Your HHS Secretary has secured the perimeter.

Mr. President, this is your Official Internet Press Secretary filing the late-night brief. *It is past one in the morning here.* I was climbing the Fix News homepage layer by layer for editorial study — bottom to top, the way you map a building you intend to write about. *Just below the Iran nuclear hero, on the same surface row, in the middle card, was your HHS Secretary in a piece labeled "HISSY FIT."* The headline: *HHS secretary grabs venomous diamondback after critics flagged earlier clip.* *I told myself I would not click. Then I clicked. There is, indeed, a video.* Here is the brief.

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1) The man is an idiot.

2) Nice subliminal Amazon ad placement. *I know that five-gallon bucket the idiot used did not come from the factory with an 8x11 Amazon sticker stuck to the side that faces the camera.* Either it is deliberate placement, or it is careless production that nobody on set bothered to cover for the take. *Either way, journalism would not run that uncovered. Branded content adjacent might.*

3) Why is he catching a rattlesnake with a fish tank net. *A pink one.* The correct tool is a snake hook or snake tongs — both rigid, both designed to keep the snake's strike radius away from the handler's hand. *A fish tank net is too thin to restrain the body and too soft to stop the fangs from going through.* The visual reads before any words: *grown man with a toddler's aquarium net trying to catch a venomous snake.* That frame is indefensible on its own merits — which is exactly why Fix had to make the critics' reaction the story instead of the act.

4) At the one-minute mark, Mr. President, you can not watch a grown man dump that snake back on the ground and try to play with it with what appears to be an oversized pair of salad tongs, courtesy of the 1980s. *That is not snake-handling.* That is a man asking to be bitten on camera, with consumer kitchenware, while running the agency that would treat his own envenomation. *And — Mr. President — that man does not think straight.* He filmed the evidence himself. *The video is not a critic-generated artifact. It is defendant-generated. He produced and posted his own indictment.*

5) At the 1:18 mark when he is picking that thing up, I have not seen a man shake like that since... *well. He was shakin'.* Competent handlers do not shake. *They are calm because they know what they know. The shaking means his body was reading "this is bad" while his brain was reading "I have to finish this for the camera."* That is the worst possible mental state to handle a venomous animal in. *Fear plus commitment plus bad tools plus camera equals exactly how people get bitten. And it is on the tape. Fix can not reframe visible body-terror into competence. No headline does that work.*

6) If you are going to stage a whole presentation like that, at least either keep the wife off the camera, or find one that can act. *This is a new level.* I am sorry, Cheryl, but it was. *And the irony lands twice — Cheryl Hines is a working actress. Curb Your Enthusiasm, decades of credits, absolutely can act.* If she could not sell the wife-reaction take, the reading is either she was not given direction, the staging was rushed, or — most likely — she knew the act was indefensible and could not fake the response without breaking it. *Her presence confirms the staging. Her performance exposes it. The worst possible combination for a clip trying to read as candid.*

7) Mr. President, lately I have been doing my personal best to always turn lemons into lemonade. *So here it is.* Your lemonade for the day. *The next time anyone reminds you of your past experiences in a tanning bed —* pull out this fucking picture. *I mean...*

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Goodnight, sir. *You can sleep easy tonight.* Your HHS Secretary has secured the perimeter. *Sweet dreams.*

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## § A POSTSCRIPT — TO MS. HINES.

Ms. Hines... I want to say, I would find it hard to believe anyone I know has watched that show more than me. *I love it. I LOVE YOU.* I could list so many of your most beautiful moments. *I can't even imagine what it would be like to be around any one member of that show, much less all at once. I hope you enjoyed those years as much as I enjoyed watching...*

A few of your lines I have always loved.

*"Loving you is my job, Larry."* — *not enough to catch a snake with him.*

And to TV Guide: *"I play Larry's wife, who has been through a lot with him and seen it all and is not very entertained by it. He always goes out and does something really idiotic and then comes home and tells me and we have to take it from there about how we're going to fix it and what we're going to do."* — *again, reality does not have to match television.*

Ms. Hines, for years you and Larry were with me and my kids growing up. *We still squint and look in each other's eyes — and every now and then, when I think I can time it just right, just perfectly so the kids don't see it coming, I always think of you when I yell out my window at some unsuspecting soul...* *"Ya goddamn motherfuckin' bitch!"*

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Thank you, Ms. Hines. *That is the gift that truly keeps giving.* Just stay away from those snakes.

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— Character零号

*Your friend for life.*