West Winging It Read online

  Still, I was too preoccupied with the Justin Bieber disaster to let the moment sink in. What did they think of me in 181? What were they saying?

  Our security briefing began with a spot of tough love. A Secret Service agent took the room by surprise: “Congratulations,” he said. “You’re sitting in the cherry on top of every terrorist’s dream cake.”

  He was about as subtle as my nana.

  • • •

  “I was baptized a Democrat, not a Catholic.”

  That’s what my nana wanted everybody to know. Whether she was strolling out of St. Luke’s Church, her local parish, with the monsignor or, more likely, sparring with a neighbor or grandson, you needed to know—above all—Joan Cunnane was a Democrat.

  The only thing Nana likes more than talking about politics is arguing about politics. When she thought your point was particularly useless, or your argument unsound, she’d give a quick huff, smile to herself, and then look up from the tattered playing cards splayed across her gray laminate countertop. When Nana took her attention away from her never-ending game of solitaire and peered at you through the smoky haze of her 1980s-era kitchen, you knew she had you dead to rights.

  And when she held a beat before speaking, shuffled over to the stove, and cranked the burner to ignite her cigarette, you knew she was about to light you up. Now, if she turned down the ever-present drone of MSNBC—God forbid—just to be sure you could hear her argument, well, we grandkids learned to run.

  Nana is not known for subtlety. She once proudly ended a fifty-three-year friendship with her beloved Hazel upon learning that her longtime neighbor was sympathetic to Sarah Palin. I watched her say “Goodbye, Hazel” from her kitchen counter. Never spoke with her again.

  However, Nana is known for playing favorites, something I’ve benefited from since day one. The morning I was born—November 22—was the twenty-fourth anniversary of President Kennedy’s assassination. Upon picking me up for the first time in the hospital room, she exclaimed:

  “I got my JFK back!”

  My mother, Madeleine Cunnane, was reeling from a labor that had lasted twenty-two hours. I was big and overdue and unwieldy. I required a suction machine as well as, eventually, forceps, which—when he finally pried me free—sent the doctor flying across the room. I was bruised and my head a little misshapen temporarily from the forceps. Still, Nana saw only a little Kennedy. My mom wasn’t feeling Camelot and found the comment ludicrous. In fact, she rolled her eyes so far into the back of her head that there was some worry the doctor would be needed to retrieve them. She looked over to my father for affirmation that what his mother, Joanie, had said was outright bizarre.

  But my dad—my nana’s favorite son—didn’t notice. He was blinded with excitement. The moment he saw my eyes open, he screeched, “Oh my God! He’s a genius!”

  Turns out my dad, P. J. Cunnane, lived the first twenty-nine years of his life under the impression that human babies—like kittens—spend the first few weeks after birth with their eyes closed. He thought that I, his firstborn, eyes wide open in minutes, was enlightened. He would learn quickly that he was wrong.

  I thought about how off base my dad’s prediction had been as the Secret Service agent who reminded me of my nana droned on about safety. At that moment, my first day, I couldn’t be bothered by bombs and wasn’t worried about weapons. My reputation was already shot, and all I could think about was how to revive it.

  When I returned to the office, I considered telling a self-deprecating joke but figured not landing it was too risky. I was already on thin ice with hot blades—better to build back slow. My plan: ask an informed question. I would prove that I was engaged; that I cared about what was going on around me. There was a term that had thrown me off all day. I didn’t know if it was an obscure department or a piece of legislation or what. Sure, I could have googled it, but then nobody would know that I was a serious person here to learn and to do a good job.

  But who to ask? There was Steve. He sat in the corner and had a proclivity for reacting—laughing, groaning, bemoaning—to whatever came across his computer screen. I could already tell that the obvious intention there was for somebody to ask him what was up. He was a prompter. Then, as soon as someone inevitably played his or her part and inquired, he would take to reading the entire article word for word. A few interminable minutes later, somebody would eventually say “Crazy,” and somebody else might add “Interesting.” Only then would everybody be able to get back to work. I wasn’t going to ask Steve.

  Dylan was another option. He sat an office over. I would come to know that he took his job so seriously that it was hard at first to get more than a one- or two-word answer out of him if it wasn’t mission critical. I’d been warned early on that he also tended to internalize anything negative said about President Obama, letting it build up until he exploded at five in the afternoon with an inventive, impressive, expletive-laced tirade aimed at whomever had most recently taken an unfair shot at his boss. Dylan, however dedicated to the cause, wasn’t right for the question either.

  Then there was Matt: a longtime aide who joined the campaign early and took on key roles at a very young age. I didn’t know much about him other than the fact that he had good hair—and he wasn’t too much older than I was, which surprised me given that he seemed to have a vital job. In fact, I was beginning to learn that a lot of young people had important jobs. Despite some heavy typing and aggravated huffs now and then, Matt seemed the most approachable. Like, maybe we could one day be friends. I figured we might have something in common. And when I heard him talking about basketball, I knew he was the right choice. So I geared up for my question, clearing my throat. It was time to create a new narrative for myself in the office.

  “Hey, Matt.”

  He looked up from his screen and swiveled his chair to me. I took a breath, remembering that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, and proceeded confidently:

  “What’s a POTUS?”

  I had created a new narrative for myself, all right. I knew from the way the room reacted—even before Matt answered—that stupid questions do, in fact, exist.

  “President of the United States, Pat.”

  I wanted to get as far away from the White House as possible, to leave the city entirely. I felt like running back to my parents’ hotel. I thought maybe my first instincts about living in DC—not to—had been correct.

  • • •

  In May of my senior year of high school, I was enrolled—nonrefundable deposits and all—at two universities. A couple things about this: one, pretty sure it’s against the rules; two, it’s definitely a colossal waste of money. Still, maybe I could have gotten around those roadblocks and attended both schools—if not for the fact that they were separated by more than a thousand miles.

  Back then, it seemed my mom and I were even further apart, at least metaphorically. We couldn’t agree. I had been accepted early to Georgetown University. My parents were ecstatic, as they were about all things related to Washington. They had a thing for DC—were infatuated, even—and wanted desperately for my two brothers and me to be, too. My mom was adamant that I seize the opportunity presented to me by Georgetown, but my heart was set on the University of Miami. The choice was even clearer after my back-to-back campus visits: the lush, palm-tree-lined entrance to the University of Miami, juxtaposed with the winter drear of Georgetown’s Gothic, gray buildings; the campus pool at UM, contrasted with the campus graveyard at Georgetown.

  It didn’t hurt that my girlfriend, Stephanie, was headed with her twin sister, Victoria, to Miami. Stephanie and I had met in second grade. I developed a crush quickly—okay, instantly—but kept quiet. It was a slow burn. For years, I kept up the crush, captivated by her from afar. Popular, but not one of the popular girls, Stephanie was the quiet, beautiful brunette. And in seventh grade, five years after I had first laid my prepubescent eyes on her, I got word she might be interested in me. Our mutual friends literally pushed us together outsid
e the library. Finally face-to-face, I asked, “Will you be my girlfriend?”

  Six years into my relationship with Stephanie, my mom and I were three months into a battle of wills about my school choice; if the past was any precedent, my chances of outlasting Madeleine Cunnane weren’t good. Harry, my middle brother, is testament to that.

  When Harry was a sophomore in high school at St. Joseph’s Preparatory, in Philadelphia, he decided—against the wishes of my parents and his better sense—to get a substantial tattoo on his side, just below his armpit. Standard fare for a first tattoo: something about “Living today” and “dying tomorrow.” And a cross. I caught wind of it through Facebook and ratted him out—but just to my dad, who I knew wouldn’t much care. Nevertheless, my mom found out (Harry, I swear it wasn’t me) and devised a plan.

  She took a blue Bic pen to her right foot and wrote in elegant cursive, “De La Salle”: an ode to La Salle University—where she taught rhetoric and writing—and to St. Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, the patron saint of teachers.

  Knowing the reality, the permanence, of his decision, my mom concluded that she wanted Harry to want to tell of his tattoo. So, following one in a series of what she liked to call “come to Jesus” meetings with Harry, she said, “Okay, Harry, I have something to show you.”

  And with that, my mom took off her shoe and sock, fully expecting Harry to see right through her farce. Maybe it had something to do with the dim lighting of the den, but Harry didn’t question the authenticity of the “tattoo” on my mom’s foot. He was just shocked—and impressed!—that his professor of a mother had inked up. In fact, he pulled off his shirt, revealing a tattoo the size of a football. More than that, he opened right up to her, telling the story of his own tattoo and asking where my mom went for hers and how much she paid. My mom, not knowing the first thing about tats, told him she went to a nice place out in Bucks County and paid $400.

  “Ah, you got cheated!” Harry exclaimed, explaining that $400 was way too much for nine little letters. His guy would have charged only $35.

  She didn’t have the heart to tell him that her ink was temporary, totally fake. They had bonded. So she sustained the sham. At family parties, weddings, baptisms, Harry would tell cousins of her ink, and our mom would have to find a blue pen, run into the bathroom, and reapply. Eventually she just began each morning by reaching for a blue Pic pen at her bedside and coloring in the faded lettering below her toes. It was no longer about the tattoo; it was about bonding with her son, which might thereby help him to avoid these types of decisions in the future. Finally, she couldn’t keep up the worry and the writing. The jig was up, but—in truth and out of character—my mom had grown fond of the tattoo. She wanted it.

  My then-fifty-year-old mother googled “best place to get a tattoo,” found the artist—Danny, the owner of Philly Ink on Kensington Avenue—under the El, and got her first and only real tattoo, exactly the same as her fake one. Harry was none the wiser for another few years, well after the tattoo had become real, when my mom finally fessed up.

  All that is to say, as I thought through the endgame of my college battle with my mom, I knew her to be a worthy adversary—fully prepared to wait me out. I wondered what trick she had up her sleeve, or as in Harry’s case, under her sock, for me. How would she get me to want to go to Georgetown? What trump card would she play to get me to deal?

  By May, the whole community was looped into our ludicrous, First World ordeal. I got calls from aunts, uncles, grandparents, strangers—even my mom’s boss, who reminded me helpfully that he had never made his mother cry. Things began to reach the boiling point. We circled the now-tired arguments—Georgetown was the superior academic institution; I was just following my girlfriend, Stephanie, to Miami—when my mom sensed an opening. She knew I had her just about beat, so she called on someone to come to her defense. A man of uncommon sense.

  Larry King was one of my first great fears in life. Something about the dotted map behind him, his suspenders, and those pointy shoulders spooked me. One of my earliest memories is covering my eyes when he came on TV each night. Fortunately, I had gotten over that particular phobia when, after our fight that May, my mom caught wind of Larry’s guest for the evening: Phil McGraw, PhD, better known as Dr. Phil, psychologist of the airwaves. There they were, two old men who—despite their personalities and looks—had become TV mainstays ready to field questions from the troubled public.

  “I’m calling in,” my mom said matter-of-factly. This was her trump card. Here it was, her fake tattoo.

  “Go ahead. I’m sure you’ll get through,” I answered sarcastically.

  The first caller was distressed, seeking counsel from Dr. Phil about the sudden loss of her husband. The next caller recounted life in his double-wide trailer. He just couldn’t get ahead, and things weren’t going well with his wife. I was confident that my mom, stuck on hold, did not have a problem that rose to the same level. We were safe, until:

  “Hello, Philadelphia!” the suspendered king of dry CNN talk bellowed to my mom. “You’re on the air!”

  Stunned, she began to delineate our dilemma: “My wonderful boy Patrick has been accepted to Georgetown and the University of Miami . . . whatever shall we do?”

  Double-wides and death be damned: Where should Pat go to school? They cut my mom off before she could explain the crux of her concern: Wasn’t it a parent’s choice, especially if they were paying? Didn’t it seem like I was simply following Stephanie; that I hadn’t given it real thought? And what about DC? They wanted me in DC.

  Too bad. It was Larry’s show. And he was ready to judge.

  Larry explained that although he never went to college, Miami held a special place in his heart. He got his start in radio in South Florida. Miami, he thought, should have the edge.

  The doctor chimed in next: “Ya say he’s a good boy, right? It’s not like he’s gonna be runnin’ drugs outta Colombia.” Apt reasoning, I thought, and Dr. Phil moved to conclude: “Pack yer bags because yer headed to Miami. Yer gonna love the stone crabs!”

  At this point, my freshly tattooed mom shouted into the phone that Phil was a “quack.” Unfortunately, she had already been muted—and I was already on my way upstairs to pack my bags and google stone crabs. Washington, DC, was out. For now.

  • • •

  My first day as a real White House staffer was February 1, 2011. I moved one room down from my previous spot, to room 183, I think. Toward the end of my internship, I had learned of an opening on staff, and I applied to the most entry-level position available on the White House communications team: media monitor.

  The role of the media monitor is simple: Watch the news. Scan the shows. Pull clips. Keep your bosses informed. Much to my surprise, and to the chagrin of some of my office mates, I got the job—joining a tired army of sunlight-deprived kids in their early- to mid-twenties (I was twenty-three); an overworked, ambitious bunch of media monitors strewn about the city and on both sides of the political spectrum.

  The White House had one media monitor at a time. My predecessor, Andrew, was a force. He rose at five o’clock and pulled clips, sometimes more than a thousand in a day, until late into the evening. He worked weekends. Andrew was the gold standard of media monitors. A few days before I started, he was written up in the New York Times as one of the best monitors across the capital. No pressure, I thought. He seemed to thrive on the news—fueled by breaking bulletins. He never took a day off.

  Until one day he was forced to. Probably not surprisingly, Andrew was hospitalized for exhaustion. By the time I started as an intern—a year and a half into the presidency—Andrew had to be on his last legs. The position should really be a one-year gig; a rite of passage to slightly less onerous and very slightly higher-level things.

  Still, for my first few weeks, we both monitored the news. On my first day, Andrew sent more than eight hundred clips. I sent three. Matt helpfully alerted the entire office to this tally via email. But I had an excuse: I was busy filli
ng out an SF-86 form, an extensive security document needed for the FBI’s official background check, which was still under way—even though I had already been granted clearance to the White House grounds and was officially a White House employee.

  The questions weren’t particularly difficult to answer. No, I’d never had the impulse to overthrow the government. No, I never knowingly harbored a terrorist. Drug abuser? Nope. I was asked to list every country I had visited and the exact dates of my trip. Suddenly my innocent semester at sea seemed like a liability. The queries seemed endless. And lying on these things is a felony, so I did my best not to misremember anything—there would be consequences, I assumed. Over the next few weeks, I would get texts and calls from friends, friends of friends, and many family members who had just received a visit from the FBI about me.

  I was just a media monitor, a professional copy-and-paster who had basically fallen into the gig. But I was learning that the White House was serious business—at all levels—and that the media monitor position was more crucial than I thought. Turns out, it’s the lowest-level job with the highest level of name recognition within the White House. As a monitor, your name bombards every consequential member of the administration’s in-box all day long. Everybody, from the top of the administration down, gets to know you—or at least an idea of who you are. I went by the name Pat, and for the first few months, a good portion of the staffers I worked with, but never saw, thought I was a woman.

  You were expected to start sending emails the moment you entered the office—an initial morning batch of a couple hundred, including online articles from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and dozens of others—before allowing for a quick midmorning break. Eventually I got the hang of things and took over as the only monitor so that Andrew could move on.