Every arm in the room snapped up. “Jane,” she said, pointing at the very pregnant Jane E. Stein from Fox News. “Okay, what?”

Stein wobbled out of her seat, glancing at her notes. She inhaled deeply, shook her head in disbelief, and then asked simply, “What happened? How could this happen?”

There wasn’t a sound in the room. In another life Eunice might have been the famed madam Polly Adler, the flamboyant character Diamond Lil, the restaurateur Elaine Kaufman or some mysterious Russian temptress. Those of us in the room had the good fortune of knowing her as a wise political operative who had promoted the chutzpah of a Jewish grandmother and the instincts of Catwoman into a successful career. She was a showwoman with situational ethics, which made Washington the perfect place for her to be: There was no place else in the country with more people for sale. She also understood she had one job: Protect the president.

Eunice cleared her throat; being somber wasn’t part of her shtick. She had the impossible task of threading a needle with an anchor chain. She couldn’t admit we were completely surprised, which would be admitting the most significant intelligence failure in our history; but she couldn’t claim we had any advance knowledge, either, and failed to act on it. “If we knew the answer, it wouldn’t have happened,” she said, flipping up her palms in wonder. “Here’s what I can tell you: We will get to the bottom of this. We will answer all of your questions.” She swept her hand around the room. “This isn’t the time for it, though. But what I am going to tell you is that there is a lot going on that I can’t tell you about.”

Ollie Casperson, the veteran MSNBC correspondent, went off-list to ask what steps the administration was considering to prevent another significant economic hit. The country had barely recovered from the full effects of the pandemic. The damage had been filtering through the entire economic sector for years. All the economic indicators had been flat for months. Unemployment was still over 7 percent, and the department stores had never fully reopened, causing malls to go out of business. Banks had been devastated by people defaulting on loans, which limited available capital and led to a depressed real estate market. Commodity prices were way up. Only the stock market had continued to do well, but these attacks were going to change that. Panic and fear drive the market down.

“Mind your own business, Ollie,” Kaufman responded pleasantly. Mind your own business was Wrightman’s basic economic philosophy; it is up to each person to tend to their own economic situation. He’d run on the premise that the government couldn’t possibly create a one-size-benefits-all program, and no one cares about your own situation more than you do. The most the government could do is create a climate in which business can flourish. “The president is well aware of the danger,” she continued, “and he has been conferring with his cabinet and financial industry leaders to determine when the markets can safely reopen. But he does want to reassure all Americans that our economy remains healthy.”