Quote of the Day (Jeremy Thorpe, on Loyalty vs. Self-Preservation)

"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life." – Former British Member of Parliament and Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe, commenting on the 1962 “Night of the Long Knives,” in which Prime Minister Harold Macmillan sacked seven Cabinet ministers

(Thorpe had his own problems with friends, as British voters familiar with Rinkagate will remember. But over the next four years, the spirit of the retired pol’s irreverent quip is going to be remembered as the new American administration attempts to gain traction in our nation’s capital--and the not-so-loyal opposition attempts to induce a fall.

I don’t care what your political leanings are—somehow, sometime, some friend of the President is going to get in trouble, either for financial reasons or a personal peccadillo. Never fails.

Every politician adept enough to do what it takes to make it into the Oval Office will become, all of a sudden, Shakespeare’s Prince Hal as he morphs into King Henry V, rejecting his fun-but-now-embarrassing old companion of the revels John Falstaff.

The key question will be how much remains sticking to President Obama when the whole mess ends.)