In my first year at the Justice Department, one of the senior lawyers -- seeing that I was frustrated by all the amicus briefs that had been filed opposing the government's position -- told me, "Thank God for your enemies."
It was a tremendous insight. From that day forward, I spent a lot of time hoping and praying that any organization aligned with, say, Al Sharpton, would line up against me. The more furiously it denounced the argument I was making, the surer I was that I was right.
I got that same feeling this morning when I found out that President Bartlett, a/k/a the left wing actor Martin Sheen from "The West Wing," has endorsed the Smarter Sentencing Act. Mother Jones, appropriately enough, has the story.
With any luck, by the end of the week, Hell's Angels -- an organization with not a few drug traffickers in it -- will hold a press conference with a similar endorsement, which ought to be enough to sink this awful thing once and for all.
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