Washington, DC
Thursday, July 5th

What: The House Softball League game of the week.
Who: The #9 Ugly Mugs are pitted against #5 Milestones. Both teams undefeated.
Where: Anacostia Park
When: 6:30pm

What Happened? Read on.

David Ignatious speaks to SPS.

The students had econ and public speaking classes in the morning. In the afternoon we were fortunate enough to get a visit from David Ignatius, who writes an award-winning column on foreign affairs for the Washington Post. The students were certainly interested in how Mr. Ignatius got his start in journalism (we also liked his story of how he proposed to his wife), but the most buzz occurred when Mr. Ignatius talked about his successful career as an author of spy thrillers, and revealed that his most recent book, Body of Lies, has been optioned for a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe! (For fans at home: shooting is scheduled to start in September). Mr. Ignatius revealed that his first novel, Agents of Innocence, was sparked by a chance remark someone made to him: "Did you hear? Our man in the PLO has been assassinated." It turned out that the U.S. did indeed have a source inside the PLO -- no less than Arafat's chief of intelligence --and from this real fact, a novel emerged.

The new novel and soon to be Ridley Scott film

After taking some time to talk to us about his start in journalism and as a writer of fiction, Mr. Ignatius posed some hypothetical situations to the group. First: if you are Judy Miller, do you go to jail rather than reveal your source during the Grand Jury investigation of the leak regarding Valerie Plame? One SPS student gamely volunteered to play Judy Miller, and convincingly and eloquently argued why he felt he had to make the decision (as Ms. Miller) to go to jail. Another SPS student, playing the publisher of the New York Times, felt that it was important to support his reporter. (Of course, in real life, Judy Miller subsequently received a waiver from her source, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and was called as a prosecution witness at his trial.) In the second hypothetical, editors three other students role played whether or not they should publish a story about a presidential contender who had an affair twenty years ago while separated, but not divorced, from his then-wife. Opinions ranged from the view that the information should be put out there for the public to decide its relevance, to the view that it was an unacceptable intrusion into privacy, to the view that it was an unacceptable intrusion into privacy that would sell papers! After a lively debate, Mr. Ignatius revealed that the Washington Post had once been faced with just such a dilemma and had not published; however, the information subsequently became public through (where else) an internet site!

After the talk Pete prepared his game face and headed to Anacostia with a furrowed brow with only softball on is mind. Ok that whole thing is getting weird. While driving to the game field I was listening to NPROn the way to the game a piece came on about how the recent controversies surrounding the US Justice Department may affect its long term credibility. Anyway the two people they interviewed were Roscoe Howard, former Justice Department prosecutor and Stuart Gerson, frequent Supreme Court lawyer. Why is this of any importance you ask? Well SPS has heard from both people in the last three weeks. I played the piece to the students later on they thought it was “cool”. Not as cool as I did but I’m a dork.

Well I know that all of you have been on the edge of your seats wondering who won the big game. The Ugly Mugs downed the higher ranked Milestones 8 to 4. We moved to 10 and 0 and up to 7th in the rankings. Not bad for 123 teams. Pete played sparingly but was a vocal supporter of the team and more thirty supporter of “Mister’s”, softball nickname, margarita supply. Kremser called it the Ugly Mug homecoming game because there were twenty two of us there. Good game, good win, better drinks, and great pizza rolls and mini burgers.