I’m so old that I remember when the major rage among Democrat machine politicians seeking public approval to maintain their iron-fisted control over American cities was to present themselves as “technocrats” — capable administrators who would make few political waves…

  Honor requires that I attribute the title of this piece to a Time magazine review of John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman, published back in 1969. A good pun sticks with me for life. Another memory that’s stuck with me…