No Way to Treat a First Lady (34 page)

He also pledged to reduce the size of government.

I am once again in the debt of Dr. David Williams, MC, USNR. Compliments and duty,
Sir!

Steve "Dutch" Umin of Williams and Connolly was patiently and endlessly helpful and so far has yet to submit a bill. Let the record show that he finally threw up his hands over my implacable legal solecisms and should not be held accountable thereunto. Thereof? Whatever.

Before he got mad at me for something I wrote about his client, Monica Lewinsky, Plato Cacheris provided the spittoon.

C. Boyden Gray bought me a shad-roe lunch and chuckled at the idea, a reassuring sound from a tough grader and Establishmento.

The combined hourly bill of these three distinguished attorneys, a sum equivalent to the gross domestic product of the sultanate of Brunei, is worth it, so if you have killed anyone or swindled shareholders or fought with the Taliban, call them. They're in the book.

Lincoln Caplan of the Yale Law School's journal
Legal Affairs,
in whose pages some of this first appeared, showed once again that he is a peerless editor, to say nothing of friend.

Thomas Jackson gave precociously good advice for a young man.

John Tierney was as ever generous with his wisdom and enthusiasm.

Thanks, also, to the keen eyes of Gregory Zorthian and William F. Buckley Jr.

Special thanks to Sona Vogel for her relentlessly superb copyediting and fact checking.

President George "41" Bush kindly provided certain details of life on the second floor of the White House residence.

Affectionate thanks, once again, to Amanda "Binky" Urban of International Creative Management. Again, if you have killed someone or swindled stockholders or fought with the Taliban, call her—after you call the lawyers.

I am again in deep debt to my editor, Jonathan Karp of Random House. This is our fifth collaboration. He has now said "no" 1,278 times. But this makes it sweet when he says "yes." Thank you, my very dear Mr. Karp.

Last but never leastly: wife Lucy, daughter Caitlin, and son Conor, who put up with the author. Once again, I am left wondering why anyone would marry a writer or want one for a dad.

And finally the faithful Hound Jake, who barked at everything.

—Blue Hill

September 9, 2001

Christopher Buckley is the author of eight previous books, including
Thank You for Smoking
and
Little Green Men.
That would make this his, what, ninth? He is editor of
Forbes FYI
magazine and has contributed more than fifty "Shouts and Murmurs" to
The New Yorker.
He is also credited with bringing about lasting peace in the Middle East and with alerting NASA to significant problems with its Space Shuttle Automatic Re-entry Guidance System (SSARGS), thereby sparing several square blocks of Raleigh, North Carolina, a very unpleasant surprise. He is a regular contributor to
Martha Stewart's Inside Trading
magazine and informally advises the government of Argentina on debt rescheduling. He is the 2002 recipient of the Washington Irving Medal for Literary Excellence but has yet to actually receive it. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his saintly and long-suffering wife, Lucy, two children, and faithful Hound Jake.

Copyright © 2002 by Christopher Taylor Buckley

ISBN: 0-375-50734-5