Monday morning was a mess – to put it lightly. My phones started ringing even before I had breakfast. Two Senators from the opposite party were at the White House door; they had made appearances on the Sunday talk shows. The show host had played selected clips from the fund raiser.

            They were furious; one, that I was bashing their candidate and two, that I was acting like a candidate and three, that I was fundraising like a candidate without filing the appropriate federal forms with the Federal Election commission. I was not too politely informed that they had filed an official complaint with the Federal Election commission.

            They also informed me that I better not do any more fundraisers until the commission had made a formal decision on their complaint.

            I placed my hand on the Presidential Rule and Guidance book. ”According to this rule book, I am clearly within the guidelines as prescribed for a sitting President to raise funds for other candidates or the party,” I said. Reading those sections may have more value than I thought.

            ”If the commission finds and rules on a technicality that I have done something improper then I shall file the paperwork as a candidate. At that point, I can take the gloves off and really go after your candidate. I have just touched the surface on what a dupe and louse he really is. When I am finished with him I can simply close the application and withdraw from the race,” I said.

            ”Now if you are finished, I have a lot more to do than worrying about your candidate’s diminishing reputation and poll numbers,” I said.

            The kitchen had just brought up a food cart with my breakfast; French toast, two sausage patties, one egg, and toast with coffee and orange juice. The White House doctor had determined I was drinking too much coffee and ordered the kitchen staff to include a twenty ounce glass of fresh squeezed orange juice – not processed – with my breakfast.

            Tomorrow I was to go to Walter Reed Hospital for a complete physical with a blood, urine and stool work-up and a full body scan ‘so the people can be assured I was healthy’ by orders of the doctor.

            What he was really saying; he wanted his name in the media and interviews so he could get more well-to-do clients for his practice after leaving the White House position.

            General Ingram and the rest of the staff came in with the weekend reports as I was eating.

            ”Madam President, ground forces captured the northern sector cities of Mashhad, Neyshabur, and Sabzevar on the east and on the west Sanandaj, Mahabad, Khoy, Ardabil and Tabriz. They captured more secret bunkers and laboratories producing chemical weapons near Tabriz,” General Ingram said.

            ”Turkey is rushing troops and tanks towards the border with Iran,” General Ingram added.

            ”My guess is they are attempting to influence public opinion in Turkey and maybe influence me into accepting the UN peace plan and also looking to pick up some disputed territory,” I said.

            ”If they cross the border, you know what to do with them,” I added.

            ”Yes of course, whatever is prudent and necessary to send them back across the border, body bags optional,” General Ingram replied.

            ”You got it,” I said

            The afternoon was filled congressional issues. Congress was passing a slew of bills. I vetoed the first one. It was to give professional teams – football, baseball and basketball – more tax breaks. The bills would authorize zero interest federal loans to build free stadiums. In my opinion they needed to lose the host of tax breaks they were getting. They were a hundred billion dollar business and they needed to pay taxes like any other business.

            The second one was a bill to shift motor fuel revenue trust funds to the department of education for grants to big city schools. I vetoed that one too. The condition of many of our highways demanded that every penny in the highway trust fund be spent on roads. If they wanted more money for big city schools then raise the revenue by increasing the tax on sports teams that were  only located in big cities to begin with. Problem solved.

            The next bill would allow Canada to sell more beef products in exchange for allowing the US to export more fresh and frozen chicken to Canada. Tit for tat – I could approve that one.

            The next bill was to limit the military recruiting at colleges and high schools. It seems every couple of years the liberals and the anti-war groups try the same kind of law, usually adding it as a rider to some other ‘must have’ bill.

            This was the first time they had garnered enough votes to send up a standalone bill. Another veto and I wanted to know the names of the Senators and Representatives that supported it. They would go to the bottom of the list for campaign help.

            At 1400 a group of Senators was coming in for a signing of a bill to require all electronic toll collection devices to work nationwide. It would eliminate the confusion which ones were good where. It gave the states two years to be in compliance. It was a long time in coming.

            Marcy would be happy, she was always getting fees months after a rental car had been turned in for driving through the tolls without paying. The bill required the states to send out a pay notice in twenty four hours.

            At 1400 it was lights camera action as I signed the toll bill with two dozen pens – as had become customary – with the Senators and Representatives looking on. After the cameras were turned off I invited the Senators to join me for an early supper.

            I was going to need some of those Senators for support in the reconstruction of Iran even though most of the money was going to come from revenue produced by oil sales.

            After the extended early supper, I worked with Adam again on the speeches I was to give on Thursday night.

            Today had been day one of the convention and it had been a disaster that was going to repeat itself on the evening news. There had been little progress on the planks. Instead of starting with the normal three or four dozen there was over five hundred submitted by conservative chapters across the nation.

            The work today was to eliminate the duplicates and combine the remaining ones into a number that could be debated by the plank committee on Tuesday. The plank committee was to have the final ones approved and recommended to the full convention to vote on Tuesday night, the first night of TV coverage.

            Tuesday I was walking in the rear access door to Walter Reed Hospital. A team of doctors and specialist were waiting. They took ten tubes of blood, a bottle of urine and a stool sample from this morning.

            It took an hour to do the full body x-rays. They wanted a full-body MRI but that was delayed until the x-rays confirmed that my body did not contain any shrapnel. An MRI and iron or steel fragments could be a bad thing – a very bad thing.

            The x-rays found six small fragments; two small pieces in my left thigh, one in my abdomen, one in my left breast, one in my upper arm and a small piece in my neck. The specialists at John Hopkins had told me they had removed all of it after the Hamas ambush on the Golan – apparently not.

            There was an hour-long discussion – they wanted to remove them immediately.

            ”No, I’m too busy for it to be done now. If none of them present any life threatening problems, it will just have to wait a few weeks. I have had them for years, a few more weeks won’t make any difference,” I said.

            They postponed the MRI until a later date.

            All the other tests came back perfect. The doctors had nothing to complain about and no need to prescribe any medications.

            A medical update would be released to the media. Even though it should have been a personal issue, the media would never quit hounding the White House. Congress would have an immediate investigation if they thought things were being hidden after President Thomas died of a medical condition.

            I called my mates and informed them of the finds before the medical update was released to the press. I also called Vice President Harrison and filled him in.

            It was Tuesday afternoon before I got the updates from the Generals.

            ”Gorgan, Damghan and Bojnurd on the east have surrendered. On the west Zanjan, Rasht and Qazvin have surrendered. The maximum security prison was also taken. I am sad to have to tell you, all the prisoners there had been executed in their cells before the guards left the prison,” the General said.

            ”The Air Force intercepted the vehicles the guards were making a run in ten miles from Tehran. It was the end of the road for them,” the General said.

            ”A couple or three more days should finish this,” General Ingram volunteered.

            ”Looks like you may be right – then the hard part begins. I may want the assembled fleet to do a swing through the East China Sea. The Philippines are wanting to expand security agreements with us after the fiasco that was created by their last President. ”

            ”The Chinese must be thinking we are so occupied with Iran that no one is watching what they are doing. The Chinese are challenging the Philippine fishing fleet in the disputed islands. The Philippines want to build a base on one of the islands that the world court said was theirs in the disputed area. Chinese gunboats harass them and run them off,” I said.

            ”Ok, we will work out the plan tomorrow. We can shift some of the carriers there,” General Ingram said.

            In the living quarters I watched some of the convention and was embarrassed at the bickering over every item. It was easy to tell which one of the four supported that particular plank suggestion. At this rate we would need a week just for the plank selection.

            Edit by Alfmeister

            Proof read by Bob W.