Starry Knight - The Tale Of A New Orleans Stripper Who Found A Home In The White House

Most Americans would never associate Joe Biden with a burlesque queen.  Nothing could be farther from the truth for a president elected on principles of probity, rectitude, and sound moral judgement.  His was to be the first presidency for the people, one representative of the nation's diversity and champion of the black man, women, gender choice, economic equality, and civil justice. 

There were no rough edges on this president, no prickly suggestions of a louche past, no bullying, no racial incidents, and certainly no infidelity.  Joe Biden was elected president because of his unimpeachable moral character and commitment to the right thing, the appropriate thing - he entered the White House a man of unblemished character and the highest purpose. 

Of course no one is ever completely above suspicion.  There was that incident in East Wilmington and the one in Rehoboth, both patently contrived, and the President's advance team easily scotched the stories true or not. Besides, the man was no Jack Kennedy and most people assumed he wouldn't even know how, so inept he was around attractive women, all that bussing and arms around the shoulders and hints of impropriety, behavior he quickly abjured once he was so advised by his staff.  

One had to wonder if Joe Biden had ever strayed, taken advantage of the perks of office so enjoyed by virtually all his predecessor - so much so that the White House was really a bordello with a power base, or so said one British reporter used to the smarmy little sex scandals he had covered like that of John Profumo, Secretary in the Macmillan Conservative government, caught in an affair with 19-year old Christine Keeler, model and aspiring actress. 

 

Henry Kissinger had once noted that power was the greatest aphrodisiac, and the fact that he, an ugly, misshapen Jewish refugee, could have any woman he wanted was ample testimony to that truth; but Biden seemed not to have paid attention - or, so addled by the woman thing, the MeToo ferocity of the high-powered Washington women around him, he didn't want to give it a try. 

In any case he was put to the test by Starry Knight a former burlesque queen of Las Vegas and New Orleans who had come to Washington on a whim, encouraged by her cousin, Artie, who had connections in the Democratic party and who felt that this might be just the opportunity his cousin (nee Margaret Olson) who wanted to go straight and find a good husband, was looking for. 

Congressmen had both short memories and were suckers for the kind of glitzy allure for which Starry Knight had become famous. She was a gem - a woman with a classy come-hither appeal that hooked every man in the audience from thirty to ninety; an appeal that had potential in other than the dance halls of Bourbon Street and the Strip. 

Her cousin had made his way from the bayou to Washington with similar appeal - a more temperate, judicious one - and soon became known as a savvy fixer, a man with good political instincts but no political ambition, a friend in need and not a rival. He introduced comers to the right people, worked cloak rooms, Senate chambers, and K Street lobbyists, and brokered special deals for the right price. 

He admired his cousin - second cousin once removed to be exact - and hoped he could do something for her.  He wanted little in return, perhaps some affection or partnership, but nothing obvious or outstanding.  For her part, she was like Dreiser's Sister Carrie, an intelligent woman with sexual allure but higher aspirations, was able to parlay sex into influence.  Washington, a town known only for crude political ambition but also a deformed, puerile sexuality might be exactly the place she was looking for. 

Cousin Artie had rinsed her clean of any Bourbon Street scent and had edged her into a nicely fitting role as a principal in the New Orleans hospitality industry.  Thanks to her assured performances on stage and canny understanding of image, posture, and appeal, no questions were asked.  The Congressmen from Democratic districts were the most taken by her charms, and because of their newly-bought feminism never even considered questioning her credentials or her past.  Artie's word was good enough. 

It was a perfect fit - an attractive young woman who had made a career out of sexual appeal; and men who could not resist it.  She was a master at the oxymoronic sexual twist - the demure, Armani-suited, cultured pearl look mixed with the slightly dirty innuendoes that had always hooked and reeled in the rubes.  There was money to be made here. 

Republicans she found were uninterested - they all had their women on the side, unabashed Trump-style squires of glitzy, Las Vegas women, bikinis-on-Rimini beauties who ventured all with no regrets - but Democrats couldn't keep away.  They knew they shouldn't have her and would be dunned out of their progressive cabals if found out, but that made her seductiveness even more irresistible.  

Never had these rubes from minor districts, so full of righteousness and defiant purpose, ever met a woman like her, a Mata Hari, a woman whose past was, despite Artie's quick wash, a bit mysterious.  A lap dance with her might be possible. 

And so it was that she moved successfully within the chambers and  through halls of power, admired, recommended, and hired by one representative after another until, suggested Artie, that she hit the big time, 1700 Pennsylvania, the White House.  There her future would be assured, a political internship par excellence, the foundation for a political career; and he knew just the door to open. 

For this big step up she would have to step down - sleeping with one of these clueless, horny men would simply have to be; but as she had done with the aldermen and legislators in Louisiana, she had learned to keep her eyes shut and her mouth open.  Artie was generous in his choice. Bob Harkins had the President's ear indirectly - his advice had to be filtered through a number of higher-placed intermediaries, but it eventually caught the President's notice - and would be the ideal cache.  At least she could start there. 

 

Bob was indeed a conflicted, lecherous, insanely jealous, incompetent suitor.  He, like most of his progressive colleagues, simply couldn't get over the feminist cant that had been part of his political training. No Means No, MeToo, and every other nostrum of faux femaleness were part and parcel of his baggage, and he had internalized their principles to such a degree that he was hamstrung by women.  He was, therefore, easy prey.  The former Starry Knight worked wonders on the man and before long he had jettisoned every last bit of intimidating feminist nonsense and gave in to her delights. 

"I will introduce you to the President", he said finally, once he had gained enough macho confidence to do so; and so, first en passant and then at tea, and then more formally, she met the President. 

By this time the President, perhaps unfairly but correctly dunned in the press for his growing mental debility and not quite sure what was what let alone what he was doing alone with this beautiful young woman in the Oval Office, was sorely tempted. Frustrated and angry at the Cotton Mather Puritanism of the progressive shills around him, and no less of an inexhaustible sexual dreamer than any of them, gave in; and more and more he was seen with Ms. Olson, a female Meet Joe Black character whose presence is permanent but never explained. 

Now, consort to a president, common enough in the France of Mitterrand and Sarkozy or the Russia of Vladimir Putin, and de rigeur in every Latin American country, was unheard of in the United States.  It simply was not done. JFK, LBJ, FDR and just about every president in US history had paramours, but none in residence.  Heady thought, that; but an impossible one even for a woman with the incomparable appeal of Margaret Olson.  And of course, there was Jill, and the man's age at which imaginings are the only sex available; but still, nothing was ever achieved without ambition. 

Of course nothing of the kind ever occurred.  Joe was as solid as a rock, moved to tears with desire, but progressive cant and impossibly moral righteousness were impossible to dismiss.  The President would simply have to be satisfied with her company. 

The President was roundly defeated for re-election and Donald Trump once again marched in to Washington with his cadre of beauty queens, Las Vegas runway divas, and glamorous Hollywood starlets.  Slim pickin's for Starry Knight.  The Democrats were a banquet of riches.  Too bad they were so badly trounced.