“All the President’s Men”

I don't know, maybe I just lived in another time when we were taught critical thinking in school, and got real time exposure to the nature of politics through student body and class elections, as well as Boys and Girls State, where elections were not only about popularity. Political power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our founders' vision of Congress being a part-time gig, where farmers and shopkeepers spent their vacation/downtime in Washington for a couple of weeks, never truly existed.

Then I remember that the major part of my political education came from my parents, who religiously debated political events, conventions, and not in ideological or mythological terms but in trying to gain glimpses into how the sausage was being made. (My mother was the first in either side of the family to go to college and tended to have a broader, yet conservative, perspective; my father never made it to high school, but was intelligent, well-read, and observant as well as being more conservative in the rugged individualism stream of the cowboy he was.)

And my graduate course came in the print shop at lunch in high school, with two older classmates (Bob Meisenbach, who gave my nominating speech for Student Body President, and Carroll Selph). Meisenbach is considered the Father of the Sixties, the ex-Marine tried for allegedly hitting a SF police officer with his own baton, who was not only acquitted but his trial exposed the FBI's provocateur and disinformation efforts under J. Edgar Hoover. Both he and Carroll were flushed down the steps of SF City Hall's rotunda for protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee hearing.