I found a new favorite quote that captures the current liberal climate:  “We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us.” Lionel Trilling, Columbia Professor

I found this book review on Power Line.  I believe it will go on my reading list robber-cops-new-yorks-gilded-age.  I have not read the book, New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal that Launched the Progressive Era, by Daniel Czitrom (Oxford University Press, 416 pp., $27.95) but if I am reading the review right Tammany Hall when confronted with the outrage over corruption, reinvented itself to take over the mantle of “Progressive Reformer”. 

All subsequent reform was the product of or approved by Tammany Hall.  Makes Catch-22 seem positively benign.