The Liberty Intrigue Read online

  Kathleen Kilar thanked the president of Iowa State University for his hospitality and took her place behind a desk built atop the orchestra pit. The host of a long-running news interview program, Kilar took her seat, adjusted her blazer, and did a final test of her lapel mike and earpiece.

  As the network’s dramatic theme music for the current election cycle blared from the auditorium speakers, she heard the voices of the anchors in New York turning over the broadcast to the local team. In the pit below her, a stage director used hand signals to count down the remaining seconds to air.

  “Good evening, I’m Kathleen Kilar and welcome to tonight’s debate between the candidates vying to represent the Republican Party in this fall’s presidential election. The first tests of the electoral waters come next week with the New Hampshire primaries and here, in the Iowa caucuses.”

  Lydia Hill watched the projection screens that flanked the stage as Kilar explained the debate format. Hill felt a vibration in her coat pocket and the blare of Jimi Hendrix’s wailing rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

  “I know I turned it off,” she said embarrassed, feeling the judging eyes around her as she fumbled for her phone.

  She thumbed the mute switch and checked to see what had set it off. A simple text message filled the otherwise blank screen:

  who-is-i.com is live in 7 … 6 … 5 …

  The numbers quickly counted down to zero.

  A ripple of applause caused Hill to look up from her phone. The six Republican candidates strode onstage in single file, each smiling and waving to the audience as they moved toward their lecterns. The order in which they appeared was determined by luck of the draw.

  “You got the debate on your phone?” a man behind her asked incredulously.

  Hill glanced down and saw the scene before her streaming live on the tiny screen. A text crawl running along the bottom of the image announced:

  who-is-i.com Is NOW live.

  “From left to right,” Kilar continued, “we have businessman and publisher Duncan Widmer, retired US Marine General Quenton Hook, the former Secretary of State and current Florida Governor Lila Oates, Idaho Senator Cal Neuske, former Colorado Governor Rick Walterhouse, and Texas Congresswoman Jacqueline Vogel.”

  Kilar paused for applause as the candidates smiled and waved to voters both in Iowa and around the country.

  “The first question is for everyone,” Kilar said, “starting with Congresswoman Vogel. Congresswoman, what is the single greatest challenge facing the United States today?”

  Vogel composed herself for a second, and then looked out at the audience. “The single greatest challenge facing the nation today is the same challenge that faced the Founders of our great country—the erosion of our individual liberties to an expansive and increasingly tyrannical government.”

  Known for her terse rhetoric, Vogel felt no need to elaborate. Hill glanced down at her phone and saw, word for word, Vogel’s response as if taken from the dialogue of a play. Beneath Vogel’s answer was a simple commentary.

  OPINION.

  Walterhouse offered a different answer: correcting the damage caused by the recent nationalization of healthcare. Almost as quickly as he spoke, his words appeared on Hill’s phone.

  OPINION.

  Neuske, Oates, and Hook respectively offered the economy, taxes and terrorism, and all received the same commentary from Who-Is-I. Then Widmer took a sip of water and addressed the question.

  “As you can see from the responses elicited so far from this question, our nation faces a number of difficult challenges, and this has been true throughout our proud history. But of the many problems sitting in the in-basket of whoever occupies 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue next January, in my mind the most daunting is the nation’s debt.”

  OPINION.

  “Never before has our debt been so high, not just in terms of inflation-adjusted dollars, but in terms of GDP.”

  US DEBT LEVEL IS CURRENTLY AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH IN INFLATION-ADJUSTED DOLLARS. US DEBT AS PERCENTAGE OF GDP WAS HIGHER IN EARLY 1940S.

  Hill tapped on the link that appeared beneath the commentary and the screen filled with a colorful graph tracking US debt over time against both metrics.

  “If left unchecked, CBO projections put the national debt equal to the GPD in ten years.”

  CLARIFICATION— CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE RECENT UPDATE PROJECTS GDP/NATIONAL DEBT PARITY IN 9.2 YEARS. OTHER ESTIMATES INDICATE NATIONAL DEBT WILL SURPASS GPD WITHIN THREE YEARS. INCLUDING UNFUNDED PORTIONS OF ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS, US DEBT IS 840% OF CURRENT GDP.

  “Our national debt is a nuclear bomb on a quick countdown to detonation, and the results of that explosion will be an economic Armageddon that’ll make the Great Depression look like a mild market correction.”

  HYPERBOLIC RHETORIC. SUBJECTIVE COMPARISON.

  “Check this out,” Hill whispered.

  She held her phone so that her companions could watch the running analysis on each candidate’s remarks.

  “How are they doing that?” the young man beside Hill asked as he turned on his phone.

  With a flurry of thumbed keystrokes, the computer science major accessed the Who-Is-I site and connected to the same live feed.

  “Since you brought up the national debt, Mr. Widmer,” Kilar said, “I’ll start with you on the related issue of the deficit. The federal budget deficit for the current fiscal year is the largest in the nation’s history …”

  CONFIRMED.

  “… and this has been true for each of the previous three years …”

  CONFIRMED.

  “… How would you tackle this problem?”

  “Kathleen, every person who works for a living understands that running a deficit simply means you’re spending more money than you make,” Widmer replied. “Common sense says that to solve the deficit you either have to make more or spend less …”

  STATEMENT IS LOGICALLY CONSISTENT WITH ACCOUNTING FORMULA: REVENUE LESS EXPENSES EQUALS A SURPLUS OR DEFICIT.

  “… but common sense is a scarce commodity in Washington these days…”

  OPINION. NO ACCURATE MEANS OF MEASURING SCARCITY OR SURPLUS OF COMMON SENSE.

  “… The President has chosen a two-prong approach of increasing spending …”

  IMPRECISE. FEDERAL SPENDING DETERMINED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

  “… to stimulate the economy during down times …”

  KEYNESIAN ECONOMIC THEORY.

  “… and simultaneously increasing taxes to raise government revenue …”

  INDIVIDUAL TAX RATES AND FORMS OF COMPENSATION INCLUDED IN GROSS INCOME INCREASED DURING THE FIRST TWO YEARS OF THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION.

  “… Ironically, the increase in taxes, on those who actually pay taxes, has resulted in lower revenue to the Treasury, making the deficit bigger, not smaller …”

  REVENUE COLLECTED BY US TREASURY IS DOWN 41.3% FOLLOWING INCREASE IN TAX RATES FOR HIGH-INCOME EARNERS.

  “… To attack the deficit, I would cut taxes across the board for all taxpayers and slash government spending. It worked on the 1920 depression …”

  CONFIRMED. REDUCTION IN US TAX RATES AND FEDER AL GOVERNMENT SPENDING IN 1920 REDUCED SCOPE AND SEVERITY OF ECONOMIC DEPRESSION. ECONOMIC BOOM FOLLOWING 1920 DEPRESSION LASTED TO 1929.

  “… and it will work again today.”

  REASONABLE PREDICTION BASED ON HISTORICALLY ANALOGOUS ECONOMIC DATA.

  “This is so cool,” Hill said. “It’s fact-checking everything they’re saying as they say it. Keep your screen up—I’ve got to spread the word.”

  “She’s texting,” McColl announced.

  “That’s it, young lady,” Hopps urged. “Reach out and touch someone.”

  One of the large wall monitors displayed the shape of Iowa rendered in dark blue with a single red dot in Ames. Another red dot appeared, quickly followed by several more. Most were clustered around the college town, but others began to scatter throughout the state.

  “Pan bac
k to show the whole country,” Hopps ordered.

  Iowa shrank as the rest of the continental United States came into view. Red dots appeared on the map at a geometric rate. Digital counters at the bottom of the screen tracked emails and text messages forwarding information about Who-Is-I and the number of unique users accessing the site. After only ten minutes, both numbers eclipsed one hundred thousand and were growing so quickly that the lowest digits were a blur.

  “How’re we handling the traffic?” Hopps asked.

  “Like we got ten lanes of freeway,” McColl replied. “Who-Is-I has officially gone viral.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  ON AIR

  JANUARY 16

  Garr Denby leaned back in a high-backed black leather executive chair and surveyed his private studio. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a golf shirt, his arms crossed, smiling with an unlit Padron Family Reserve cigar nestled in the corner of his mouth.

  In a career that dated back to his high school days, he had broadcast from booths inside mobile trailers, skyscrapers, and everything in between. Some, Denby swore, were no larger than a restroom stall. Not so in the Taj Ma Garr.

  He had worked closely with the architect and engineers, leveraging his decades of experience in radio to create a studio tuned to his performance style. From the shape of the room down to the placement of the monitors and controls, no detail was left to chance. He strongly believed that people performed better in a comfortable, functional workplace and he wanted the best for himself and his staff. It simply had to be right, because this studio complex was the nerve center of his one-man radio empire.

  Denby spent much of the weekend preparing for today’s show. The thick stack of laser-printed pages offered solid assurance that his three hours of broadcast brilliance would expire long before he ran out of material. Rarely did he find himself at a loss for words.

  As the theme music flowed over the studio speakers, Denby leaned forward toward the microphone. He rested his elbows on the desktop and pulled the cigar from his mouth. He slowly rolled the cigar between his fingers and thumb, measuring the bulk of the tightly wound Maduro Toro.

  “My friends and loyal listeners,” Denby began as the music faded, “I am in a fine mood today, my normal optimism elevated to a heady level of exuberance. And while the debate last Friday played a role in enhancing my naturally positive outlook, it was not the cause but rather the vehicle.

  “Now don’t get me wrong in thinking that I was disappointed in the performances of the six GOP contenders. After all, it wasn’t a real debate but a series of overlong sound bites as the candidates ran through snippets of their stump speeches as they tried to stay on message. I am not enamored with the form and substance of political debates, as they rarely permit direct argument between the candidates. These staged events are little more than casting calls with actors reading for the part of the president.

  “In that regard, all six of the President’s challengers proved they were more than his equal, but sadly, that ain’t saying much. None of those seeking the nation’s highest elected office tripped on the way to their lecterns or mispronounced the capital of Uzbekistan—which, by the way, is Tashkent. I’ll take geography for three hundred, Alex.

  “As I said, my joy lies not so much in what I heard during last Friday’s debate, but in what I saw. And not on my television. What I saw were the new green shoots of the First Amendment sprouting in the soil of the twenty-first century.

  “Those of you who listen to this program with any regularity have heard me opine on the incestuous state of the mainstream media’s alliance with the political left. Much of what passes for print and television journalism is barely disguised cheerleading for the progressive—read socialist—movement.

  “The Founding Fathers of this great land saw a skeptical free press as a powerful check on the abuse of power by those in power. Over the past century that detached skepticism has morphed into slavish sycophancy for the left and open hostility for the right. Opinion, which in a more civilized era had no place outside the editorial pages, is routinely found in the simplest of news stories. Cars crash, but SUVs kill people. Five percent unemployment is a recession for a Republican president, but ten percent is the new normal and a sure sign of recovery for our dear leader. Sometimes this leftward bias is subtle, but often it’s as subtle as a brick.

  “And under the current administration, the great slobbering love affair with all things left has devolved to such blindly obedient idiocy that I finally declared independent, objective media in this country is officially dead.

  “So what, you may ask, did I see during the debate that arrested my cynicism? What glimmer of hope did I find that has me ready to light up and waft billowing clouds of aromatic cigar smoke around my studio? The answer is three little words: Who Is I.

  “Shortly after the debate started, I received a call from a friend who urged me to visit this website. Now, all I know about Who Is I are the pranks they pulled at Times Square and the bowl games. I especially liked when they left the President in the dark. So I figure they’ve pulled another one somewhere, but it’s not at the debate.

  “I hemmed and hawed, but she was insistent to the point that she wouldn’t hang up until I saw what was happening on this website. So to humor her, I split my big screen like I do when I’m watching a couple of football games and I took a look. It came right up and literally, my God, I was on my feet. I couldn’t believe what the geniuses behind this site had accomplished. I caught it just as Winder made a remark about Neuske’s voting record on taxes and the site brought up a full listing of every vote Neuske has made that raised or lowered a tax. And not just the votes, but it rated the votes on their economic impact. What I found interesting is that the site separated the tax bills in which Neuske was in the voting majority versus those when he was in the minority. And where you stand when you lose is as important as when you win. The follow-up of the debate posted on the site allows you to drill deeply into the data without encountering a single iota of opinion. In the immortal words of Jack Webb’s Sergeant Joe Friday: Nothing but the facts, ma’am.”

  Denby put the cigar to his lips, held a flame to the end until it glowed red, then loudly exhaled a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.

  “That, my friends, was the sound of freedom expressed in my own personal way. Under the First Amendment, Congress can make no law abridging the freedom of speech or the press. Control of the media was a power that the people of this country vested in themselves, not in government. In the hands of the people, control over the media is exercised in the marketplace. The people either buy your newspapers and magazines or they don’t. They watch your news programs or they don’t. They listen to me on the radio, and they do”— Denby lofted another cloud of smoke with a laugh—“or you’re a zero-share like every left-wing hack who thinks they can compete with me in the realm of ideas.”

  “So Congress passed no law co-opting the mainstream media; rather it was a gradual shift in the journalism schools and editorial boards that transformed a free and independent press into one that is for all practical purposes the communications wing of one political party. Thankfully, the people still retain some power over the media and they vote every day with their wallets. The red ink bleeding from most of the nation’s newspapers isn’t just because of the Internet or the recession—or in their words, the sluggish recovery—but because the people are not buying what these propagandists are selling. If I wanted to read party talking points, I’d get them from the party.

  “I’m a little long with this opening monologue, but this is important. The folks behind this upstart website caught our attention with their outlandish and technically brilliant pranks, but have now captured our interest in providing a source of unbiased information. I hope their site can handle the traffic, because it’s going to be huge over the run of this campaign. And I don’t envy any politician who plays fast and loose with the facts—I get the feeling Who Is I will call them on it immediately.
/>   “And before we pause for a brief profit break, I must say for the first time ever, I am really looking forward to the next occasion when our President publicly opens his mouth.”

  Denby hit the mute button as the show went to commercial, then leaned back and sent a series of smoke rings toward the ceiling.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  HILLSDALE, MICHIGAN

  “Of the many duties that come with being the president of Hillsdale College, one in which I take immense pleasure is introducing our guest lecturers. The list of those distinguished individuals that have illuminated this stage with their wisdom is both long and storied, and I am honored and humbled to welcome this evening’s speakers.”

  Joan Saccary looked out at the packed auditorium as she spoke. She noted cameras located near the foot of the stage, there to broadcast the event to a wider audience of cable and satellite viewers. She stood at a lectern to the right of center stage, where three comfortable chairs were staged around a low circular coffee table.

  Ross Egan listened to Saccary’s introductory remarks from the shadows just offstage. We’ve come full circle, Maggie, he thought.

  “Are you nervous, my friend?” Mensah asked, his voice just above a whisper.

  “Yeah,” Egan replied honestly. “Talking to an auditorium full of people is your gift, not mine.”

  “The trick is to pretend this is just a conversation between the two of us. And if you speak the truth, from your heart, then you have nothing to fear.”

  “I knew a lady,” Saccary told the audience, “who twice in her life had lost her country. She lost it the first time as a very young woman when, in Czarist Russia, the Bolshevik Revolution occurred and she barely escaped with her life. She came to Cuba, started from scratch, once again built up a very successful competence, and was doing very well. And this time, as an elderly woman, again, she lost her country when Castro took over.

  “Now, losing one’s country once would be enough for most of us, I suppose. Losing it twice would be enough for the toughest person in the house—but not for this indomitable lady. She came to the United States where again she started from scratch and again built up a very successful competence.