The Night Writer http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/ Illuminating fun, faith, family and foolishness. en-us 2009-06-03T18:06+00:00 The rule of law and the law of the jungle http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1244055053.shtml ... The Night Writer 2009-06-03T18:06+00:00 I was eating my Pop Tarts and reading a story in the Strib this morning when a thought popped into my head about the similarity between a violent, capital crime and violence against capital.

In the story a 17-year-old accused murderer has had charges against him dismissed because the witnesses are afraid to testify against him; one even left the state. Both the accused killer, Ramadan Abdi Shiekh Osman, and the victim, Ahmed Nur Ali, are members of the Somali community; Ali was an Augsburg student volunteering at the community center where the murder took place.

Now witness intimidation and the old self-preservation instinct are nothing new and certainly not unique to a particular ethnic group; it is the foundation of mob rule in any era or community. There's nothing especially unique about this particular story, either: justice is denied, the rule of law is flouted and a likely killer walks the streets. All of this because witnesses have learned a painful lesson and don't believe that law enforcement can protect them from reprisals and have therefore made themselves scarce or recanted their testimony. What may ultimately happen to the community as a result?

Now a neighborhood thug and the bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM — where the senior investors lost their legal standing for recovery by executive fiat — may look as if they are worlds apart, but I started to think about the "lessons" learned by the neighborhood witnesses, and if investors weren't learning the same lessons. That is, you have to depend on your own instincts and resources if you can't depend on the rule of law to look after you and preserve your community (or capital) when the prevailing gang gets to decide right and wrong and reward its friends and abuse its enemies. In the local community you clam up, lie low and even move away to avoid reprisals or becoming a target. In the investor community the equivalent is nearly the same: funds dry up, investors lie low and capital — being a lot more portable than an oppressed family — moves to a better neighborhood with less risk of confiscation.

And the community gets ugly, fast.


Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck."
— Robert A. Heinlein
]]> The Fairness Doctrine applied to bloggers http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1241649561.shtml ... The Night Writer 2009-05-06T22:05+00:00 David Foster at Chicago Boyz noted this disturbing news:

Obama has nominated Cass Sunstein, who he knows from the University of Chicago, to be “regulatory czar.” Apparently, Sunstein has proposed that web sites be required to link to opposing opinions. He has argued that the Internet is anti-democratic because users can choose to view only those opinions that they want to see, and has gone so far as to say:

A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government,” he wrote. “Democratic efforts to reduce the resulting problems ought not be rejected in freedom’s name.

The forced-linking proposal makes about as much sense as requiring that when you buy a political book at a bookstore, the store must also require you to buy books of contrary views. (And anyhow, how to you force the person to read the book or follow the link? Will there be a test? Penalties for failing to pass? Withdrawal of book-buying or web-browsing “privileges?”) Sunstein’s proposal is almost certainly unconstitutional–moreover, it is philosophically primitive. There are not one or two dissenting views from any opinion: there are thousands of them, incorporating widely differing conceptual frameworks. Who, in Sunstein’s world, would decide which views, as expressed by which authors, would be required to be linked? Probably either a government agency or a “service” run by a politically-well-connected corporation. A better way to suppress innovative thought would be difficult to imagine.

Fortunately, Sunsteim has backed away from this position and admitted its constitutional hurdles. This may or may not make you feel better, as Foster also says that Sunstein is also being considered as a candidate for the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice Souter.

HT: Stones Cry Out
]]> The Emperor's Groove http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1238450098.shtml ... The Night Writer 2009-03-30T21:03+00:00 It struck me the other day that the modern Disney classic The Emperor's New Groove, is a stunning forecast of the Obama administration, even though it was released at the dawning of the previous administration in 2000.

Now, I don't blog about politics too much because there are so many better bloggers out there with more fire and deeper insights than I, plus my own belief is that there's really not a nickel's worth of difference between the two major parties' ruling credo of "just win, baby." I am a big movie fan, however, and some of the recent political headlines started dovetailing with the great songs and dialog in the movie. Were the Disney studios eerily prescient in their allegorical (not Al-Gore-ical) forecast of an Obama administration, or did I simply spend too many hours in a car this weekend with too little to occupy my mind? You be the judge.

Submitted for your consideration, the following excerpts with President Obama as Emperor Kuzco, Senator Judd Greg as Pacha, Rahm Emanuel as Kronk and a host of "characters" that Obama has thrown under the bus represented by the emporer's ex-advisor, Yzma.

Kuzco's theme song: This was sung by the great Tom Jones, but the cartoon vocalist with his red-blond afro and over-the-top enthusiasm sounds a lot like Chris Matthews to me. Consider these lyrics (think "Big O" instead of "Kuzco"):

He was born and raised to rule
No one has ever been this cool
In a thousand years of aristocracy
An enigma and a mystery
In Meso American History
The quintessence of perfection that is he

He's the sovereign lord of the nation
He's the hippest dude in creation
He's a hep cat in the emperor's new clothes
Years of such selective breeding
Generations have been leading
To this miracle of life that we all know

What's his name?
Kuzco, Kuzco, Kuzco...

He's the sovereign lord of the nation
He's the hippest cat in creation
He's the alpha, the omega, a to z
And this perfect world will spin
Around his every little whim
'Cause this perfect world begins and ends with him

What's his name?
Kuzco, Kuzco, Kuzco...

Weird, huh? Well how about these lines of dialog (real names inserted for cartoon characters):

Pacha/Judd Gregg: Uh-oh.
Kuzco/Obama: Don't tell me. We're about to go over a huge waterfall.
Pacha/Gregg: Yep.
Kuzco/Obama: Sharp rocks at the bottom?
Pacha/Gregg: Most likely.
Kuzco/Obama: Bring it on.

[after the stock market's fallen into the alligator pit]
Kuzco/Obama: Why do we even have that lever?

Kuzco/Obama: Oh, and by the way, you're fired.
Yzma/Rick Wagoner: Fired? W-W-What do you mean, "fired"?
[Kuzco/Obama snaps his finger and a servant comes in and writes down Wagoner's "pink slip"]
Kuzco/Obama: Um, how else can I say it? "You're being let go." "Your department's being downsized." "You're part of an outplacement." "We're going in a different direction." "We're not picking up your option." Take your pick. I got more.

Kronk/Rahm Emanuel: Hey, it doesn't always have to be about you. This poor little guy's had it rough. Seems a talking llama/talk show host gave him a hard time the other day.

Kuzco/Obama voiceover: This is Carville, the emperor's advisor. Living proof that dinosaurs once roamed the Earth.

[Kuzko/Obama collides with an old man/Jim Cramer while dancing]
Kuzco/Obama: D'oh! You threw off my groove!
Palace Guard/Media: I'm sorry, but you've thrown off the Emperor's groove.
[the old man/Cramer is thrown out of the palace window]
Old Man/Cramer: Sooooorry!

Kuzco/Obama: When will you learn that all my ideas are good ones?
Pacha/Gregg: Well, that's funny. Because I thought that you going into the jungle by yourself, being chased by jaguars, lying to me to take you back to the palace were all really bad ideas.
Kuzco/Obama: Oh, yeah. Anything sounds bad when you say it with that attitude.

Pacha/Gregg: Why did I risk my life for a selfish brat like you? I was always taught that there was some good in everyone, but, oh, you proved me wrong.
Kuzco/Obama: Oh, boo-hoo. Now I feel really bad. Bad Obama.

Yzma/Rev. Wright: Why, I practically raised him.
Kronk/Emanuel: Yeah, you'd think he would've turned out better.
Yzma/Rev. Wright: Yeah, go figure.

I don't know about you, but right now I'm scrutinizing Monsters vs. Aliens for predictions of the next election.

]]> From taxing fortunes to taxing the "fortunate" http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1236209980.shtml In wartime it's common to try to dehumanize the enemy, calling them derogatory names and ascribing vile and fiendish character traits to them to make it easier to hate and, I... The Night Writer 2009-03-13T04:03+00:00
Of course, the definition of who the fortunate ones are can change according to the need at hand. The latest brainstorm of the economically illiterate, morally bankrupt yet somehow electable cotton-headed ninnymuggins in control of our government is that the lucky or evil greedos that get their health insurance through their employers (in other words, "people with jobs") are not paying their fair share of taxes for this benefit. According to a recent article in Business Insurance magazine:

Sen. Baucus looking at taxing health benefits
March 03, 2009

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—A senior Senate Democrat said Tuesday he would consider taxing U.S. workers on their employer-sponsored health insurance to help pay for extending coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

"I think that tax provision should be on the table," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, who will play a major role in writing the legislation to revamp the U.S. healthcare system as promised by President Barack Obama.

"It's too aggressive. It skews the system," he said of the tax benefit.

Most U.S. workers with health insurance get it through their employers — 160 million of them — although recent surveys have shown that number is declining as businesses try to cope with the rapidly rising cost of insurance.

As a matter of fact, 19% of employers say they plan to drop health benefits, while 38% say they are uncertain they'll be able to provide health benefits 10 years from now. Meanwhile, in the midst of a recession, the government is talking about wanting to essentially raise taxes on people who still have jobs, regardless of what those jobs pay. By the way, let's have a show of hands from everyone who thinks that the premiums you pay for your employer-sponsored health insurance are too low. Apparently being employed makes you one of the "rich" to be targeted by Congress and President Obama's cabinet of tax dodgers and community organizers — the people who have also promised a tax cut to "95%" of the country. Do you get the feeling they might not be very good with numbers?

Yet in another article about "Mad Max" Baucus and his cronies, the Washington Post reports:

In recent weeks, however, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), chairman of the tax-writing Finance Committee, has repeatedly advocated changing tax laws to include employer benefits, arguing that it makes sense to fund the health-care changes by sucking cash out of the existing system. Meanwhile, 13 other senators — from both sides of the aisle — have signed on to a plan for universal coverage that includes a tax on employer-provided benefits.

"I think it's extremely important from a credibility standpoint to show the American people that you're making savings in the enormous sums now being spent on health care before you go out and ask them for billions of dollars more," said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the sponsors of that proposal. "And I don't think I'm the only senator who feels that way."

What? How do you translate taking money out of the pockets of working Americans by making them pay more for their health insurance as "making savings"? Credibility is, indeed, a problem. Perhaps we'll find out how big a problem that is when the Obama administration weighs in, as the Post further reports:

So far, administration officials have been careful not to endorse the idea, which Obama blasted as a major tax increase last year after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) made it the centerpiece of his presidential campaign's health plan. But the president hasn't slammed the door on it, either.

This week, White House budget director Peter Orszag said taxing employer benefits was among several ideas that "most firmly should remain on the table." White House economic adviser Jason Furman called for an end to the so-called "employer exclusion" before he joined the administration. Meanwhile, some congressional Democrats say the White House has signaled that Obama would accept a tax on employer benefits as long as he didn't have to propose it himself.

Riiight. Congress passes the tax increase and President Obama merely comes in at the end and says it's "an imperfect bill" but something he has to sign anyway. It's almost enough to make you wonder how much of a grasp on reality our leaders have, and if they've ever had to enroll in a group health plan in recent years when employers are passing more and more of the costs on to employees. And then there's this:

Many economists and tax analysts have long argued for changing current tax law on health coverage, which disproportionately benefits wealthier workers. The law encourages people to enroll in the most comprehensive health plans on offer, the so-called Cadillac plans that provide vast coverage, mask the true cost of health care and contribute to skyrocketing costs.

I don't know about your job, but my benefit enrollment forms certainly don't encourage me to select the most comprehensive, or "Cadillac" plans offering "vast" coverage. As a matter of fact, I've chosen high deductible plans with an Health Savings Account (HSA) option the past several years to save money. Further, the so-called Cadillac plans aren't driven by consumer demand, but by state and federal government mandates that require additional coverage (and wait until you see the effects of the Mental Health Parity bill that was recently signed). If consumers were allowed to pick and choose the coverages they actually need the costs would go down. Somehow, however, once the money is on the table there's no way to get it back in your pocket.

Many lobbyists and others involved in the health-care debate say they see few other places to go for the kind of money that will be needed to meet Obama's demand for ambitious change. In their view, the question is not whether employer benefits will be taxed but how much of the benefit will be spared.

My personal opinion is that taxing employee benefits is not really intended to raise money for health care. It's meant to make the current system even more dysfunctional in the hopes that employers will be even more anxious to get out of the system and the public will desperately embrace change — specifically, universal health care.

I'm actually in favor of getting employers out of the business of proving health insurance...but I want to do it by dumping the whole third-party-payer model that is the main reason health care continues to skyrocket, and universal (aka "single-payer") health care does nothing to relieve that problem while simultaneously reducing the standard of care as I and others have pointed out before. Let's not forget that the reason we got into this health care predicament in the first place was because of government interference via wage and price controls in World War II that led employers to offer health insurance benefits as a way of attracting a limited pool of workers. That opened the door to the wasteful and expensive third-party-payer system we currently have, the inefficiencies of which can only be outdone by a government-run system.

]]> Wasting away again in an Obama-ville http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1236124402.shtml ... The Night Writer 2009-03-03T23:03+00:00 Obama: It's a Good Time to Buy Stocks

President Obama said Tuesday that now is a good time for investors to buy stocks if they focus on the big picture.

The Dow plunged Monday to its lowest level in 12 years.

"What you're now seeing is a profit and earnings ratios get to the point that buying stocks is a good thing if you have a long-term perspective on it," he said to reporters after meeting in the Oval Office with visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

That sounds very familiar. Let's access the ol' mental jukebox....ah, yes, Fred Waring and Pennsylvanians from 1932 with an Irving Berlin song called "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee":

Just around the corner,
There's a rainbow in the sky,
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie.

Trouble's like a bubble,
And the clouds will soon roll by,
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie.

Let a smile be your umbrella,
For it's just an April shower,
Even John D. Rockefeller
Is looking for the silver lining!

Mr. Herbert Hoover
Says that now's the time to buy,
So let's have another cup of coffee,
And let's have another piece of pie!

Back in the 1930s the shanty-towns of homeless people were called Hoovervilles. Perhaps tomorrow they'll be called Obama-villes, or maybe just "affordable housing."
]]> Remember when... http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1233933917.shtml ... The Night Writer 2009-02-06T15:02+00:00 Today is the birthday of Ronald Reagan; he would have been 98. We're also just barely past the 29th anniversary of his first inaugural address. Some highlights:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price.
...
We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.
...
Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work--work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.
...
On the eve of our struggle for independence a man who might have been one of the greatest among the Founding Fathers, Dr. Joseph Warren, president of the Massachusetts Congress, said to his fellow Americans, "Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of . . . On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important questions upon which rests the happiness and the liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves."

Amen.]]> The long way http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1212014094.shtml "I believe in the free speech that liberals used to believe in,... The Night Writer 2008-11-18T15:11+00:00 "I believe in the free speech that liberals used to believe in,
the economic freedom that conservatives used to believe in,
and the personal freedom that America used to believe in."
-- Doug Mataconis, Below the Beltway blog

The building where I work was envisioned by its famous architect to have two reflecting pools alongside it. Therefore it features two rectangular cement depressions on its west side. In the nearly 30 years that I've been coming to this site, "envisioning" the pools is about all you've been able to do because when they are filled with water they leak prodigiously and incorrigibly, despite many efforts over the decades to correct the problem. The property managers ultimately gave it up as a lost cause and left them empty, despite my suggestion that they would make wonderful planters.

Earlier this year, however, the building was sold to new owners who have taken up this grail. As a result workmen have been milling around for the last several weeks, measuring and marking and ultimately tearing up sections of the bottom of the pools; the short, repeated bursts of jackhammers on cement sounding just like the staccato ripping of a German MG42 in the WWII Brothers in Arms xBox game I like to play in my spare time. In the game when you hear that sound you get down or you die and I involuntarily ducked my head a couple of inches the first time I heard that rat-a-tat as I approached my office a couple of weeks ago.

The larger pool runs the length of the building, while the smaller is to the north, separated by a 30 foot wide plaza that leads to the portico at the front of the building. The plaza provides the path for me to get into the building as I walk from the light rail stop. A couple of weeks ago a tall, chain-link construction fence formed a parenthetical bracket along the north end of the large pool to keep gawking civilians out of the work area; for our safety, of course. Personally, I would be able to control myself and my curiosity enough to stay clear, but you know you can't trust the masses.

A day or two later a similar construction framed the south end of the smaller pool, creating a fenced path across the plaza, still about 30 feet wide. As construction has proceeded, however, the fences have been moved closer to each other as the plaza itself is bisected to lay a drain pipe. Last week we were down to an 8-foot-wide access across the plaza. Ugly, and a little inconvenient, but at least we could get through.

Today when I walked up the 8-foot access was gone and solid fencing extended all the way across the plaza. To get in I had to walk a quarter of a block around to the north and come up on the building from the other side while the chill November wind continued to abuse my ears. Tomorrow I'll come via the Skyway route from the train, which means, ironically, I'll actually take an underground tunnel for the last block to reach my objective.

It's been getting colder for some time now; it could be a long winter.

"I'm working so my grandchildren will have the same freedoms
my grandfather enjoyed."
--Rev. Dr. Tom Jestus
]]> It goes on http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1225992532.shtml ... The Night Writer 2008-11-06T17:11+00:00 Wednesday's Writer's Almanac featured a poem by Bruce Taylor entitled "Middle-Aged Men, Leaning." It begins:
They lean on rakes.
It's late, it is evening
already inside their houses.

The children are gone.
Their wives are on the phone
talking softly to someone else.

This frost, this early Fall
upon their minds, a small
measure of patience and regard

as if the twilight world
in bright papery pieces
diminished so and thus.

It caught my attention because my fingers and palms are still sore from all the yard work we did last weekend; yard work that had me leaning on rakes and shovels as well as standing on ladders, wrangling in brush piles and wrestling with awnings. It was a lot of hard, dirty work but we were blessed with an extended stretch of early September at the end of October, giving us the time we desperately needed to get the yard ready to host the Mall Diva's upcoming nuptials in the spring.

While Tiger Lilly, my wife and I worked on the gardens the Mall Diva and Ben cleared out the four flower beds in front of the house and planted tulip bulbs, happy in the thought of the rewards for their labor regardless of whatever hardships and depradations should be visited upon these by the winter, the squirrels or the administration.

A long, cold season may be ahead but there's so much promise on the other side of it. I've lived through many a winter now and quite a few temporal seasons of hope and change -- some of which even almost worked. I take any and all forecasts with as many grains of salt as I'll eventually pour on my sidewalk in the months ahead, but one thing I know for certain is that the head of my government has decreed that seedtime and harvest shall not cease as long as the earth remains.
]]> Fish House Economics: bail-outs and eelpouts http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1222135758.shtml ... The Night Writer 2008-09-23T02:09+00:00 I once lead a group of men up to Lake Mille Lacs for an ice-fishing weekend. Ice-fishing isn't necessarily a thrill a minute, or even a thrill an hour. To wile away the time when we weren't clubbing eelpout or steeling ourselves for a trip to the satellite, I devised a poker tournament.

The concept was simple. Each of the ten guys received $2500 in scrip to use for betting. At the end of the weekend we would use the scrip we'd accumulated to bid on prizes that I brought along. Scrip changed hands at a moderate rate for the first hour or so as we played conventional games such as five card draw and seven card stud. Then someone suggested a hand of "in-between".

For those not familiar with this type of poker, it is a very simple but diabolical game that calls for very little strategy but generates huge pots and sudden betting reversals that deliver the kind of belly laughs that normally accompany watching another guy take an unexpected shot to the - umm - mid-section. The way it works is a player is dealt two cards face up. He then bets any amount up to whatever is in the pot at the time on whether the next card will be "in-between" the two cards (a card the same value as one of the first two dealt counts as a loss). Sometimes a player would get a deuce/king split and brazenly bet the pot, only to see another deuce or an ace turn up (hilarity would ensue). He would then have to pay the amount in the pot, which fattened it up significantly for the next guy who got a wide split and an opportunity to bet on a "sure thing".

This soon became the game of choice among our group, and it wasn't long after that before our first guys tapped out. Since it was hours until dawn and the fish were fasting, "loans" were quickly arranged from the people with a big stack to those less fortunate so everyone could continue to play. Soon enough, the once wealthy were borrowing from other players as well so everyone could "stay in the game." Some effort was made to keep track of who owed what and to who, but it rapidly became so convoluted as to be impossible.

By the time we were ready to leave, even the guy who had the biggest stack at the end still owed many times that to other players, who themselves owed many of their neighbors. As we tried to reconstruct the transactions I got the idea to add up all the "loans" that had been passed around. Even though there was still only $25,000 in actual scrip, the total of all the loans was easily more than ten times that. The only way we could have settled every thing was for me to go back into town and hit the Kinko's to photocopy more scrip!

I don't know what made me remember this story.
]]> A strong recommendation for <i>The Strong Man</i> http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1219640787.shtml ... The Night Writer 2008-08-25T05:08+00:00
History means the endless rethinking — and re-viewing and revisiting — of the past. History, in the broad sense of the word, is revisionist. History involves multiple jeopardy that the law eschews: People and events are retried and retried again. --John Lukacs
I was in my early teens when the Watergate saga dominated the news and politics, setting the course of the style and tone of political reporting we take for granted today. You couldn't avoid the story as it played out, though eventually my attention would not extend much beyond the headlines as things such as girls and getting my driver's license became more important.

Then, a couple of months ago I heard Hugh Hewitt interviewing author James Rosen about his just released book, "The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate." At first my long-buried, reflexive mental eye-glazing at the mention of the word "Watergate" had me tuning out but some of Rosen's statements piqued my interest. Watergate was one of the defining and far-reaching events of our modern history and Mitchell was, next to Nixon, the central character in the drama — yet little was known about him. He himself was largely close-mouthed and much of the testimony by others about his role and involvement was contradictory and self-serving. As I listened to the interview I had to admit that it would be fascinating to get a look at what went on in the mind and life of the man who was the Attorney General not just for Watergate, but also the era of school desegregation battles, campus unrest and Kent State, and the investigations of historical figures such as Lt. William Calley and Jimmy Hoffa.

Before it could slip from my mind I went on-line and requested a copy of the book from my local library (it had yet to be purchased). A couple of weeks ago I was notified the book was waiting for me and I picked it up. I was finishing another book at the time so I didn't turn to The Strong Man right away. My borrowing period was almost up when I started to read it and I was so taken with the Prologue that I immediately tried to renew the book, only to find that I couldn't because others were waiting for it. Rats! I seriously thought about keeping the book until I was finished and just paying the fines, but realized that was selfish and inconsiderate of me when other people are waiting. From what I've read so far, I think people are going to be very happy to get their hands on this as soon as they can. I'm turning it back in — and I've got my name back on the waiting list!

The Prologue does a great job of setting the scene and outlining the significance of Mitchell's historical role and the irony of there being so little examination of it. Some of this was due to Mitchell's own reticence, so unlike his contemporaries:

Equally unlike his fellow Watergate convicts, Mitchell never published a book about his years in power, never sold his soul to pay lawyer's fees, never dished dirt on Richard Nixon to delight university audiences on the lecture circuit or viewers of The Mike Douglas Show. He never "found God." In electing to tough it out, one columnist wrote, Mitchell stood "up to his hips in midgets among the other Watergate characters...dividing the men from the boys." "Among the WASP Westchester country club Mafia," another columnist observed of Mitchell's behavior in Watergate, "the code of omertà holds." Richard Nixon, toasting his former attorney general at a post-prison party he threw for Mitchell in San Clemente, put it simplest: "John Mitchell has friends — and he stands by them."

No biographer even contacted him, though three books were written about his wife Martha, "an emotionally disturbed alcoholic whose late-night crank calls splashed her face across the front pages of every newspaper and magazine in the country."

Stunningly, no one bothered to chronicle the life of John Mitchell: child of the Depression, World War II combat veteran; Wall Street innovator; gray-flannel power broker to governors and mayors in all fifty states; Richard Nixon's law partner, consigliere, and winning campaign manager in 1968 and 1972; America's top cop, as attorney general, during the Days of Rage, the May Day riots, and the Pentagon Papers; and Public Enemy Number One when, in the words of a British observer, "the great black cloud of Watergate seemed to settle over America like a kind of grand judgment, not just on Nixon himself, but on the whole of post-war America."

In fact, Rosen notes,

John Mitchell bore witness to the most searing political turmoil in America since the Civil War. After all, it was Mitchell who ran the Department of Justice, and the administration of justice in those years occupies the central role in all lingering controversies from that era: Was justice done in the enforcement of school desegregation and antitrust laws? In the battles against antiwar protesters and radical groups? At Kent State and Jackson State? In the cases of Daniel Ellsberg and Lt. William Calley, Jimmy Hoffa and Robert Vesco, Abe Fortas and Clement Haynsworth, John Lennon and the Berrigan brothers, the Black Panthers and ITT?

Rosen devoted two decades to researching and writing the book, poring over relevant secondary sources such as the 500 books written about Watergate, Nixon, the 60s, and the countless newspaper and magazine articles from that time. Additionally, he interviewed

... 250 people, including two presidents, a vice president, two chief justices, three secretaries of state, two CIA directors, and a great many staff members of the Nixon White House and the Committee to Re-elect the President ... Also questioned were party officials and secretaries employed at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in June of 1972. These sessions included the only extensive interviews ever conducted with the woman whose telephone was wiretapped in the Watergate break-in and surveillance operation and more than eight hours of interviews with the only man who monitored the wiretap.

He also used the Freedom of Information act to get access to thousands of undisclosed documents from the Nixon Presidential Materials Project, including all of Haldeman's and Ehrlichman's 200,000 pages of hand-written notes from their meetings with the President. His research even included the internal files of the staff lawyers on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and sworn testimonies from closed-door executive sessions of the Senate Watergate committee. He claims to know "what the WSPF lawyers knew about Watergate and when they knew it." These details showed key witnesses consciously changing their testimony to implicate Mitchell and hide their own actions. Finally, he had Mitchell's own private correspondence from prison, as well as Mitchell's tax returns and other de-classified documents. While he hints at revelations and developments in the prologue it is clear, in Rosen's own words, "Assuredly (this)... is not your father's Watergate."

Whereas the mention of Watergate used to bore me senseless, I am now excited to get this book back in my hands. It's almost as if I've discovered a long-last family album labeled with the names of people I half-remember that promises to explain the past...and describe the future. Oh, hell, forget the library. I may have to buy the book!]]>