Madame President - Tara Sue Me Page 0,49
world. “Listening to her talk about the lawyer who helped her escape from her father and the fifty year old man he wanted her to marry, made me realize one person can make a difference.”
“You became a human rights lawyer as a result of that friendship.” I say it as a statement and not a question. I’d known about her background in human rights, it came up frequently during the election, but this was the first time I’d heard the reason why. “Out of curiosity,” I ask. “Do you know where she is today or what she ended up doing?”
“Oh, yes,” she answers a smile in her eyes. “She’s with me in Washington working on my staff as an advisor on international human rights.”
We talk a bit about her experience as a human rights lawyer and move on to how her boss had been the one who first brought up how she should get involved in public service.
“Running for any sort of office had never been something you wanted to do?” I ask, covering my surprise.
“Worse,” she says with a smile. “The thought had never crossed my mind before he mentioned it.”
“You said you shot him down. What happened that ended up changing your mind?”
“It’s like one of those songs that gets stuck in your head. An earworm,” she says with a tiny smile. “Even though I told him it wouldn’t happen under any circumstances, his voice telling me I should do it kept repeating in my head. Then one Saturday night about a week after, I was out with some girlfriends, and one of them brought up a case in which a convicted rapist sued the woman he attacked for joint custody of the child born as a result of his crime.” Her body stiffens in rage as she talks. “I realized only a broken system would allow for the possibility of something like that, and the one sure way to see it corrected was to be part of the process responsible.”
I smile. “And that’s when you knew you were going to run for office.”
“No,” she says in the deadpan tone I know so well. “That was when I realized I was in a lot of trouble.”
I can’t stop my chuckle. “Trouble, Madame President?”
“Yes, Mr. Hazar, trouble because I knew in order to be successful, I could no longer sit complacently in my comfortable corner of the universe. I was going to have to stand up and risk rocking the boat. And to be honest, it’s much easier to be complacent.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But you didn’t do that, you decided to stand. Why?”
“Where would we be as a country today if George Washington decided he’d rather stay at Mount Vernon? Or if Abraham Lincoln decided he was too awkward to be president? Or if JFK agreed America would never elect a Roman Catholic?”
Passion burns in her eyes as she speaks and in an instant it hits me, I’ve found her Achilles heel. It’s her eyes. She can’t put a mask on them because she has to see out, but consequentially it provides a way for others to see inside to the real Anna. I bet she doesn’t even know how vulnerable they are.
Anna is unaware of my epiphany as she continues. “Our country is great because at its core are men and women who are never satisfied to stay in their corners while there is inequality and injustice around them. The only thing we get by waiting for someone else to do something is lazy. I’ve been called a lot of things in the past, and I’ll no doubt be called a lot more in the future, but the one thing I’ve never been called and never plan to be called is lazy.”
She’s right about that. I’m not sure how much she sleeps, but based on the reports of those who get into the office earlier than I do, she’s always in the Oval Office by seven and it’s usually after six before she leaves. And that’s on a day when she’s in DC and not traveling.
The director signals to me, and I look at the clock. I’m surprised by how much time we’ve used. Not to mention, disappointed. I had a lot more questions to ask her. One glance at the paper I’m holding confirms as much.
George insisted on watching the interview and is standing behind the cameraman. I lift an eyebrow in his direction, hopefully he’s aware of how many more questions I have yet to ask.