So anyway, I was cruising around Washington this week, looking for bargains and for the odd pundit to come mow my lawn. (It hadn't been a very good month for pundits, what with Abu Ghraib still in the news and John Kerry still in the race, so I figured some of them could use the extra work.)
I made a blind turn down a fashionable cul-de-sac. At the end of it, there was a lovely townhouse. Cars were parked two-deep in front of it, and there were a few dozen people wandering slowly around the front lawn.
I pulled up and parallel parked along the curb behind a deep-blue limo. A small sedan pulled into the space right behind me, and an entire panel of FOX all-stars came tumbling out of it, making rude noises and hitting one another with inflatable fish. In fact, Mort Kondracke was coming my way, merriment in his eye and a rubber flounder in his hand. I moved a little more quickly.
There were tables lining the gently sloping lawn. Important people were there, people you've seen on TV. People still wearing pancake makeup. Orange people were wandering amid the tables. I was intrigued. I walked over to a man who seemed to be in charge.
He was a handsome fellow with a jaunty mustache, and very well turned-out in a pin-striped suit over which he wore a pin-striped apron on which was written "Kiss The Liberator!" One pocket of the apron jingled with change, and a thick wad of rolled-up cash stuck out of the other. It looked to be about $37 million in $1 bills.
"Hello," he said to me, smiling. "I am Ahmad, your host. Welcome to my yard sale." Almost imperceptibly, he'd taken my hand. Almost imperceptibly, I felt my watch slowly sliding down my wrist. I let go and stepped back. He was still smiling, as I discreetly slipped my money clip into my sock.
"All you see here, all of this is for sale," he said. "I have suffered certain, ah, reversals of late, and so all of this must go. I have to make room in my basement and my attic."
Why, I wondered, did he not just haul all of this to the dump?
"There is too much precious for me here to be discarded so easily," he said. "Besides, there is not enough room for this in my car."
I asked him why he didn't just put it all in the trunk.
"Alas," he explained, "that is where I ride."
I moved off toward the tables. Just as I did, a woman came up to him, an impatient child tugging at her arm. "How much," she asked him, "is this autographed photo of Richard Perle?"
He quoted her a price. She scoffed. Her son began to fuss again.
"But, Mom," he whined, "if I get this one, I'll have doubles on him, and I know I can trade two Richard Perles for that camouflaged Bill Kristol with the kung-fu grip."
The mother sighed and handed our host the money. He patted her hand and gave her son a bright red lollipop with the letters "PNAC" stamped on it. He had a whole jar of them on the makeshift counter next to the cash register.
It was a lovely day for browsing. I took my time at each table. Of course, many of the items were familiar to those of us who spend our weekends prowling for bargains inside the Beltway. There was a nut dish from the old Nightline green room. (I was there once when Henry Kissinger hurled one of them against the wall because somebody had forgotten to take out the red M&M's.) There were poker chips with Bill Bennett's face on them, and cocktail napkins emblazoned with a phone number that Newt Gingrich used to use. There was a basket full of those old Sam Donaldson mohair wigs that were so popular with the kids back in the 1980s, and even an autographed copy of Cokie Roberts' 1998 best-seller, The Cigar in the Closet: Talking to Your Kids About the Starr Report, of which I already had several anyway.
However, at one long table over by the driveway, a sizable crowd had gathered. A pundit I'd met on Scarborough Country picked up a small jewel box containing what looked like a length of beef jerky.
"Paul Wolfowitz's soul!" she exclaimed.
Our host rushed over.
"That will be $20," he said, "and I am cheating myself."
"Twenty!" the woman scoffed. "I could get it for $10 next week."
"Look," our host said, "I shouldn't do this, but over here, I have a nice collection of minor souls. For $20 you can have them all. See? Sean Hannity and Bill Safire. They almost match. You can wear them for cuff links!"
Mollified, the pundit handed our host a $20. He winked at me and stuffed the bill into his apron pocket.
I spent the afternoon there, browsing and chatting, but I didn't buy anything for a very long time. I was tempted to pick up a slightly dented moral authority that was going for $30, but I was looking for something with a little resale value, and it didn't look like I would be able to turn over moral authority at a profit any time soon. The thing would likely just sit there in my den, with people using it as a footstool or something.
Finally, I spotted something that looked like a long piece of mahogany. I picked it up and I rolled it around in my hands for a while. Our host came bustling up.
"The gentleman has taste!" he said, "This is an item for the discerning young man about this wonderful city of your Washington, D.C."
I liked the "young" part. He wanted $50, but I managed to bargain him down to $40, as long as I also agreed to take a few things written in crayon out of a large cardboard box marked "Intelligence Gathering -- Honest!"
So anyway, it's there on my mantelpiece, next to a wooden duck and a tin snail. If anybody wants to find the nation's credibility, you know how to reach me. I'm not even looking to turn that much of a profit on it.
I cruised by the house again yesterday, and the yard was deserted. I figured the host had finally managed to get everything to the dump, but his neighbors told me he'd sold whatever was left to a bunch of Iranians with an old pickup truck.
Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for The Boston Globe Magazine and a contributing writer for Esquire. He also appears regularly on National Public Radio.
