Transcript

National Review, Oct 9, 2006 by Rob Long

COURT-ORDERED MEDIATION IN THE MATTER OF:

His Satanic Majesty, plaintiff v.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, defendant

(Present: His Satanic Majesty (Satan), plaintiff; Mr. Bertram Fields, plaintiff's attorney; Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, defendant; Mr. Gregory Craig, defendant's attorney)

... page 7 ...

SATAN (CONT.): "... at which point I was like, hey, I've done business with these people before and, frankly, gotten burned--" MR. CRAIG: "Object! C'mon, Bert, let's not get off topic, here. The past is past." MR. FIELDS: "I'll rephrase. Your Majesty--" SATAN: "Call me Satan. Or Mr. B., whatever."

MR. FIELDS: "Okay, Satan, did you receive a telephone call from the defendant?"

SATAN: "Yes, I most certainly did."

MR. FIELDS: "Can I ask you to identify this piece of paper?"

SATAN: "Yes. It's a pink phone-message slip that my secretary filled out."

MR. FIELDS: "May I ask you to read the slip?"

SATAN: "It says, 'Senator Clinton called. Please return at earliest convenience,' and then there's my secretary's initial."

MR. FIELDS: "And did you return this call?"

SATAN: "As I said, I was nervous, you know? I mean, I go back with these people, I know what they're capable of."

MR. CRAIG: "Non-responsive! C'mon, Bert, we've all got dinner reservations. Can we move it along?"

MR. FIELDS: "Counsel, I am trying to establish a frame of mind here."

SATAN: "Look, when people call me--when they call me--I'm usually like, hey, what's up here? I have professional pride, okay? I don't wiggle out of deals, okay?"

MR. CRAIG: "Bert!"

MR. FIELDS: "Satan, you did return the call, did you not?"

SATAN: "I did."

MR. FIELDS: "And what transpired during that call?"

SATAN: "The senator wanted to talk about the 2006 midterm elections. She was worried that the way the poll numbers were going, it was possible that the Democrats might regain control of the House and the Senate, and she wanted to know what I thought, in my professional opinion, might be done about that."

MR. FIELDS: "Did she offer you some kind of deal to handle the situation?"

SATAN: "At first, no. No. Look, we're all in basically the same business. I don't hide who I am or what I do, okay? I own it. It's taken me a long time to get to this place in my head where I'm not ashamed, you know, to be who I am--a long time and a helluva lot of therapy, let me tell you--so when people call me, or when I approach them, which is the usual way, actually, I'm totally up front about the, you know, the deal. I mean, yes, I wear a suit. Yes, I wear a tie. But, you know, six grand worth of Kiton suit can't hide the tail and the horns and the cloven hooves, okay? This is Washington, D.C., okay? The senator knew what she was getting into."

MR. FIELDS: "You're sure of that?"

SATAN: "As I said, I've done business with these people before, okay?"

MR. CRAIG: "Object!"

SATAN: "You want to see the receipts? For lunches? Call records?"

MR. CRAIG: "Object!"

SATAN: "Are you calling me a liar?"

MR. CRAIG: "Bert, would you please control your client?"

SATAN: "This is un-freakin'-believable."

MR. FIELDS: "Satan, please. We're hurting ourselves, here."

SATAN: "I'm a businessman, okay? I run a business! Christ!"

MR. FIELDS: "Satan, if we could get back to that phone call. As you said, Senator Clinton was worried that the Democrats would regain control of Congress?"

SATAN: "The Senate, really. I mean, who cares about the House? I wouldn't bother with it, myself. Just sort of no bang for the buck, from my perspective. No, she was worried that the Senate would turn Dem, and she'd be among the pack of Dem senators who all suddenly wanted to run for president. She was worried that the antiwar crowd would get all emboldened and it would just be this megillah in 2008."

MR. FIELDS: "What did you say to that?"

SATAN: "I said, 'Let's talk.' I said, 'Let's you and me go to the Palm, or Morton's, and thrash this thing out.' I was very nice. It felt good to talk to her again. You know, even now, I like her. I have a helluva lot of respect for her. It upsets me that we can't be friends, you know, that we can't just stick to an agreement and each do our thing and be friends."

MR. FIELDS: "Did you in fact have that lunch?"

SATAN: "We did. And I was very upfront with her. I said, 'Hey, I've got some conflicts here I need you to know about. I've done some business with some of the antiwar crowd--I mentioned a pretty big lefty website I helped put together --"

MR. FIELDS: "Is this the Daily Kos?"

SATAN: "I'm not going to answer that. And I told her the names of the Republicans I've done business with."

MR. FIELDS: "So you work with both the far Right, the far Left, the anti-war movement, the pro-war movement?"

SATAN: "I have a complicated business. And you forgot the whole yoga thing. That's me, too."

MR. FIELDS: "So to return to the lunch. The senator wanted you to make sure that the Republicans retained control?"

SATAN: "What she wanted was to be president in 2008, okay? I'm a big-picture guy."

MR. FIELDS: "And so you agreed?"

SATAN: "We shook on it."

MR. FIELDS: "And what transpired after that?"