Balance of Power

    "If you could implicate the SSA," Kit continued, "you'd have all sorts of choices—including moral outrage. With no one to blame, your options narrow."

    "I'm afraid that's where we are. Short of tearing out Slezak's fingernails until he implicates Charles Dane."

    Kit glanced at Lara, and then spoke to Kerry again. "Maybe we're so used to being afraid of this that we've forgotten what all of us know. Millions of women face this choice. To them, for you to be blackmailed over it would be grotesque, something from the Jerry Springer Show. There's more sympathy out there than the SSA may think. And potentially a lot more anger."

    "Sympathy?" Lara cut in. "Not from the media. I'm imagining The

O'Reilly Factor amplified by a thousand right-wing talk shows. Unless I tell the truth—that Kerry never wanted an abortion—we'll be portrayed as a ruthless and ambitious couple who'd do anything to claw our way to power." Briefly, her eyes clouded. "They'll say that we've exploited the murder of my own family for cheap sympathy, but didn't hesitate to murder our own child. That we lied our way into office. That we're morally unfit to stay here. That no child in America can see us as fit role models for private conduct or public integrity."

    "Even," Kit ventured quietly, "if you did tell the truth about Kerry?"

    Lara glanced at her husband. "I'm more than willing to do that. But perhaps Kerry's right that they'd accuse me of trying to pin a rose on an adulterer by lying for him. And accuse him of using me to hide behind.

    "But you're right about the anger. The country will become an endless echo chamber of attacks and recriminations, until Kerry and I can never go anywhere without everyone else's thought bubble being about abortion." Her voice grew husky. "I know that his marriage failed because Meg didn't want children, and that he'd have given all this up to have our child. But public life is not a place to look for sym pathy. The hard-line social conservatives will be demanding that people like Fasano prove their devotion to family values by making Kerry a moral object lesson. They'll use me to ruin his Presidency, any way they can."

    Lara felt depressed, exhausted by the weight of her own guilt. Both Kit and Clayton gazed at their laps. At length, Kit said, "I grant you that abortion's an incendiary topic. Coupled with the gun issue, the right will use it to rip open the whole culture gap—'the Kilcannons don't share our values.' But it only gets as bad as you've imagined if we let the SSA control the means and timing of disclosure."

    "What 'means of disclosure,' " Kerry asked, "do you suggest? Because Lara and I are not going on Barbara Walters."

    "Put this in the hands of the New York Times," Kit urged him. "Or, better, the Post

: given that Lara covered you for the Times when you first became involved, they might be a little touchy about her ethics. We could grant the Post an exclusive interview with strict ground rules—no asking Pat Robertson for his reaction; print the entire transcript verbatim . . ."

    "What reason do we give for this confessional? 'We just thought that you should know'? If that were true, we'd have said so during the campaign."

    "And cost yourself the election? Or the Masters nomination? You didn't owe anyone that." Kit spoke slowly, balancing entreaty with firmness. "The two of you are married now, and you've both suffered too much already. The American public is far more compassionate—and sensible—than the extremists on either side would have them be. They'll understand if someone is trying to blackmail you and that you have to divulge on principle that which, in principle, you believe too private to disclose." Pausing, Kit finished flatly, "That's the other thing, Mr. President. If you don't

expose this, you're arguably complicit in your own blackmail."

    "If I veto gun immunity," Kerry shot back, "I'm not giving into blackmail, am I?"

    "You're not being candid, either. You need to speak to the American people without a filter. The Washington Post aside, Barbara Walters is not such a terrible idea. If you can tell the public what you've gone through, with the appropriate references to human infallibility and your own belief in God, they'll hear you . . ."

    Clayton turned to her. "The media age," he interjected, "is so permeated with bad taste that we're forgetting what good taste is. No matter how they say it, how do the President and First Lady keep their audience from cringing? How do they keep from cringing?