Balance of Power

    How much better, now, do we understand the nomination of the proabortionist Caroline Masters to lead our highest court?

    How much more clearly do we discern the true depth—in every sense of the word—of our President's all-too-personal commitment to the taking of unborn life?

    How much more naked, now, is the contradiction between our First Lady's concern for "saving lives" when the murderer has a gun, and the taking of an innocent life which God himself had placed into her hands

. . .

    There was no turning back, Fasano knew. Not when even a sanctimonious blowhard like Bob Christy could touch the viscera of Fasano's own deepest convictions. Dane had played this brilliantly: the armies of the cultural right—the fundamentalists, the antiabortionists, the avatars of traditional values—were as essential to his party as the SSA and, in their fresh revulsion for Kilcannon, would demand no less than his emasculation. It was now Fasano's unavoidable task to accomplish this while maintaining the aura of a statesman.

    The appalling truth, the Reverend Christy was saying, is that Lara Kilcannon used her own family to promote a cynical, secular, antilife, progovernment agenda, asking us to mourn for her six-year-old niece after killing her own unborn child . . .

Fasano turned him off.

EIGHT

At one o'clock that afternoon, Fasano took a call from Charles Dane.

    The media was in full cry, although not, thanks to Fasano's crisp directions, with the help of a single Republican senator. Nor, as of yet, had any Democrats save Hampton leapt to the President's defense. On CNN, a pro-life woman sparred with the president of a leading prochoice group, personifying the war of ideologies which, Fasano thought, would inevitably diminish the Kilcannons by virtue of its subject matter.

    "It appears," Dane said blandly, "that God has smiled on us."

    The irony held a pointed subtext—the deliberate intimation, in Fasano's view, of their mutual complicity. "Have you and God been in touch?" Fasano could not resist asking.

    "No need, Frank. He speaks to me through the Reverend Christy. The Christian Commitment is going national with ads calling the Kilcannons morally unfit to lead us. Your political base hasn't been so galvanized since Kilcannon crammed Caroline Masters down their throats." Dane's tone became imperative. "They understand that overriding Kilcannon's veto is their first chance to strike while this is hot. Gun rights is now the issue which will break the little bastard for good and all."

    Beneath this conversation, Fasano thought, was another: that Dane had set Kilcannon's downfall in motion; that Fasano's tacit knowledge made Dane the new proprietor of a corner of his soul; that—at least for this political moment—Fasano must carry out the SSA's directives. "My obligation is to win," Fasano parried, "not to schedule the quickest possible vote to override.

    "On the final vote for passage, I carried our entire caucus except for Leo Weller. Kilcannon only had thirty-four votes—all Democrats. The votes you need may have to come from there. Before I schedule an override vote, I want to know that the votes are there."

    "Vote," Dane snapped. "Singular. Weller's ripe for the picking—this scandal gives him cover for turning on Kilcannon, a distraction from his screwup on asbestos. Schedule the override and we'll make sure you win. All you need to do is keep Palmer and your fucking moderates in line, and get this done. Then the very next order of business will be defeating Kilcannon's gun bill."

    Dane's insistence on haste made Fasano wonder again whether something about the Costello lawsuit concerned him or, now, whether Dane worried that this morning's scandal might in time be laid at his door. But there was objective sense in his demand. In the aftershock of Kilcannon's exposure, the political leverage belonged to Fasano, not Kilcannon, increasing the pressure on Fasano to deliver for the forces whose support he needed to become President himself. Dane had devised the perfect trap, pitting him against Kilcannon like two scorpions in a bottle.

    "Deliver me Leo," Fasano told him, "and you'll get your instant vote."

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