by Richard Stern

Scene 1. The Puce Room of the White House. Light coming through rose-colored window glass beautifies the reflections bouncing off the handsome silver tea service. The First Lady, simply and expensively dressed in tweed skirt and green silk blouse, pours tea for her visitor, Colleen Dowdy, the columnist. Collen Dowdy: It's always reassuring to see you, Mrs. B. How do you remain so calm and self-assured? First Lady: Why wouldn't I be calm? CD: Well, for one thing, your husband was repudiated in the November election. FL: I didn't realize he was on the ballot. CD: You have me there, mam. Then he's been recently called "the worst of all 43 American presidents" by a panel of historian. FL: The panel discussing the Holocaust in Teheran? CD (laughing) No, mam. Then Iraq, the American and Iraqi deaths, the thousands more people, the age of your daughters and younger, broken in body and mind, the million emigres, the billions of dollars, many embezzled, poured into the country, the danger in the streets... FL: I've actually been there, Colleen. Have you? CD: No, mam. But did yiu get outside the Green Zone? FL: Look, Colleen. I read the papers. That's the difficulty. My heart grieves for every single American and for that matter every innocent Iraqi death, but I know and the president knows that we are fighting not only for our own security and well-being but for those of every man, woman and child in the Middle East, if not the world. It's not as clear as fighting World War 11, but the enemies are as dangerous and vicious. CD: But Mrs. B., we are making things worse every day. The longer we're there, the more inspired the insurgents are to kill us and each other. Baghdad was bad under Saddam, but most people managed to get on with more or less decent lives. FL: Would you like him back in his palaces? CD: I like him where he is. But it doesn't change the fact that today, people are terrified when their children leave the house to go to school or when they themselves walk to the bakery. The only Americans who leave the Green Zone are soldiers. Seven of the nine power lines into Baghdad are cut, there's but a trickle of electricity in the city; they're importing oil, they're... FL: Colleen, I know that things aren't good in Baghdad, though there are still people in parts of it, outside the Green Zone, who smile and play and eat their dinner. And what about the rest of the country? Why aren't you and your colleagues writing about all the schools which have been built, all the town councils which make decisions which used to be made by Saddam? Most of the country is functioning, but you media people focus on disaster, on bombs, on blood, on the dying and those in pain, not on the living, the prosperous, the happy. CD: Mrs. B. isn't that like saying , "You're concentrating on the bullet in the man's brain, instead of on his strong legs and arms, his gleaming white teeth"? FL: I don't think it is. Your business is selling papers; disaster sells papers. There's no excitement in ordinary well-being. CD: Mrs. B, you and I wouldn't live there for all the money in the world, would we? FL: I like it right here, Colleen. CD: I too. Do you know any young man or woman, perhaps friends of your daughters or members of your husband's large family who is fighting in Iraq? FL: Senator Webb's son, for one, though I don't know him personally. Several congressmen have children fighting in Iraq. I've spoken to hundreds of our soldiers there. We have an army of wonderful volunteers who choose to fight for their country and accept the terrible risk of dying for it. CD: That may be, mam, but after three plus years there, they are losing the war. Even your husband says we are not winning the war. FL: We weren't winning World War Two in 1941 or 1942, not even in '43. Anyway, it is the Iraqis themselves who are going to win the war. We are there to train them. CD: How is it that it takes the Iraqi government so long to train its army and police when it seems to take the insurgents next to no time at all to train their recruits? FL: It is easier to destroy than defend, and if you don't care at all about any life, including your own, you don't need much training. How much training do you need to strap explosives on your body and blow yourself up in a market? CD: I'd think you have to be in a certain frame of mind. FL: I agree to that. Just as you need to be on a certain frame of mind to write what you write. Have a little more tea, then we can take a stroll in the Rose Garden with Barney. It is a beautiful day. Curtains