It’s not that black, really. In fact, hers is lighterthan mine. Hers and my skin, side by side, wouldn’t probably look that different. It’s in the eyes. And the nose and the lips. That’s where we are different. And in the brain, of course. When are we going to get down to business?
    “Shouldn’t we decide who is going to ask the first question?” Henry said.
    Howley said: “Well, as a matter of fact, the moderator asks the first question. That is in the rules that the candidates’ representatives and the commission people worked out.”
    And he explained the format, which was the most traditional and most controlled of those available. The Greene camp had insisted on the journalists’ panel. The Meredith people had argued for a single moderator with a town-hall citizens-audience call-in approach—similar to the Take It Back, America one their candidate had used for seven dramatically successful years before millions on live radio and national television. Turpin—and everyone else—knew his man would “wipe the floor” with Greene in such a free-flowing format. That was why Lilly adamantly opposed its use.
    But in many ways the format was considered irrelevant. It was generally believed—and stated repeatedly on every morning, noon, and night, weekday and weekend, talk, food-fight, call-in, analysis, and clownalist show—that Greene would have a problem if he was debating an empty chair. The only unique thing about the final agreed- to setup for Williamsburg was that for the first time there would be no live audience and thus no applause,