Boomsday, a novel released this year by Christopher Buckley, would make a terrific primer for the future Washington intern. Better yet, must-reading for the parents of a prospective intern’s parents if they want a preview of what their darling may experience in our nation’s capital. That way they won’t be puzzled when he or she returns slightly jaded and much more “educated.” Now, don’t get the idea that I’m only talking about wanton sex. I mean, that’s in there too – it’s a best-seller after all – but it’s not, forgive the term, the meat of the story.
Buckley has taken us to Washington before. He ever so slyly slipped us under the door of the fantasy world of Washington politics in his novel Thank You for Not Smoking, a tale about a lobbyist for the tobacco industry negotiating a hostile political world. In Boomsday we shadow the confident and therefore tragic protagonist, Cassandra, an educated-by-the school-of-hard-knocks female. (And she’d just turned 30!) As Buckley treats us to a little background on our heroine, we see that Cassandra had found herself, not slipped under the door of the DC political whirlpool, but flung through a wall and into the steel cage of the infamous military industrial complex. Although her military career is not the focus of the story, it could certainly become the topic of Buckley’s next satire.
Cassandra is a straight shooter by day, and a blogger with an edge by night. Much like Jekyll and Hyde, she becomes the catalyst for other night terrors, like Congressmen and staff jockeying for position in the power-hungry environment. Although most of us would not consider blogging with the directness exhibited by our 30-something blogger, she doesn’[t seem to give a rat. She cheerfully and directly incites the under-30 set to attack, figuratively, of course, the Baby Boomer generation and their bastions of country clubs and gated communities where they sit sipping cocktails, while the younger generations foot the bill of grossly high federal deficits and huge increases in Social Security withholding. She blames Boomers for erasing any hope of enjoying the same standard of living as they do. The Social Security withholding tax, calculated to be 30% of her income, causes Cassandra to grow more and more incensed at the injustice of her generation having to pay for the excesses of the children of the Greatest Generation.
But wait, there’s more. Cassandra offers a chance for the Boomers to make restitution for these financial ills, by volunteering to “transition” at the age of 70, in return for immediate tax breaks on what they now enjoy in their retirement, as well as estate tax breaks for their heirs. Need I have to spell out what “transition” refers to? But, in case you weren’t paying attention, it’s kicking-off on a date certain.
Cassandra even enlists her Congressional paramour to introduce a legislative bill to carry out her idea . Ah, Washington, where no opportunity is left unexplored, and no legislation is left to others when it might further some lawmaker’s political aspirations!
As I’m sure you can imagine, things get a little out of hand and the resulting madcap backpeddling and desperate deal-making that chronicles Washington so well, satisfies even the most cynical of us. In fact, the characters play their roles so expertly that the reader begins to wonder whether the bizarre scenario may actually have been discussed as a possibility. If hallowed halls could talk.
Without a doubt this story would translate to film in a heatbeat. Already movie stars materialize in our mind’s eye as the descriptive prose leaves us stifling our guffaws so as hot awaken the whole house.
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