Roger Overbudget, Deputy Minister of Miscellaneous Government Activity, was pleased. The assembled members of the Theoretical Action Consultative Taskforce could tell he was pleased by the way he thrummed “My Gal Sal” with his fingers on the arm of his chair.
“Is everybody here?” he asked by way of starting the meeting. He knew everybody was there; nobody would dare not to be. “Good. It is my pleasant duty to report that the recent summit between Prime Minister Mulroney and President Reagan was a resounding success…”
“A success?” Arnold Barron, Ministry of Communications liaison to the Taskforce, spit up a mouthful of coffee. It was statements like that that made him consider tearing what little hair he had left out of his head. “How can you call it a success? Nothing happened!”
“Nothing in what sense?” Overbudget indulgently asked.
“Well, no agreements were reached…” Barron sputtered. “No new ground was broken…”
“But,” Overbudget enthused, “there was a standing ovation in the House of Commons!” Seeing the bewildered look on his nominal colleague’s face, he suggested, “Jim, would you like to explain to Arnold why the summit meeting could be considered a success?”
James Boren, the portly Undersecretary of Exfritteratures, cleared his throat and made pupilary eye contact with Overbudget. “I would be happy to,” he stated, full of confidence. “Clearly, summitry is a sign of substantive multilateral interface. As de Tocqueville so brilliantly pointed out in his treatise on the subject, ‘Panjandrummation elevates, but the desires of the plebes defenestrate,’ I am not merely drivelating mushifications when I globate to say that the bladderistic contrapuntal idiotoxicity of the summit will be of lasting importance, as I’m sure you’ll all agree.”
The members of the Taskforce were awed by Boren’s virtuoso display of bureaucratic obfuscese. One went so far as to applaud him mildly. Overbudget smiled. “Precisely the point,” he agreed.
Barron frowned. “But, what exactly did he say?”
Boren threw him a superior look. “Must I repeat myself?”
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Barron muttered.
“I trust that puts your mind at rest,” Overbudget told him.
“Well…” Barron hesitated. He didn’t wish to appear stupid (unfortunately, he was two and a half minutes too late), but he wasn’t prepared to let the matter drop, either.
Overbudget became annoyed and started drumming his fingers in an ominously threatening manner. “Look. Both leaders were suffering from Imagus Reductio. Reagan still hadn’t fully recovered from the Iran arms scandal, and Mulroney’s Cabinet has been hemorrhaging Ministers, calling his leadership abilities into question. The best thing that either of these leaders could hope for was to get through the summit without a major crisis. That’s the best outcome any summit can actually have – actual progress on any issue is just a delightful bonus.”
“If nothing is accomplished, what’s the point?”
Overbudget stopped tapping. “State functions are placebos for the body politic,” he explained. “They may not accomplish anything in the literal sense, but they make everybody feel good because they believe good things will result. And that, in itself, is a worthwhile accomplishment.” Overbudget, pleased with his analysis, resumed tapping, an obscure honky tonk tune he had learned as a child.
A voice from the back asked, “But, sir, if inactivity is the sign of a successful summit, how do you explain Reykjavik? Nothing happened there, but everybody thought it was a failure…”
“I’m glad you asked that question,” Overbudget replied, peering towards the end of the conference table in the hope that he might identify the questioner. “You see, Frank -“
“Robert,” the man interjected, deflated.
“Yes, quite, Frank,” Overbudget emphasized the incorrect name in order to ensure that all seated around the table knew that he was firmly in charge of the meeting. “The Americans and the Russians went into the arms control summit at Reykjavik with high hopes of accomplishing something; so, naturally, when nothing was accomplished, everybody was disappointed. In contrast, nobody expected results from the recent Canadian/American summit; so, when nothing actually happened, it was seen as meeting its objective. In summitry, expectation is everything, you see.”
“If I may add something,” Boren attempted to further his stock with his superior, “neither side needed a public relations victory at Reykjavik, so both could claim one knowing that the contradictions of the other wouldn’t play at home. At this summit, however, both sides needed to look good, so they protected that common interest.”
Overbudget made a mental note to check Boren’s file after the meeting; here was cabinet Secretary material!
“But,” Robert/Frank protested, “shouldn’t summits be held to resolve disputes between nations, not as public relations ploys for politicians?”
Overbudget didn’t directly respond to the young man’s question, but smiled affably at him. Clearly, this was a person with illusions, and Overbudget intended to leave his illusions in TACT.