Above left: A man who has earned the prefix on his nameplate

I had what might or might not be considered an unusual thought when I first read this Journal story, posted on Thanksgiving Day, about how the supposedly “lost” IRS emails have been found after all. Up to now, the scandal has been that 1) the records were destroyed even though the law says they must not be, and 2) the man allegedly brought in to clean up the mess at the IRS withheld his knowledge that the emails were missing from Congress. Now it turns out that our rulers are so cynical, they apparently never even felt the need to destroy the emails. The emails were sitting there all the time, silently awaiting an honorable man who would come forward and state that they existed.

My thought upon reading this was: How delightful that the Treasury Department’s inspector general, Russell George, actually came forward with the emails! All the incentives are against it. He does not even seem to be receiving the public honor he is due for his act. He had, more or less, no reason in the world to announce the emails had been found – except that it was the right thing to do.

Let the record reflect that Russell George is an honorable man.

If this country does turn around, this is the kind of person who will do it. Woe to us if we allow our cynicism to blind us to the continued existence of such people, for that is a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Gimli declines to request a gift, Galadriel cries out: “Hear all ye Elves! Let none say again that Dwarves are grasping and ungracious!” It was a very great thing to say, and in its own way, a greater gift than the one Gimli finally named and received from her.

Image HT