South Bend Scandal

My fellow Americans,

Today, you and your representatives in the Senate impeached me after finding me guilty of Treason. I applaud every American who participated in our government by making their voice heard on the matter, and I applaud Congress for a swift and cooperative proceeding that will allow America’s focus to revert to the more important issues of her people. 

I am proud that Democratic, Republican and independent constituents and representatives came together to make this monumental choice. In making it, you put aside your party and embraced your country, and your country will be better off as a result. The visionary George Washington would agree with me, as he wrote in his Farewell Address:

“[The spirit of party] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.”

Before my administration leaves the West Wing and Speaker of the House Pelosi assumes Executive power, per the agreement I made with the people in my admittance speech, I’d like to say my parting words in the company of some of my closest friends. 

[STAGE DIRECTIONS: BRAD STEVENS, BUTLER BASKETBALL PLAYERS, NYT AUTHOR, AND JOHN KASICH WALK FROM BACKSTAGE AND STAND BESIDE BUTTEGIEG]

Before I explain, I want to confirm that I never coached the Butler men’s basketball team. 

When I browsed the National Archives during a high school field trip to Washington, I noticed a relatively unknown document written by Washington and Alexander Hamilton. It read, in part: 

“So as to ensure the people love their Country first, and leaders and party second, as a man should give all his love to his wife and spare little for his mistress, the President should, from time to time, give Congress and the people a decision that tests their faiths to these objects. If the people should fail the test, and side with party first, then it is clearly evident that they are not deserving of the liberty and equality provided by our Constitution, but would rather shackle themselves to one party or another. The servants to party will reveal themselves during such a test, and the President and his men must make a national strategie to reform them and their opinions, either by education, temporary deprivation of Constitutional rights and liberties, a forbiddance against voting in future elections or running for office on any level, be it local, state or federal, or some other method which has not been devised; in the end, the servants to party must be made aware of their faulty and selfish thinking, and all onlookers must be discouraged from applying the shackles to their own arms. Only then can the President create a franchise of true patriots.”

This document, written before the passage of the Bill of Rights, is illiberal and inconsiderate of our freedoms of speech and opinion, but its affirmation that ours is a Republic of laws, not of people or parties, and its method of identifying the motivations of people and congressmen, fascinated me. I promised myself that if I was ever President, I would put the people to the test, like Washington and Hamilton suggested, but without rendering a punishment to my ideological opponents as they also suggested.

In my first few days in office, I put the test in motion. Brad and I recorded the now-infamous phone call, and I asked my chief of staff, lifelong friend and fellow Midwesterner John Kasich, to leak the recording to Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times. 

To explain away Brad’s eventual appearance as Butler coach and his successful NBA career, we arranged for him to appear on an NPR podcast and provide a fictional alter-ego: that he lived and coached in Turkey before moving to Indiana, when Butler secretly hired him to coach its basketball team. 

Finally, I made a speech, which even I found convincing in parts, arguing that my role in this story was that of the hero, not villain. But as I hoped, the large majority of the American people believed that my deliberate deceit and inattention to my duties as Mayor constitute impeachable offenses.

After the House brought an article of Impeachment against me, and the Senate overwhelmingly voted for it, I was assured that country is still more important than party in this democracy, that no leader is beloved more than the law, and that Congress can and does represent the will of its constituents.

But there is still work to be done. 

My White House staff was inundated with ad-hominem attacks, including death threats, as soon as the Times expose was released. I asked John to reveal himself as the whistleblower, because he was involved with the experiment and so was not surprised by such hate mail. I wanted to protect the other White House staff, who were attacked on one side by the realization that their boss was corrupt, and on the other by threats on their lives and those of their families, from any additional threats. 

I am deeply disturbed by these ad-hominem attacks on federal employees, which came from my ideological supporters and opponents. Some of my supporters condemned my staff for revealing what I had done, and my opponents attacked the staff for working for me, a man they always suspected to be evil. This is a republic of laws, not people, so the actions of myself and my staff, not our appearances or percieved levels of intelligence, should have been the only topic of debate.

In response, my administration will launch an initiative to raise the level of civic discourse around the country, with an emphasis on liberalism and pluralism. But direct government involvement in such discourse may limit or discourage free speech, even inadvertently, so my proposed legislation will give tax writeoffs to think tanks, rotary clubs and other politically-minded organizations of all sizes that agree to host free events on the study of the Constitution and early American political thought.

Of course, as I am officially impeached by a Congress that thought this fiction was fact, I must first get the approval of Congressional leadership to resume my duties as President. [LOOKS AND SPEAKS AT PELOSI AND JAMES.] Good to go, Congressmen? [THEY GIVE THUMBS UP; LAUGHTER AROUND THE AUDITORIUM] Thank you for your service, and cooperation.

As I begin the rest of my Presidency, I can promise you there will be no more experiments or tests. All I ask of you, the American people, is that you continue to engage in your local, state and national governments, that you maintain your curiosity and investigative nature while also remaining confident in America’s institutions, and that you think of your country before your leaders or party. If you do these things, as God is my witness, there is nothing America cannot accomplish, inside her own borders or without.

Thank you, and goodnight!