Someone asked, in relation to my mini-screenplay The Valachi Papers. Pt.II (which was posted here today), whether there would be another installment.
My answer is below. Read on
Depends on how heavy Mr. Fitzgerald really is.
And who is in his corner.
HE’S got handlers and allies, too, or else he wouldn’t have gotten THIS far.
And I DO mean “in his corner”.
Like in a prizefighter’s corner.
Because that’s what this guy is.
He’s a prizefighter, and he’s in only the early middle rounds of what is going to be one HELL of a battle before it’s over.
Take a good look at him.
If you know anything about boxing…he’s the CLASSIC Irish fighter. (Me too…from a long line of ’em. He could be one of my cop cousins who went to night school and became a prosecutor, boxed for kicks and to make a lilttle extra money. That’s how come I recognize him.)
Now if you know anything about boxing, you know that the so-called “sterotypes” are more often true than not. And what defines an “Irish” fighter?
Someone who WILL NOT GIVE UP. Someone who is often outclassed in terms of sheer physical skills but just keeps on coming until the opponent breaks down. Someone who will take three punches to lay one good one in there.
And…the good ones…someone who wins much more often than he loses, and when he does “lose”, the other fighter is often never the same afterward.
Take a look at this guy.
Irish Micky Ward. The contemporary prototypical “Irish fighter”, American style.
See the resemblance?
I do. Look at the mouths. Look at the eyes. You do NOT want to mess with a man who holds his mouth like this in repose. You do not want to mess with someone who looks directly THROUGH you when he looks AT you, either. Trust me.
If you never saw Ward fight…he’s retired now…let me tell you. Watching him fight a good opponent…and his trilogy with Arturo Gatti was as good as it gets…was like watching an Old Testament morality play.
He simply WOULD NOT GIVE UP. Gatti was faster, stronger, younger…and Ward beat him once and really fought Gatti to a draw the other two times, no matter WHAT the scorecards might have said.
Well…Fitzgerald is in the same boat, and cut from the same mold.
He’s fighting trillions of dollars worth of sheer power, and I do not think that we have any idea who or what is on HIS side. Certainly elements of the old-guard CIA (what’s left of it), the remains of the old money establishment for which the CIA has been police force and bodyguard for about 50 years, the remnants of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party (What’s that…about 15% of the total Dem package? 30% No more, for SURE, or Small K kerry would never have been the candidate in 2004..)…and…others yet to stand up and be recognized.
But this man is going to put a hurtin’ on BushCo.
I can see it in his eyes.
Why?
Because it’s his job.
Because that’s what he does.
Because he CHOSE “what he does” at least in part because he loves a good fight.
And most importantly…I think that these people just flat PISS HIM OFF!!!
Have you looked at his resumé?
Really.
Ckeck it out. (From Wikipedia)
After practicing civil law, Fitzgerald became an Assistant United States Attorney in New York City in 1988. He handled drug-trafficking cases and in 1993 assisted in the prosecution of La Cosa Nostra figure John Gotti, the boss of the Gambino crime family. In 1994, Fitzgerald became the prosecutor in the case against Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 others charged in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1996, Fitzgerald became the National Security Coordinator for the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. There, he served on a team of prosecutors investigating Osama bin Laden.[2] He also served as chief counsel in prosecutions related to the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
On September 1, 2001, Fitzgerald was nominated for the position of U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois on the recommendation of U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald (no relation), a Republican from Illinois. On October 24, 2001, the nomination was confirmed by the Senate.
Let’s review this.
Working class Brooklyn Irish.
Think Pete Hamill + Jimmy Breslin.
Flatbush.
Think mean streets. By the time THIS guy was there, think outnumbered, too.
Jesuit educated…means he went to Catholic grammar and intermediate schools too, probably. Me too, for a while. Although it is currently fashionable…and richly deserved…to diss what is left of the Catholic hierarchy at the present time, there WAS a time when if you survived their teaching and came out whole, you came out one HELL of a man or woman.
Pre-moral relativity, to say the least.
Amherst, Harvard, back to Brooklyn to fight that TEMPLATE of BushCo, the Mafia. Cheney is just Gotti writ large; Rumsfeld reminds me of no one more than Carlo Gambino; Bush is the usual stooge set up to take the heat, Rove and Libby are bought and sold gofers; people like Perle and Wolfowitz are consiglieris, the powers-that-be who profit off of the Mafia are the multinational corporations and arms dealers…same same, up and down.
Then 8 or 10 years in “national security”. Now you KNOW he mets lots of folks there…spooks, people like Richard Clarke who walk the line between spook ands non-spook…LOTS of people. And you ALSO know, good Irish Catholic boyo that he is, that Mr. Fitzgerald took moral stock of every single one of them.
And cast his lot accordingly.
So here he is.
Man…the motherfuckers LIED to him!!!
In CONFESSION!!!
THAT penance is going to be heavy.
200,000 Hail Marys and 20 years in jail if he has HIS way.
BET on it.
So, Father Pat…best of luck to ya’.
Keep the faith.
And have a nip or two every night.
It’ll help ya sleep.
‘Cuz…you’re going to need your strength, young Patrick.
These are some bad, BAD boys.
Best of luck to you…
Arthur Gilroy
