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Feb 19 2001

Saw POTUS in the cafeteria today. Danielle puts sandwiches in my briefcase (white bread, crust cut off, wrapped in wax paper, oh how she loves me) but I always buy lunch anyway. No one comes to my office, so the cafeteria is the only place to catch up on things, to hear what people are talking about. POTUS had a burger and fries. I had some soup and saltine crackers. It was okay.

Feb 28 2001

Yes! Greenspan is meeting with Cheney on Monday, and they want me to take minutes. Finally, some action. Spent this afternoon warming up by writing random paragraphs about the long-term damage caused by the “New Deal.”

Mar 5 2001

I heard that POTUS is speaking to the Atlantic Trade Consortium think-tank next week. I wrote seven stirring paragraphs about Clinton’s legacy of poison, and finished it with a flourish about Hillary’s questionable sexual preferences. Powell’s office tore it asunder, and then I found out someone else was doing the speech anyway. I feel like a mushroom around here sometimes: kept in the dark, covered in liberal lies.

Mar 18 2001

Finished Kissinger’s response to the loony fantasies of Christopher Hitchens. Some mucky muck at HK’s office calls to say thanks but no thanks. They’re so skittish over there. Like someone would complain about crediting the great man with saving Chile from a leftist coup.

Mar 22 2001

Reception after work for the Pulitzer committee. Lewis Lapham pretended not to know who I was. What a boob. Hitchens actually had the gall to show up! No one talked to him. He just leaned against a column, sweating scotch out of every pore.

Mar 30 2001

Coren called from Toronto, just to shoot the shit: ‘whath it like, old bean?’. The switchboard girls never ask who’s calling for me; they put people right through. I hate that. POTUS stuck his head in my door this morning. Wanted me to explain the Tobin tax nonsense to him again. I serve at the pleasure of the President.