Advantures in Household Maintenance

Sometimes, things just go right. Don't expect it, but when it happens, celebrate it! This is my celebratory note.

When something goes wrong with a washing machine, it seldom makes sense to fix it, other than a clogged drainage or something simple like that. An excellent new machine costs around $1,000, and repairs are several hundred at least, and then you don't have a new machine. Ours was 7 or 8 years old, so we needed to replacement when the old Samsung didn't drain and gave strange messages that the machine wasn't aligned. Wha?

We called Friedman's, one of several major suppliers of appliances around here. Competition keeps prices in line and service level high. I called on Tuesday, I think. They had one of the Consumers' Report highest rated machines, an Electrolux (Swedish company!), expected to arrive on Friday. They could give Saturday delivery and installation, if all went well. I asked if they could give me a deal, they said they'd make installation and carting away old machine free. Great! Done! But still contingent on arrival, and with COVID....

Friday evening got the message – will you be available 11-2 tomorrow, Saturday, for delivery? You bet!

Then, amazingly, around 12:15 the next day, got message, truck will be arriving with delivery in about 15 minutes. Truck arrives, two young guys, engaging and respectful, masks on when they exit the truck, come on up to the second floor and inspect the site. Uh, ohh, says the lead guy, Alphonso – your valve is so corroded, I don't want to mess with that – in fact, as I try to unscrew it, it seems I can't – so you need to fix that before we can install. 

 

 

Tell you what, says Alphonso, can we bring the new machine in and put it somewhere (adjacent room was available), so that when new team comes to install it's easier? If you get service on Monday, they should be able to come out in a day or two and install. Sure, I said, looks like I need a plumber. They lug the new machine up the stairs and drive off.

I call a plumber, young guy on his own, who has done some work for us before, Andy Gasca. It's Saturday, but he picks up immediately. OK, he says, I'm just finishing up a job now, I'll see you at your house in about 15 minutes. 15 minutes!! Saturday! Who are we, the White House?

So he came, saw the deal, got to work, had the appropriate replacement valve right in his truck, needed to use an acetylene torch to cut some of the metal, who knows what, and in less than an hour, we had a new valve ready to go. His charge? Standard $175 fee for all visits with one hour minimum, plus parts.

I call the delivery guys, Alphonso and Johnny, on the phone they had used to message me. They don't pick up. “Send them a message,” advises Andy. I do. I don't hear anything, I call out to my Friedman's salesman who isn't in, I call their central office, they take the message and refer me to the warehouse to see if something is available today, but there's only a recording there. I leave a message. Oh, well, it'll only be a few days, and we don't generate so much laundry.

Then, late afternoon, I'm on the way back from McDonald's with my wife's favorite meal, and who's on the phone but Alphonso! Hey, he says, we're at the end of our day and we can come by and do the installation. What?? How long? We'll be there in 10 minutes. They come, they lug the old Samsung out, connect the hot and cold water lines into the brand new valves, balance it, and guess what? We're functional!

 

One takeaway – competition works. Friedman's and Andy both have to compete. And personal pride in workmanship and service works, too. Andy and Alphonso take deserved pride in their work. And they sure made this ordinary consumer very, very happy.

I'm running that first load right now. Hoping not to find a flood.

Then I'll pay attention to the coming impeachment....

Budd Shenkin

Revising The Pardon - the Hill article

David Levine and I have worked on our proposal to revise the power of the pardon for a long time now.  We wrote a 6,000 word article for the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, and an oped for the East Bay Time.  Now we have been lucky enough to have our latest effort published in The Hill, the online publication for politics and policy that is widely read in Washington.  We are very pleased, and we hope that our proposal now will appear on the menu of those who see the need to reform the pardon -- that's all you can ask, that it get serious consideration. 

Our proposal has two sections.  The first is that all pardons receive the cosignature of the Speaker of the House.  The second is that altering the power of the pardon be subject to ordinary legislative operations, and that amending the constitution no longer be required.  Personally, I think it would be good to forbid pardons in the lame duck period.  If our amendment were accepted, then a majority vote of House and Senate and the signature of the President could effect that change -- note, the President could veto that bill, but it could also be overridden.

An additional note: the pardon has other problems.  Margaret Love, who used to be director of the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice, notes that the bureaucratic process of applying to her former office for the pardon, the process of review and recommendation, used to work tolerably well, but declined severely under Bill Clinton and never really recovered.  She thinks that paying attention to strengthening that process would be salubrious.  In addition, she says that there should be a way within the judicial system to right wrongs of sentencing and dispense routine mercy, and that we should not have to leap to the pardon mechanism.  I think she makes some good points.

Here is the link to our article in The Hill.  An attractive aspect of this article, I think, is that we supply the specific language for our proposal.  Take a look!  

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/534441-revising-the-pardon-power-let-the-speaker-and-congress-have-voices 

Budd Shenkin

The Presidential Pardon - Uses and Abuses

As was easily foreseeable, Trump has made the power of the pardon a center of attention. When we saw what was going to happen, David Levine and I wrote a paper that gave the necessary background and proposed a solution: we proposed the Constitution be amended to require that all presidential pardons receive the co-signature of the Speaker of the House to become effective.

In this post I want to state succinctly the legitimate aims of a pardon, and its dangers.

The power of the pardon is surprisingly complex. The most legitimate aims of pardoning are:

• to extend mercy for its own sake, perhaps to rectify either a faulty conviction or a too-severe sentence.

• to extend mercy for state purposes, as did George Washington with the Whiskey Rebellion, Lincoln and Johnson with the Civil War, and Carter with Vietnam draft evaders, to quell dissent and bring dissidents back into the fold.

There are also subtle effects of the pardon that can be positive. Extending a pardon demonstrates and strengthens the perception of sovereignty – he or she who extends mercy is clearly in charge. Extending a pardon can also enhance one's credentials for beneficence. As we can see from Trump's actions, extending a pardon can be very theatrical, a flagrant display of power and sovereignty, the real life equivalent of deus ex machina. This display can be a positive, because in the end, the bedrock requirement of government is that of sovereignty. Who gets to rule, and by what right? In this sense, even in extending pardon, one strengthens the legitimacy of the state, and enhances its obvious power to do good.

Even when the pardon is used legitimately, however, there are hazards.

• Just as sovereignty is central to the state, so is respect for the laws. Yet the intervention of a pardon by its very nature undermines respect for law in favor of an individual judgement – which led 16^th century French political theorist Jean Bodin to oppose pardons completely.

• The pardon can also seem unfair to those in a similar situation who go unpardoned, and if the pardon involves someone who hurt someone else, then the injured person certainly can feel additionally burdened.

• The pardon can locate sovereignty in one section of government to the detriment of another – lodge it with the President, and the legislative branch is diminished, and vice-versa. One solution for this is to de-theatricalize and bureaucratize the power, as it has been through the Office of the Pardon Attorney in DOJ for over 100 years.

• The pardon can also be unwise. Without extracting remorse and guilt, the pardon can enable a miscreant not to lose prestige, and enable them to continue the harm they have already done. Hard as it may be to say, some people just need to be locked up.

Even more nefarious, of course, is when the pardon is used for illegitimate purposes.

• The pardon can be used for personal and political purposes. Constitutional Congress member George Mason raised the question of how the president might use the pardon illegitimately, and the constitution as written does exclude pardons “in the case of impeachment,” but this is in the process of proving wholly inadequate. Pardons have been used to protect a president from investigation (Iran-Contra), and the lure of a pardon has done the same (Trump.) Hamilton's responses, that the prospect of opprobrium and the possibility of impeachment as retardants to such actions, ring false to us today. The honor system does not work when the officials have no sense of honor.

• A second illegitimate use is even more insidious – what if the pardoner disagrees with a law itself, and pardons as a virtual veto of that law? Would the pardon serve as a lever to override the other branches of government, as does the Arpaio pardon? This is an even worse transgression that self-interest, because it's effect is to bring down the very structure of the government. Again, the honor system is proving insufficient.

As revisions to the pardon system are considered, it would be well to keep these considerations in mind. In history the power to pardon has not always rested simply with a King or President or Governor. It is possible to lodge it with other branches of government and to decrease its chances for being abused. There may be times when an unbounded ability to pardon can be justified, and others when more guardrails need to be in place.

Budd Shenkin

Post-Trump Reforms: Can Trump Be Prosecuted?

 

I have been all for prosecuting Trump. My argument has been, aside from visceral pleasure, that nothing says “wrong” like conviction and, hopefully, jail. Trump’s improprieties are manifest; it's only a question of picking which ones rise to the level of federal crimes and which are worth prosecuting.

What are the consequences of not prosecuting? I point to the comparison between Watergate and Iran-Contra. In Watergate, the law took its course, first under Archie Cox, then under Leon Jaworski. Convictions were obtained, jail time was served, front page pictures were rife. Many savored the perp walks. People were changed by their incarcerations. Charles Colson found God and prison reform. John Dean was steeled for a life of chastened righteousness and wisdom. Others simply lived with the ignominy; some were better for the ordeal, some not. It was a righteous result.

In addition, there were far-reaching, significant Watergate reforms, including the Inspector General system. And moreover, Watergate retains a stench. Say “Watergate,” and you can smell it. If they hadn't followed the law and let it ride, the stench would not have lingered.

The Nixon pardon was something else. It was bad politics then, and it was bad policy for all-time. If Ford, never known for his perspicacity, had worked out the possible consequences, not he, but some on his brain trust, might have foreseen that at some time in the future, if another President broke the law, the question of immunity might come up, and it would be a question rather than a certainty. As we now look back, we don't say, “Prosecute Trump, of course. What he has done was worse than Nixon, and Nixon was convicted.” He might not have served jail time, but conviction would have served as an important precedent of a misbehaving President.

For contrast, see Iran-Contra. Iran-Contra is a cautionary tale where pardons interrupted the course of justice for crimes against the constitution by high-ranking officials, possibly involving Vice-President George H. W. Bush, and possibly involving President Ronald Reagan. Taking advice from then-Attorney General Bill Barr, to the furious consternation of the investigators who were taking the case forward, on Christmas Eve of 1992, the month after he had been defeated for a second term by Bill Clinton, Bush pardoned the guilty officials and froze any investigation into himself.

Who were those he pardoned? Who remembers? But we should. Bush's line of explanation was so lame: “[The] common denominator of their motivation—whether their actions were right or wrong—was patriotism.” He criticized the years-long investigation run by Walsh as reflective of “what I believe is a profoundly troubling development in the political and legal climate of our country: the criminalization of policy differences.”

Who remembers what former judge Lawrence Walsh, the Independent Counsel who was pursuing the case, said at the time?

“[The] pardon of Caspar Weinberger and other Iran-contra defendants undermines the principle that no man is above the law. It demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office—deliberately abusing the public trust without consequence. Weinberger, who faced four felony charges, deserved to be tried by a jury of citizens.” He concluded, “The Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed with the pardon of Caspar Weinberger.”

The answer to that question is: not many remember. The message was, as opposed to the message of Watergate, what Walsh said it was – the powerful can be above the law.

Therefore, what I have thought is that under Biden and whoever comes after him, justice must take its course. No accepting whatever pardons Trump might issue, no “forgive and forget,” no “let's move on,” no “the future rather than the past.” The past matters an awful lot when it comes to the future.

But, now comes this New York Times oped by law professor Eric Posner that says that pursuing Trump might not be so easy as we think it is.

 

 

The constitution is intentionally vague on exactly what presidential crimes might be, the powers of the President have been increasingly expansive, and courts are reluctant to act against a President. Posner focuses on charges of obstruction of justice, bribery and extortion in dealing with the Ukraine, and emoluments. These would be tough cases, he says. They seem more solid to me than they do to him, but he's the law professor, and he's probably right. He says that what would be needed for successful prosecution would be crystal clear cases. Bringing a case against Trump where Trump might have a decent chance of beating the rap would be a mistake, Posner says, and I agree. Trump walking triumphantly out of federal court would be a horror show.

In addition to which, what Posner doesn't mention, is the apparent imminence of pardons, almost certainly for Trump’s friends and family, and quite possibly for himself. The self-pardon ultimately would go to the Supreme Court if he were to be accused of committing a federal crime. Even if the ruling went against him, the time spent determining the validity of the self-pardon would probably take Trump well along in his remaining natural life. The friends and family pardons, if appropriately constructed, will probably protect the miscreants from being prosecuted federally.

In other words, it seems probable that the whole Trump spree while in the White House will go unprosecuted in federal venues. The Trump post-transgression period will certainly not resemble Watergate, and might be even more benign to the perpetrators than the Iran-Contra fiasco, where at least there were some charges and some guilty pleas and sentences, although they were very light ones. In other words, the message to future Presidents will be, you are above the law, do what you want, you are impervious.

So, where does that leave us? Up the creek? Maybe so, when it comes to federal legal actions against the Trumps and other pardonees. But what Trump has done is so much more inimical to the integrity of the country under the constitution that either Watergate or Iran-Contra, that even if perp-walks and convictions and orange jumpsuits are not in the cards, the country needs and deserves constant spotlights on the depredations. (If state and local legal actions against the Trumps are successful, as they probably will be, this will help.) It could start with a Post-Trump Reforms Commission. List the depredations, harp on them, focus on what happens when you are on the honor system and a dishonorable group takes over assign responsibility, and fix the problems. Let everyone know very clearly what the depredations were. If the laws are too vague, that can't stop the repair process. You can't face the future with a limp.

But just because the legal system as currently constructed might protect the Trumps from federal prosecution, that doesn't mean that the country should be vulnerable to a replay with someone else. What we need to do is to take the obvious miscarriage of justice as a guidepost for enacting Post Trump Reforms. I have suggested a menu for Post Trump Reforms here. Included in those suggested reforms are detailing in more specific legislation what is required in cooperating with investigations, what exactly are the prohibited activities in consorting with foreign countries in influencing our elections, what are prohibited emoluments. Along with the enumeration of details, specific and severe criminal penalties also need to be specified. David Levine and I have suggested reforms to the pardon power, requiring the Speaker of the House to cosign all pardons, here.

Naturally, the Posner article impelled David and me to send a response in to the New York Times. We assume it won't be published – too much competition. But no matter; we like it, and you might, too. It reiterates some of the points I just made, but its brevity and cogency make it worth printing here.

To the Editor:

 

Eric Posner might well be right that Trump's violations might not be prosecutable successfully under current federal law. The Founders relied on good character and the threat of public disgrace to rein in high public officials. Unfortunately, those moral guardrails are sometimes insufficient. Even if Trump is beyond reach today, for the future, we need to strengthen those guardrails with more specific laws and remedies. 

 

For starters, Congress should spell out what emoluments are; spell out what constitutes illegally cooperating with foreign governments; spell out what truthful cooperation with Congress and investigators requires.  Legislation should enhance deterrence by making presidents subject to fines and prison for violating these clear rules, if not during the term of office, then afterwards.  While the President is in office, legislation should prescribe expeditious court consideration of inter-branch disputes, so that courts can issue orders promptly for real-time corrective compliance. 

 

We need a strong and effective chief executive, but we also need a non-abusive one. 

Budd Shenkin

with aid, additions, and edits by David Levine

The Morning After

 

Today, after the declaration and the speeches last night, I'm feeling very positive.  As a doctor, and as an aging man, I understand the relief when you finally see that turd circling the porcelain bowl, and you look forward to breathing freely and eating without pain.

Will we simply revert to the past, let norms reappear, the same old people?  I doubt it.  We will have scars, but we will also have muscle regrowth, maybe some bone regrowth, new tissues.  I generally don't like ID politics, but it has a place.  The women are right - little girls need to see someone like Kamala there, to reify in themselves that they are not second class citizens.  Same for the other identities who have been shadowed by discrimination.  It's important.  The new cabinet will be something!

The policies now will take center stage, and rightfully so.  That's the muscle regrowth.  But the bones of democracy need to be made stronger, so a smarter and craftier would-be fascist leader doesn't emerge.  This was my attempt to point a way toward that: http://buddshenkin.blogspot.com/2020/05/planning-for-post-trump-reforms.html.  Or, if you just want the executive summary: http://buddshenkin.blogspot.com/2020/05/post-trump-reforms-executive-summary.html.  Trump gave us the MRI of where the holes are; now to fill them.

I would add to the list that I offered in the posts that we now need to act in selected places similar to what the Allies did in Germany post WW II – de-Nazification.  ICE, CBP, some police departments, most police unions.  That means identify, reeducate or remove, and indict where indicated.  Plus new rules, and especially new education.  My Assistant District Attorney stepson says it's the indoctrination.  They strip them down and then build them back up "the police way."  What that way is needs to change.

And for continuing entertainment and endorphin release, let the trials begin!  We need a balanced commission to spotlight all the depredations without being susceptible to charges of partisanship.  I want an American Nuremberg!  I want a Trump wing at Sing-Sing, or Leavenworth. Nothing say wrong better than jail.

And we'll have to find a way to deal with pardons.  I wonder if my suggestion of a constitutional amendment to require that pardons to bear the co-signature of the Speaker of the House, and to forbid pardons in the lame-duck period, will get legs.  Long shot, but desirable.  

The new policies that emerge will be different and leftier than before.  The most urgent is COVID-19, where scientists will take over, CDC will be repopulated, and a sustained march to federal drums will ultimately work. In the meanwhile more focused, nuanced, and intelligent economic support will be needed. We'll have to see if the Senate is willing without adding poison pills. It will be messy and depressing, but we'll have to remember how it used to be, and bless the change.

That's the urgent. The ultimately most important to deal with is climate change. Here, Biden will have to find a way to package the general idea of Green New Deal – making money by doing the right thing – without the lefty label. He'll have to convince energy companies that they are indeed energy companies and not oil and gas companies. If he helps them find a way to make money doing the right thing, they will bend the legislative branch the way they always have. Exxon solar panels installed by newly trained rural laborers could go a long way.

It's interesting that the most urgent and the most important – COVID and climate change – both turn on the same hinge – yes, it's important, but what about the economy? Ways will be found with proper leadership, which is what's been missing. Grab them by their money and their hearts and minds will follow.

For general domestic policy, I remember what Martin Amis said in a book on Russia decades ago.  He listened to an older Russian woman who was listening to the young, who said, "They are saying, no one should be rich.  When I was young, we said, no one should be poor."  When I listen to the vitriol Elizabeth Warren spills when she talks about the rich, her eyes flashing, I understand what she must have experienced when she looked at the terrible policies of selfishness and the self-congratulation of the money lenders, but nonetheless, I am repelled and fearful.  Vitriol and bile do not good policy make.  I'm glad it was Biden.

For a general guide, I think it makes sense to update the Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom from Want.  My policy guide could be called:

The Policy of Nobody

Nobody should be a second class citizen.

Nobody should be without health care.

Nobody should lack education because of money.

Nobody should be food insecure.

Nobody should lack shelter.

Nobody should lack possibilities.

The future should be good.

Budd Shenkin

The Metaphor of Qanon

 

Qanon sounds Onion-esque. Qanon “alleges, falsely, that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring.” I even understand that “pizzagate” is still operative in the Qanon canon, which alleges that Hillary Clinton operates the child sex ring out of a pizzaria in Washington, D.C. Right – child sex-trafficking rackets headed by Hillary Clinton, drinking blood, worshipping Satan. Sure. Anyone really believe that?

Well, apparently a lot of people do. The other night I saw TV interviews with “suburban women” who believed it. My mouth got stuck in the open position and my head got stuck in the rock back and forth mode. How stupid can these people be? What on earth could induce anyone to believe this crap? When a “suburban woman” was asked if she believed it was true, she answered “I wish it wasn't,” and Brian Williams reacted on camera by shaking his lowered head in abject disbelief.

Me, after watching those amazing interviews I went to bed and finished up Bob Reich's latest book, The System. (He's an acquaintance, hence “Bob.” Probably the only famous person I know, slightly. Although I did meet Steve Kerr last year and we joked with each other.) He is such a cogent writer. In The System, he makes the familiar observation is that in the last 40 years inequality has skyrocketed, the powerful have become even more so, and the rich have succeeded in persistently changing the rules in their favor. As a result, the working class and the poor have gotten royally screwed.

Among the causal factors he cites are companies adopting the Milton Friedman viewpoint of shareholder power (as against stakeholder power, with the resulting orientation that nothing else matters except the stock price), the shift of power to management over workers as unions decline (under pressure), and governmental deregulation (under persistent corporate pressure). The result is that the very rich garner nearly all of the increasing wealth of our society; hence, the inequality.

What legitimizes the results? One is the belief system of market fundamentalism. Despite all the advantages nurtured by the favored to ensure their success, the belief is promulgated that the market is basically a fair test for all, and if you succeed you must have deserved it. I think Reich mentions the similarity of this belief to the divine right of kings.

The second legitimation comes from bribery. If you are one of the beneficiaries of the system – a highly paid lawyer, say – even though you don't have the power directly, you are hired at a high price and thus quite ready to support the system. While they see themselves as professionals of the highest ethical values, their functions are essentially those of enablers.

The third legitimation is manufactured threats from “the other” – immigrants, minorities, visible enemies to divert attention from the invisible oppressing oligarchy.

It's a very convincing and beautifully written book. I finished it and went to sleep.

I don't know what I dreamed, but I must have dreamed, or dreamily thought about the book and the interviews. Night thinking can be the clearest. I might have thought about the passion of Bob Woodward imploring that Trump supporters must be taken seriously and understood. I might have thought about what Reich says about Arlee Hochshield's book about the intimate lives of the afflicted in society, how they are not necessarily racist, mostly just afflicted.

Whatever it was, when I woke up, I thought I might have an answer of sorts for what had set Williams' head to bobbing. Yes, the Qanon beliefs are more than absurd, who would believe them? Of course it's tempting, and not wholly incorrect, to say that these people must be incredibly stupid and credulous and insulated from the world at large if they harbor Qanon beliefs. But it's also true that when we think people are stupid, sometimes what we think of as stupid thinking can really just be alternative thinking, not alternative facts in the imbecilic Kellyanne Conway assertion, but alternative thinking. I thought that when we “listen to them,” we need to use our imagination to understand what they are saying.

I thought, did the Greeks really believe there were a bunch of gallivanting immortals on Mount Olympus, fighting with each other and visiting earth, seducing mortals and constantly intervening? What about the story of the Virgin Birth – any takers? But while these stories might be fanciful, that doesn't mean they are not powerful. Millions of people find them full of truths. They are metaphors. You might not imbibe all the stories, but you still entertain them, because they are part of a larger perception, a larger orientation.

So I thought, what if we think about Qanon as a metaphor. Reich's book outlines quite well the pressures on the middle class trying to keep afloat as the wealth goes elsewhere, just as Woodward described. The women leave home and work, everyone works longer hours, and families draw down savings and borrow (until 2008, anyway). And they get angry. They can't put it all together the way Reich can, but they sense it. So when they hear a story, they listen. Elites draining the life out of the lower classes? Check. That their dreams have been stolen, and their dreams for their children, and that they have all even been defiled? Check.

They might not be the smartest or most capable people in the world, but nonetheless, they deserve a hell of a lot better than what they are getting. The world is getting richer, there is enough wealth available so that everyone could have a secure and satisfying life, but instead of that, the rich are keeping everything for themselves, and these working class people and middle class people are living very hard, insecure lives with no enticing future to even hope for. So if you were going to have a dream to encapsulate all that, wouldn't the Qanon fantasy fill the bill? The elite is in on it, all of them. They are sucking our blood, they are taking our children.

So, as with The Book of Mormon – it's a metaphor. We can call them credulous and unsophisticated, but we could also just say that people think differently. Everyone doesn't have that big, logical, schooled and drilled left cerebral lobe of logic. Some people think in terms of stories and impressions, in broad brush strokes, in intuition. Of course, pinning the savior button on Donald Trump is, well, more than regrettable. But pinning the conspirator button on Hillary isn't far off, much as she might not be conscious of it. Reich pins it pretty firmly on Jamie Dimon, who might not be aware of it, either.

I just wish their metaphor included, as the poet David Shaddock asserts, identifying him as a less-cunning Milton-esque Satan.

Budd Shenkin

Peter Strzok - Compromised

 

If a student of Trumpism is looking for subtlety, he or she will be disappointed. “Might makes right” and the “ethics of the unsupervised schoolyard” don't require much nuance. Thugocracy speaks for itself. Truth yields to alternative facts, the search for loyalty obviates the need for competence, cruelty and destruction and the willingness to be cowed take precedence. Untethered accusations carry weight.

In that world, then, proving your case may seem irrelevant. You may be right, but who is going to enforce it?

Yet, it isn't. The people in charge may make mincemeat of right and truth, followers might adopt the same attitude, but the majority of people in this country and the world aim higher. People who oppose the thugocracy need the mental ammunition to know they are right, not just go on common sense and belief. And in the case of the FBI, the long heritage of lying and intimidation and right wing activity makes every claim of the new FBI need to be supported by evidence. Trumpists may have the upper hand now, but the present opposition and the future need to see the truth. Plus, when you are falsely accused, you just have to defend yourself, and in this case, also defend your righteous organization.

Into that arena, then, steps Peter Strzok. Strzok is an honest man, an intelligent man, a man who rose within the FBI to the top of the counterintelligence. He was the one who headed the FBI's investigation of Russian intervention in the 2016 campaign and the connection to the Trump campaign. Coincidentally, he was also high in the investigation of the sleeper cell of Russians who passed for Americans and raised families as normal suburbanites while informing their Russian spymasters, and he was a lead in investigating the Hillary Clinton emails.

So, Strzok has more than one story to tell, as he defends himself from the vicious Trumpian attacks on his person and his work. I saw him on TV – he was smart and informative. And for my part, I'm a great fan of Le Carré, Philip Kerr and Alan Furst, so I read his non-fiction book. It was a good choice.

I recommended it to my recently-retired ex-roommate from med school, who had joined the Public Health Service just after internship with me. We worked in community health, me from headquarters in Washington, he in the San Francisco Region IX office. Our experience in government was eye-opening, the way going to college and going to med school and going together to Medellín, Colombia one summer, had been eye-opening. Each a different world, with their own worldviews, jargons, assumptions. The way belonging to a church is eye-opening. Different worlds, practices, words, assumptions, beliefs, culture. One great strength of Le Carré comes from his years in the spy bureaucracy. He knows procedures, how you work in a large organization. Without our experience in the PHS, we wouldn't have understood it the way we did.

So I wrote my ex-roommate this: “I'm just finishing Peter Strzok's book which I think is very good.  He is self-justifying against the allegations that they were anti-Trump spying, etc. I like especially, as a fan of spy literature (Le Carré, Alan Furst), its real life policier-espionage. Pretty well-written. Recommended.”

Here's what he wrote me back:

Competently written, excruciatingly detailed as to what counterintelligence is and how it works (at least on the U.S. side), but without any exciting revelations about stuff you didn’t already know — just a whole lot more granular. And interesting as well. What I particularly enjoyed was his description of how the SVR's (the KGB's descendent) Russian sleeper spies — with their two grown kids born in Canada — were inserted into the US; how they were surveilled and eventually arrested. Great story.

Strzok’s a cop and investigator, no doubt at the apex of his trade. He trusts nothing anyone says without verifying it five times over (unless it’s from a fellow FBI man).

What’s so odd for a really smart guy like him — at the apex of his trade — is how he could have been so absolutely stupid to use his FBI-issued cell phone to send text messages having nothing to do with his official duties. It might have been bad enough if these texts had been discovered on his personal cell, with his fairly minimal "anti-Trump” stuff sent to his FBI lover Lisa Page: the Trump people would have made the same attacks anyway.

Strzok presents the FBI as a vast, benign organization despite its ancestry: iron-jawed guys (he mentions just one female agent, I think) with the same haircuts, suits, shoes and ties, all of prime Boy Scout caliber: trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. All his fellow agents are hands-down brilliant at their various subspecialties, whether it is interviewing or breaking and entering. Whether they are also adulterers is not revealed.

What gets my dander up is when I read the following, time and time again, throughout the book: that Strzok himself as well as each and every FBI agent is 1,000% "dedicated to upholding the Constitution and protecting the American People.” Whenever I hear “the American People” spill from some politician's or bureaucrat’s mouth, I tune out. I can understand it well enough in a stump speech or in congressional testimony…but 25 times in a book? C’mon.

I would have been fun to be a fly on the wall during a lot of this, to audit the banter and jokes that pass among these guys. I can’t believe that there’s never any locker-room type language being used, interspersed with the usual flour-letter words, which, by the way, Strzok is happy to use in his narrative often enough.

BTW, he is not Iranian: he was born in Michigan. His dad was a US Army Lt. Col.; he worked for the Corps of Engineers and was posted three times to Iran, where Peter attended the American School in Teheran.

I responded:

I was puzzled by the Iranian thing - glad you cleared it up.

I know what you mean about repeating the mantra. I do think there is some non-ironic group think in the FBI mission among the agents. You see something similar in sports teams. You see it in medicine with "good of the patient." Some of it is honored, some of it honored in the breach, just with different balances in different organizations, different people, different times, and different situations. Churches are also good examples.

I agree about The Americans. I also thought the indictment of Hillary's stupid obstructionism and the heinous Cheryl Mills was very interesting. Hillary was so stupid technologically, and not smart enough to get good help with it and be well advised. Which tells you a lot about Hillary, which was fairly obvious from her behavior. Carl Bernstein's book was pretty objective, I thought, and quite damning. She rubs me exactly the wrong way.

I also agree about the detailed descriptions being interesting because of what you could observe without being told directly.

Glad you read it and your commentary was very helpful to me.

To enlarge on what I responded about Strzok's apparent cultural loyalty, why would he be so emphatic about that? We know it's not true in some instances – the New York station was reliably reported to be very anti-Hillary and feeding Giuliani stories. But think about a sports team, when one member or a group of teammates loudly proclaims their all for one and one for all, how they will all keep in training, where they will all be the others' first priority. This must go on all the time in the FBI, I would guess. And at this point it certainly is in Strzok's interest to reassert the mantra. The FBI has been decapitated. Odds are the body still misses the heads, or at least feels loyalty to them, and realizes that standing up for them now ensures their own support later on. We'll see.

Also, the decapitated leaders, so poorly treated, still stand a good chance of winning in the long run. All it takes is one election, and the guts of the new administration not to adopt the chicken's way out, live and let live. Me, I think it's time for American Nuremberg.

So, even though it is patently obvious that everything that Trump and Barr say and do is ridiculous and absurd and Orwellesque. No need to dwell on that. But if you really need to be convinced of the certainty of Russian involvement, and the hopes the Trump campaign had of capitalizing on it if they could just get themselves to be competent enough to effect it, then reading this book will leave little doubt. And if you want to see what real life Le Carré looks like, what you see in this book makes a lot of sense to my ex-roommate and me, who spent time in the bureaucracy, and have that feeling of recognition.

Budd Shenkin