Executive Orders

CH 34 | Mistakes and Missteps

As invisible as they might seem, lines in the sand were being drawn. Whatever else this is, the situation had become personal and Olivia was realizing that a part of her definitely did not care. If anything, she was more than happy to begin the dance.

"To be honest, Elizabeth, I wouldn't have thought that you would let such a basic mistake get by you." Olivia paused to give the other woman a careful looking-over as if she couldn't believe it. "If you were one of my staff, I might be generous enough to call it a misstep - but from you..."

"But from me?..." Elizabeth rose to the challenge; her eyes going a frosty blue. "Enlighten me."

"From you - with your reputation - it's a clear mistake." Olivia said. "You should have realized that what you've managed to do is set up the press to have a field day with articles about elitism and think-pieces reminding them of the GOP's reputation before the president took office. It's not the reputation that the president is currently known for - in fact we both know that he's changed the Party's reputation by their association with him and it's why the approval rating for both have risen steadily in the last few years. But what you've done is basically the opposite and in doing that, you've appeared to have made the Party take a step backwards.

"I'll have to fix that." Olivia shook her head. "Maybe you were distracted by other matters that were on your mind? It happens, you know."

She watched Elizabeth struggle to maintain her composure. Olivia was sure that the other woman knew that she'd made a rookie mistake. Either it had been something to do with her pride and she had expected no one to call her out on it after the fact, or something else had really drew her attention away from what should have been her main focus.

Olivia considered the thought. Elizabeth was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. So why did she do it? What was her motivation? What other agenda did she have in mind? If this hadn't concerned Fitz, Olivia might have let this go; maybe at the most, she would have made sure that a gentle reprimand in a memo would have been sent.

But it did concern Fitz; and it became suddenly clear to her that Elizabeth just might have a legit reason to have been that distracted. One way she might find out what else was going on in Elizabeth's head was to push her into a corner and see what she can squeeze out of her head.

Normally that might not work with Elizabeth and her hyper-political awareness, but since she was already agitated, now was the perfect time to push.

"What's really sad - and again, I would have thought you would have caught this before it became a problem - is that you really can't fight those kinds of think-pieces once they're out there."

"I doubt if any such thing happens." Elizabeth defended herself. "That was not the narrative I set up."

"Check back with me tomorrow morning if that turns out to be true." Olivia frowned at Elizabeth -not in rebuke but in supposed disappointment in the other woman's lack of judgment. "The fact is, when - not if - but when these articles start to appear, the problem will be trying to craft a rebuttal that won't appear as a thoughtless attack, because that's what the thinking public will see. Phrases like 'attacks on democracy' and 'transparency' will be used and how the Party reacts will be very important."

That should be enough to set Elizabeth's inner alarms ringing, Olivia thought, satisfied with the scenario she'd just put into play. The senior Republicans will not be pleased when they saw what Elizabeth's actions - or inaction - will cost them. Add that to Elizabeth's own vanity about her political reputation and Olivia was sure that she'd lit a fuse. Olivia decided that she'd have Quinn put in a little extra credit duty - maybe a little enhanced surveillance - and see if anything useful turned up in the aftermath.