Chapter Three

And the man of government, all stolid in physique and staid in garb, strode purposefully toward his meeting with the president of his party, mindful of the benefit to his career such striding could create. So purposefully strode he, so powerfully did he enunciate the words of his prepared speech, such was the glint in his eye and the set of his jaw and the cut of his suit that everyone said he would go far. Maybe even the next president. Certainly better than the current guy, who appeared mousy in comparison, tho he stood astride the world on election day, to be denied nothing. Such is the office of the president that no man, however grand, once entering it, can remain grand. The office is of such a great magnitude that the grandest man appears puny by comparison, but that only happens after they gain the office, so the public remains convinced that, somehow, this guy will be different, maybe because his hair is shinier or his smile brighter or he lacks that dyspeptic grin every time someone mentions the scandalous news of the day.

Or maybe it is because 'no comment' is not yet in his vocabulary, this man of the rising star. He may comment on nearly anything, being a mere prosecutor, so long as the comments are grand and the way of saying them are grand, and, most importantly, the comments themselves convey no meaning whatsoever. Any politician will be the master of this essential skill, for if it is possible to discern meaning in anything a politician says to the public, it is possible for some of the public to misconstrue that meaning as taking a position against that portion of the public, something a politician will most strenuously deny having done, whether or not he did it, for a politician, at heart, is a loving man who wishes all men to love him as he loves himself and therefore cannot abide the idea that some may think he carries not their best interest at heart.

Some will say, nay, there be honest politicians, and I say, behold, they are ignored or dead; there is not middle ground. Thus is the strength of the machine, with its great gaping maw at the trough, fed by the blood of the country, its young men off to war, its young maidens off to cry, its middle-aged enslaved by debt, a slavery held dear by accountants, bankers and such, those that pay the government worker enough to engage in the pursuit of happiness supposedly granted to everyone.

Pursuit of happiness happens with a light conscience. With a heavy conscience, it is the fleeing from guilt. The two things often seem similar, what with the singleminded obsession with the end goal, but fleeing from guilt is often rather more lubricated by alcohol than pursuing happiness, which is often lubricated with friendship and the construction of great things.

But enough of this philosophy; what about the practicality? Does not governance demand the finest, the brightest, the most elocutive of the lot? Our government man, our prosecutor, is certainly that. Highest honors in his class, he hung out with the best of the best, enshrouded with ivy and declared fit to rule the world. He began his work lowly enough, doing pro bono work in inner cities, for that would certainly brand him an idealist, a mantle that would allow him to hide all manner of ambition. He also did time as a public defender, seeking to protect the innocent from being wrongfully punished. His ideals flipped when he became a prosecutor, as they must, and he cynically campaigned against his own previous opponent on the grounds that he had been able to continuously beat his opponent in court, meaning that his opponent had let hundreds of guilty go free through incompetence.

Any decent man can see through such a silly contrived attack, but, of course, the political machine and the public bought it, because he had such good hair and when you talked to him, you could tell he was smart. Besides, his party had fallen on hard times, and a rising star such as this was just the ticket, so his party sent the cleaners around to help with the skeletons in his closet and sent the bankers around to help with everything else.

Thus did our man make his name. However, his political adviser had advised him that, in order to run for a senate seat, absolutely essential to make governor or president, he needed a high profile case, needed to show someone who was essentially good to be a mealy, maggot-ridden bastard. Just such a man was found in our friend, the industrialist. Our industrialist had literally never hurt anyone if it was at all possible to avoid. He was the kind of man who stepped over fleas when he could see them. Yet, as is so often the case, it is never the truth but the perception that causes harm, and our man the industrialist had become very successful.

Not only did he present a plum target, but our man the industrialist had never spent any money or time trying to influence politics, so had no friends in the game, so to speak. He did, however, have an awful lot of enemies, many of whom wished he would be broken and stripped of his companies so they could make money for a change. These enemies began to bend ears around the nation, plying their targets with various libations, gifts and services first so as to make the ears far easier to bend. Since, apparently, the quantity of swag is the primary method of making up one's mind when high enough in governance, many of those already tenured in government began casting about for a templar to take on this man of pure snow white morals.

All it really took, they knew, was a good turn of phrase and really good hair, and they found such in the prosecutor. Oh, they made the right faces and took their time selecting their templar, but it was evident in everyone's mind that he was the man; nobody else had that good of hair, nor the twinkling blue eyes, nor the broad, trust me smile. This man was clean, they were sure, a man whose record of challenging the fringes of our society and thus keeping us safe was unsullied, a man who clearly cared, given how much pro bono work he'd done, a man whose salary had never once been raised at his request so as to not burden the people.

He, the pauper publican to take on the mighty titan of industry, in a classic David and Goliath moment, to protect yet again the public from the predations of the capitalist, to save them from the inevitable high prices brought on by the monopolies our titan bestrode, and to liberate for once and for all the workers from their tyranny of being locked into working for our titan, as all other competitors were laid to waste.

And so, in the massively oak lined study of the suitably austere president of the party, our man accepted his new charge and swore an oath that he would not rest until the titan was laid low, preferably in pictures with some sort of prostitute, or sheep, or goat. He swore that no matter how heinous the accusation, he would support it, no matter how libelous the outrage, he would mutter it, and that, in the face of the certain truth, he would lie like a politician. Thus he swore and thus he would do.