Rags to Rags

Here’s another Walter Mitty story -- boy investment genius, not yet out of high school, makes $72 million trading stocks on Wall Street. His name is Mohammed Islam and he goes to Stuyvesant High School on the lower East Side of Manhattan and has seemingly acquired all the trappings of a multi-millionaire. Perhaps these trumped-up trappings are what influenced Jessica Pressler to write a quite typical New Yorker magazine flivver story about this wunderkind … see: New Yorker Story.

Alas, it was all a great big teenager prank and the New Yorker magazine is embarrassed … see: The Observer Exposee ... and Jessica Pressler has moved on to browner pastures … see: Capital Story.

I actually think she should have taken a shot at Rolling Stone.

Walter Mitty

Sometimes I like to slip into my Walter Mitty persona and imagine myself to be someone important … like a U.S. Senator sitting on the Judiciary Committee interviewing Loretta Lynch for her new position as Attorney General. My questioning might go something like this:

Me: Ms. Lynch, your predecessor, Eric Holder is your personal friend and confident and, I understand, he has sought your advice on many of his more controversial legal positions. Now I consider Mr. Holder to be the worst Attorney General since John Mitchell and he was the first Attorney General ever held in contempt of Congress. Because of this nexus, I would like to have you give us what you advised Mr. Holder on a number of his more contentious poses:

Me: Do you agree that we should be holding a trial for that enemy combatant, Abu Hamza al-Masn, in New York City, when, according to administrative precedent he should have been sent to Guantanamo?

Ms. Lynch: those noises that Charlie Brown’s teacher makes when talking to him.

Me: Would you have prosecuted those New Black Panthers for their intimidation activities at the Philadelphia polling places in 2008?

Ms. Lynch: a convoluted legal argument full of “whereas”s, “whatfor”s, and stare decisis

Me: Do you agree with the Attorney General that we are a nation of cowards for not discussing race relations more?

Ms. Lynch: yada, yada, yada

Me: Do you concur that Mr. Holder should have been held in contempt of Congress for withholding critical documents in the “Fast and Furious” scandal?

Ms. Lynch: Now you are asking me to violate the confidentiality between a client and his lawyer.

Me: Is President Obama within Constitutional bounds if he chooses to use an executive action to give green cards to millions of illegal immigrants?

Ms. Lynch: Senator Mitty, I think your questioning time has expired …

Pukata … pukata …

Afterward: For some more question topics see: ABC News Story.

After Afterward: More thoughts on this from the Powerline blog: Powerline Opinion.