Almost no one under 60 remembers what fundraising was like before Watergate. Until the 1970s, campaign money was collected by "bagmen," familiar characters from the world of organized crime. As fans of Boardwalk Empire know, a bagman is a political fixer who walked around with stacks of $100 and $1,000 bills. At lower levels, he used brown paper bags. In presidential campaigns, the cash was more likely to be in briefcases. Classier that way.

The price of loyalty is incompetence.

The basic problem is with the business model of journalism. That business model is premised on the idea that talk is cheap and reporting is expensive.

Every patient reacts a little differently, both biologically and psychologically. The only constant in cancer is inconstancy; the only certainty is a future of uncertainty, a truism for all of modern life but one made vivid by life-threatening illness.

It sometimes takes a while for executives to figure out that the reporters they think of as little bugs to be squashed or spun can be more powerful than they are.

By laying the groundwork for a system centered on home ownership rather than the public housing popular in Europe, the New Deal made possible the great postwar housing boom that populated the Sun Belt and boosted millions of Americans into the middle class, where, ironically, they often became Republicans.

With his ABC News experience, perhaps Pierre Salinger's next job could be cohosting-with Oliver Stone-a 24-hour Conspiracy Network.