Saints and Sinners

Chapter Twenty-Three

CBS News Broadcasting Centre

New York

"President Sean Fletcher...welcome to Sixty Minutes?" Brandon Metcalf said as the studio audience applauded and Fletcher shook his hand, before both men took their seats. "Thank you for agreeing to talk with us, Sir?"

"It is my pleasure, Brandon...this show has always been compulsory viewing in my house forever and I can't believe I haven't done it before?" Fletcher grinned, feeling the usual rush of being on live television, but no nerves as such. Maybe some adrenaline, but no nerves. He was in his natural element, back in the game.

"We had your Mom many times, your father once...so this completes the set?"

"Glad to be here...in these strange times, I believe that voices like mine need to be heard and this show has a discerning audience that I am honoured to address."

"Okay...let's start there, Mr President...why do you say that these are strange times?"

"In just the last few months, the Secretary-General of the United Nations was refused entry to the White House because she was wearing a knee-length skirt, whilst we will shortly see a convent hospital open in Boston staffed by nuns...and the equipping of women has been made legal under the auspices of religious freedom...and all of this has been happening as the world tries to come to terms with the murder of almost a billion people...that is why I say that these are strange times, Brandon...I really don't recognise my America anymore...I am finding all of these things very hard to contemplate?"

"President Bateman has imposed a dress code for White House visitors...because he does not want to be offended by the sight of immodestly dressed women...as I understand it, Mr President?"

"Yes...he takes offence very easily...but Claudine Delacorte is a very fashionable lady and well used to accommodating the sensitivities of every creed and culture...she was not dressed immodestly by the laws of DC...or of this country as a whole." Fletcher insisted, deliberately setting his sights on Bateman, intending to paint him as an unreasonable fanatic. "Presidents need to work with good people like Madame Delacorte, not humiliate them...and I just don't know where this vicious sense of righteous disapproval stems from? Yes, we legislate to set and uphold minimum standards of decency...I supported that legislation as President and I support it now, as long as it is not taken too far...and we do not approve of anyone entering a church or a court or other public buildings inappropriately dressed...but not covering your legs well below the knee, or wearing a pair of jeans even, is not illegal. Yes, some people are offended by a woman wearing trousers or jeans...and they have a right not to allow it in their church or home...but they do not have the right to objectify women in the street? This is the United States of America...the land of the free...and we should assert those freedoms and stop these narrow-minded fanatics dictating to us?"

"By narrow-minded fanatics, you mean Christian Reformists?" Metcalf suggested, and he smiled, seeing the curve ball coming from a mile away. Metcalf was not the enemy, but he would play devil's advocate.

"Some Christian Reformists...there are millions of moderate, reasonable Reformists living happily in this country alongside other sects, and even agnostics like me, in perfect harmony and mutual respect...but what we are witnessing in Washington and Boston is not reasonable or moderate...it is extremism and it is high time we called it out for what it is?"

"You think President Bateman is an extremist, President Fletcher?"

"Absolutely, Brandon...his collared wife is led through the White House on a leash, he only employs men on his staff and in his Cabinet, and any woman who enters his domain is expected to wear a full-length gown. He supports turning some of our prison population into nuns...in fact, he is doing so...and he intends to allow the importation of about one hundred and fifty British nuns to provide nurses for this Boston hospital...and remember, the British nuns will not all be criminals...some of them will have been sold into slavery by their own families or imprisoned for life on some very spurious charges...only an extremist would let this happen in this country, Brandon...Bill Bateman is an extremist!"