Casper Weinberger

Casper "Cap" Weinberger did this country much good but was treated shabbily by a process run amok.

Here is an excellent article summarizing the pressures and temptations influencing independent prosecutors such as Lawrence Walsh.

Independent counsels go on forever because they can--no one has the power to fire them--and because they have strong incentives to do so. An ordinary prosecutor may decide to forgo charges so that he can devote his energies to a case that is more important and easier to win. But, for the independent counsel, there is no other case. Were he to announce that his scandal didn't justify criminal proceedings after all, he would be declaring himself a failure who had wasted the public's time and money. After he returned to his law practice in the sticks, no one would ever hear from him again. Much better to keep digging, declare that indictments are just around the corner, and hold off on releasing that final report just a few months longer.

The most damning indictment against Walsh was the indictment Walsh filed against Weinberger the week before the 1992 presidential election. Nothing could more clearly prove that this was a man clinging to national relevance.

Casper Weinberger, in my view, deserves no asterisks by his name in today's obituaries. May he rest in peace.