"Kim Stanley Robinson - Sixty Days and Counting" - читать интересную книгу автора (Robinson Kim Stanley)

money) no matter how far he could walk or swim. But even in that period his
legislation had been interesting in concept (his contribution) and solidly written
(his staffтАЩs contribution), and cleverly pursued and promoted by all, with much
more of it being enacted into law than was usual in the Senate. This was not noted
by the press, always on the lookout for bad news and ephemera, but by his third
term it began to become evident to insiders that he had been playing the insider
game all along, and only pretending to be an outsider, so that his committee
appointments were strong, and his alliances within the Democratic Party
apparatus finally strong, and across the aisle with moderate Republicans and
McCain and other Vietnam vets, even stronger. He also had done a good job
making his enemies, taking on flamboyantly bad senators like Winston and
Reynolds and Hoof-in-mouth, whose subsequent falls from grace on corruption
charges or simply failed policies had then retroactively confirmed his early
judgments that these people were not just political dunderheads but also
dangerous to the republic.
So ultimately, when the time came, everything he had done for twenty years and
more turned out to have been as it were designed to prepare him not only for his
successful run for the presidency, but for his subsequent occupancy as well, a
crucial point and something that many previous candidates obviously forgot. The
world travel, the global network of allies and friends, the OWE program, the
legislation he had introduced and gotten passed, his committee workтАФit all fit a
pattern, as if he had had the plan from the start.
Which he totally denied, and his staff believed him. They thought in their gossip
among themselves that they had seen him come to his decision to run just a year
before the campaign (at about the same time, Charlie thought but never said
aloud, that he had met for twenty minutes with the Khembali leaders). Whether he
had harbored thoughts all along, no one really knew. No one could read his mind,
and he had no close associates. Widowed; kids grown; friends kept private and
out of town: to Washington he seemed as lonely and impenetrable as Reagan, or
FDR, or LincolnтАФall friendly and charming people, but distant in some basic
way.
In any case he was in, and ready and willing to use the office as strong presidents
doтАФnot only as the executive branch of government, whipping on the other two to
get things done, but also as a bully pulpit from which to address the citizens of the
country and the rest of the world. His high positive/high negative pattern
continued and intensified, with the debate over him in the States more polarized
than ever, at least in the media. But in the world at large, his positives were
higher than any American presidentтАЩs since Kennedy. And interest was very high.
All waited and watched through the few weeks left until his inauguration; there
was a sudden feeling of stillness in the world, as if the pendulum swinging them
all together helplessly this way and that had reached a height, and paused in
space, just before falling the other way. People began to think that something
might really happen.



IT SEEMED TO FRANK that with such a president as Phil Chase coming into
office, in theory it ought to be very interesting to be the Presidential Science
Advisor, or an advisor to the advisor. But there were aspects of the new job that
were disturbing as well. It was going to mean increasing the distance between himself