The opening line of the Charles Dickens' novel A Tale of Two Cities is, of course,
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
Everyone knows that as well as they know the first line of every Christmas carol they've ever heard.
But, like Christmas carols only a few know what comes after, say, "Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen." I'll save you from adding to your Google history file. The next line is: "When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even."
Getting back to old Chuck Dickens, the entirety of that first bit is:
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven,
we were all going direct the other way.
Remind you of anything? Or anytime? Or any place? Or anyone?
And I thought it was the best/worst before Donald Trump brought on Rudy Giuliani to straighten things out.
Rudy didn't. Any more than Larry Kudlow helped out when, after about three days on the job, as the NY Times put it, he suggested that the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, "might have been suffering from momentary confusion" when she announced new sanctions against Russia.
Haley, who like most people who have been elected to high public office (Governor of South Carolina) believe that people who have only held appointed posts are better seen and not heard, said with no small amount of arch in her voice, "I don't get confused."
We have not heard much out of Brother Kudlow since.
Giuliani might have thought he was speaking for Donald Trump when he went on the Fox News Channel to say that Trump personally provided the money that was used to shush Stormy Daniels by virtue of washing it through the office, home, hotel, and/or taxi stand controlled by Michael Cohen.
Trump had previously stated unequivocally, during a short visit to the press cabin on Air Force One that, according to CBS.com "he was unaware of lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to adult firm star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election."
Trump had to clean up the clean up by telling the press corps that Giuliani had only been on the job for a day or so and didn't know what the hell he was talking about.
The White House then tried to clean up the cleaned up cleanup by sending Kellyanne Conway out on "Face the Nation" to explain that:
"When he said 'no' on Air Force One last month he's talking about when the payment occurred, that he was not aware of the payment to Ms. Daniels when the payment occurred."
Ah. Why didn't they just tell us that in the first place?
New Topic
I may have occasionally mentioned to you that I attended Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio 45750 and that my three credit hours of Con Law under the late Dr. Bob Hill accounts for my extraordinary insight into extremely complex legal theories.
I don't think I've told you that I got a degree but never went through my commencement ceremony.
I took my last exam not just in summer school, but at night school in summer school and they told me I didn't have to come any more.
SIDEBAR
Covering municipal court as the news director of WMOA (1490 on your AM dial) I knew that being arrested for bring drunk and disorderly carried a fine of $10 and $8 court costs.
The afternoon of my final final I waltzed into the office of the police chief, put $18 dollars on his desk, and announced, "I am going to be drunk and disorderly tonight."
I was and because it was a different time, if not the best of times, I was not arrested but taken home, put onto my bed, and left to sleep it off."
END SIDEBAR
I was elected to the board of trustees at the college last year and yesterday got to sit through my first commencement in full regalia.
If I had gone through commencement it would have been with the Class of 1968. Watching the Class of 2018 graduate was a wonderful way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of my scheduled graduation year.
For those three hours it was the best of times.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: Links to Charles Dickens, to the Kudlow/Haley dust-up, and to the Kellyanne Conway appearance.
The Mullfoto is of me, fully capped and gowned for commencement.
® 
