Free Wag the Dog by Larry Beinhart

the S&L mess, the country still seeming to slip vis-à-vis Japan and Germany, creeping unemployment, and mostly he just didn’t get enough respect. In the hands of the right opponent, who knew what could happen. Not that the Democrats were smart enough to come up with the right opponent, but what if they made a mistake and came up with a winner by accident. Baker realized that what might have brought this vague angst to the front burner was Atwater’s death, it was like losing a special weapon or going to war with the rule that you could only have as many guns as the enemy.
    â€œHe got religion at the end, and I’m glad that he did,” Bush said, like the verse of an old country song.
    It might have been the Halcion. It might have been the Chivas. Baker was feeling relaxed, yet powerful and in control.Even his toes didn’t hurt anymore and there was none of that tension in his gut. “George,” he said, “I have to tell you something.”
    â€œWhat is it, Jimbo,” Bush asked, snuggling down under the presidential covers with the big seal in the middle.
    â€œJust before he died,” Baker said, “he called me to his side. There was something about a message.”
    â€œWhat did he have to say?”
    â€œWell, he was a bad ’ol boy to the end.”
    â€œYou mean he wasn’t groveling on his knees apologizing for sticking Willie Horton on George Dukakis?”
    â€œBushie, he gave me something. His final campaign ploy. His ultimate campaign ploy.”
    â€œDoes it apply to anyone the Democrats run?”
    â€œIt applies to us. I have to tell you, my immediate reaction when I read it was that it was insane. That it had to be destroyed. But I kept it. It has a certain strange and compelling logic. It just does. But it’s a madman’s option. Maybe.”
    â€œDo you have it?” the president asked.
    Baker got off the bed, Barbara’s bed, and went to his briefcase. He decoded the lock and took the folded, bent papers out. Wishing for a moment that he’d never mentioned them, he said, “Nobody has seen this but you and me.” Then he handed the papers to George Herbert Walker Bush, who turned on the light over the bed, put on his reading glasses, and began to read the last great scam of Lee Atwater. 10
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    7 Newsweek, 1/29/90
    8 How Baker addresses Bush according to The Fabulous Bush & Baker Boys, New York Times Magazine, 5/6/90.
    9 A phrase attributed in print to Baker ( Time, 10/14/91). One can imagine that two people so close would pick up on the same slang. In 1990 it was the most prescribed sleeping pill in the world. It was banned in Britain in October 1991.
    10 The reader may have noted two different typefaces. They indicate two different time lines. There is a point where the two facets of the story meet up with each other and unite. Then, for the most part, only one typeface is used.

Chapter
S EVEN

    Y OU EVER HAVE everything turn inside out? Where one minute it’s one world, and the next second it’s a whole other world.
    Tell you what I mean. About what the feeling is. 1967, Vietnam. There’s a bunch of us, fresh from Parris Island. Marines are going to I Corps. This is the area at the north end of South Vietnam, it includes five provinces from Quang Tri up to the DMZ. The city of Hue, the old imperial capital, and Khe Sanh are both in I Corps. We’re lean and mean, all balls, no brains. We’re a John Wayne movie—the Marines have landed and we’re here to kick ass. Of course, the first thing that happens is that we sit in Danang for a week while they sort us out. Doing nothing. Getting bored, getting drunk, getting in fights, getting the clap, watching the body bags go by, figuring the guys in them were probably careless. Probably not Marines.
    Finally, we get assigned. We get sent up north, to Khe Sanh, which is an airstrip in the northwest corner of the country. This is not what