The president’s many critics will contend that this has less to do with Libby than with special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump, we’re certain to hear, is taking a shot at the credibility of special counsels by emphasizing their tendency to indict people not for committing the underlying crime but for false testimony. Certainly the fact that Comey appointed Fitzgerald is not unrelated to the president’s intention to pardon Libby. Trump may be hinting at his ability to pardon people he feels are wrongly prosecuted by the Mueller investigation.

Sessions is anything but weak. Operating from a cramped office in Washington, across Constitution Avenue from the Museum of National History, he’s the powerhouse of the Trump administration. He’s highly motivated and audacious. In March, he traveled to California and read its leaders the riot act for refusing to cooperate with federal immigration officials. In Washington, he’s leaned on two agencies to quit blocking the importation of a death-penalty drug.

As we go to press, U.S.-led allies have not launched an attack, though we’re told some kinetic action is virtually certain. We could easily argue that the delay is wise. Russian president Vladimir Putin considers Syria a client state, and Russian assets are all over the country. The likelihood of sparring with Russian soldiers or mercenaries, which has already happened at least once, is very high. They have had the time to pull back and reduce the risk of a U.S.-Russian confrontation.

This past year was not the first time Ryan contemplated retirement. “After we got thumped by Pelosi in ’06, I was just sitting in my [deer-hunting] tree stand right after that election thinking about, you know, Why am I in Congress? What am I doing? Is it really serving a purpose?” Ryan told The Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes in 2012. “I considered leaving. I was young, and I don’t want to be a lifetime politician. And I was thinking at the time: Is this worth it?”

Paterno’s excuse—which was basically also that of athletic director Curley and vice president Schultz—was that he had done exactly what was expected of him. “I had a job to do,” Pacino’s Paterno says at one point. “I was working.” He is shown focusing on practice and scrutinizing films in his study while ignoring the pleas of his family to read the grand jury presentment that would eventually lead to Sandusky’s conviction. When he finally gets around to looking at it while seated at his kitchen table, the graduate of Brown University whose family conversation regularly involves references to Greek and Roman classics asks, “What is sodomy?” This Paterno seems desperate to convince those around him—and perhaps himself—of his innocence.