Nobel Peace Prize Presidents

The Nobel Peace Prize was first awarded in 1901.  It was to be given "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."  Since then, 4 American Presidents have won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Theodore Roosevelt (1906): The president who called for speaking softly and carrying a big stick held a peace conference to end the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).  Despite his jingoist reputation - or more likely because of it, Roosevelt had no wars during his presidency and managed to quell one in which the US was not a participant.  He is the only Republican president to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Woodrow Wilson (1919): The president who "kept us out of the war" until he was safely re-elected won the peace prize for his role in founding the League of Nations.  Though he had been its leading proponent, he was unable to convince the US Senate to ratify membership.  Thus, the US didn't join.  The US did join the League's successor, the United Nations.  Secretary of State Cordell Hull won the 1945 Peace Prize for that.

Jimmy Carter (2002): Though he won it long after his presidency ended, his peace prize recognized his years of work as a peacemaker.  Of particular note, the Camp David Accords, which led to a peace deal between Israel and Egypt, were hosted by President Carter during his presidency, very like the peace conference Roosevelt had hosted in 1905.  The 1978 Peace Prize was awarded to Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat of Egypt.  The oversight of Carter's role was rectified in 2002.

Barack Obama (2009): President Obama was awarded the peace prize only 9 months into his administration "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."  Whereas the other three presidents had clear accomplishments in pursuit of peace, Obama had only aspirational speeches. At the time, this looked to be an award for things to come. Even Obama himself was astonished and suggested that it was not "a recognition of my own accomplishments but rather an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations."

In recent decades, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded arbitrarily.  The parameters for the award are clear: 

to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

This is an award for diplomats, disarmament proponents, and peaceniks.  Former VP Al Gore won in 2007 for his film about climate change.  The 2011 peace prize was awarded to those struggling for women's rights in Liberia and Yemen.  The 2014 peace prize recognized efforts to educate young people in India and Pakistan.  Yes, these are laudable goals, but do they best represent the stated intent of the award.  I don't think so.

Noble House (1988)

Alastair Struan (Denholm Elliott) has called a midnight meeting at the HQ of the Struan & Company, the leading trading company in Hong Kong.  There are only 4 attendees: his nephew, Ian Dunross (Pierce Brosnan), Philip Chen (Burt Kwouk), and Chen's son, John.  The company is in crisis and Alastair has opted to transfer leadership to Ian.  The name for the CEO is Tai Pan.  Dunross's first act is to fire Alastair from the traditional position of a former Tai Pan.  Minutes later, the folly of his predecessor's leadership is exposed and Ian must make the company public to keep it afloat.

Three years later, Struan & Co are once again treading water.  Dunross has looked overseas for a foreign investor and found Par Con Industries, which is run by Lincoln "Linc" Bartlett (Ben Masters).  Bartlett is a corporate raider who intends to take over Struan & Co, then sell it for a huge profit.  He has secretly hired John Chen as an inside source which gives him an unusually strong bargaining position.  Moreover, after a meet & greet with Dunross, Linc confers with Struan's chief rival, Rothwell-Gornt.  Rothwell-Gornt is run by Quillan Gornt (John Rhys-Davies), who proves to have a Hatfield vs. McCoy relationship with Ian Dunross and his ancestors.  Of note, this is a sequel to Tai Pan, which took place 150 years earlier and is frequently referenced in dialogue regarding the family history.  Maybe I should have watched that movie first.

Though the ostensible plot follows the wheeling and dealing of these titans of industry, the story is really about the love lives of Ian Dunross and Linc Bartlett.  Dunross and Par Con VP Casey Tcholok (Deborah Raffin) are instantly attracted to each other and it quickly escalates, but not without the usual soap operatic bumps of being business rivals.  Then there is Linc and Quillan Gornt's former mistress, Orlanda Ramos (Julia Nickson).  Though Linc knows that Quillan has arranged the tryst, he nonetheless falls for Orlanda.  Of course, she falls for him too.

The story takes place over a week or so, but it is an eventful week.  There is a building fire that nearly kills our heroes, a kidnapping, building collapse, an attempted rape, an international incident, drug dealing blackmailers, and more.  Who knew that Hong Kong was so exciting?

This four-part miniseries has a great setting but is mediocre in execution.  Brosnan is a grim character.  Fresh from his affable and charming role as Remington Steele, here he is a humorless tactician, a man who has allowed his problems to grind him down but never defeat him.  He has no friends, only potential allies for his latest gambit to keep Struan & Co. in business.  Like in the Fourth Protocol, his charm and personality has been stripped away to leave a mostly unappealing character.  By contrast, John Rhys-Davies is having a blast as the villain.  He's nasty but fun, often laughing and smiling as he twists the knife.  Ben Masters is on the one-hand a conniving businessman who fits in the corporate raider mold of Gordon Gecko, but then has this sappy romance with Orlanda.  It is a difficult fit.

Overall, it is mediocre.  Pierce Brosnan and Julia Nickson would start together the following year in another miniseries: Around the World in 80 Days.  That's a better miniseries.  Watch that one instead.

The Mormon Battalion

In 1846, the United States went to war with Mexico.  President Polk brushed off his plans for how the war should go.  One of his plans was to dispatch General Stephen Watts Kearney to secure New Mexico and California.  While he was arranging this, he met Mr. Jesse Little.  Little was a Mormon who looked for governmental assistance for the Mormon migration to the Great Salt Lake.  This was timely.  Polk needed more Americans headed west just then and proposed that the Mormons raise a battalion to join the Army of the West under Kearney.  Little eagerly agreed and set out for Iowa, where the Mormons were currently encamped.  Soon thereafter, James Allen of the First Dragoons met with Brigham Young to discuss the details.  Five companies - approximately 500 men - were recruited and set out for Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

As with most volunteer units, the Mormons elected their officers from among them.  Of course, Colonel Allen remained as the overall commander.  He had several other US Army officers as part of his staff, notably Lt. AJ Smith and Lt. Stoneman.  Allen's death at Fort Leavenworth left command of the battalion in confusion.  Captain Jefferson Hunt of Company A was now the highest-ranking officer.  Lt. Smith noted that he was still only a volunteer with no real rank in the US military, which meant Smith was in command.  The various officers didn't much like that reasoning, but Smith got his way on account of being able to control government funds.  He was not a popular commander.

The battalion commenced its march on August 12, 1846.  They arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico between October 9th and October 12.  The city had already been captured by Kearney and was currently governed by Colonel Doniphan of the First Missouri Mounted Volunteers.  News returned from General Kearney that Colonel Philip St. George Cooke would take command of the battalion as it blazed a wagon road to California.  Cooke found many of the recruits to be in poor condition and mustered them out of service.  The remaining troops began the grueling trek across the southwestern desert.

As the men had sent their clothing allowance back to Iowa to aid in the support of their families, the men only had the clothes in which they arrived.  After so long a march, their clothes - especially footwear - were in poor condition.  Soldiers fashioned makeshift shoes out of hides and otherwise unwearable clothing.  Thirst and hunger were constant companions and the labor was intense.  At times, the men had to help the mules drag wagons through deep sands and at other times they had to hew a path through a rocky canyon.

On the 27th of January, the Mormon Battalion spotted the Pacific Ocean near what is now Oceanside.  The battle for California was already won.  The Battalion found itself on garrison duty until the end of their enlistment.  The men had enlisted for 1 year.  When that year was up, the governor and General Kearney urged them to re-enlist.  The Mormons had been exemplary soldiers.  However, fewer than 100 chose to enlist for another year.  Most of the rest set out for Salt Lake City.  Many found themselves in what would soon be the gold fields of California.

BH Roberts was a prolific writer on Mormon topics.  He addressed the Mormon Battalion in this 1919 book.  It is a quick read that hits the highlights without going into much depth.  An excellent summary that provides a good overview of the Mormon Battalion and its service in the Mexican-American War.  Recommended.

Pardon Me

The power to pardon has been in the Constitution from the beginning.  George Washington issued 16 pardons during his 2 terms in office.  Only William Henry Harrison and James Garfield issued fewer pardons.  In fact, they each issued none on account of dying early in their presidencies.  John Adams, the sole Federalist president, only issued 20.  The power of the pardon has grown since then.  Let's see how that breaks down by party.

Independent

Washington didn't like the party system though he most aligned with the Federalist Party.  However, he spoke against parties so he's generally classified as Independent.  He offered 16 pardons.  John Tyler, the 10th President, was originally a Democrat but switched to Whig.  When he took over for William Henry Harrison, the Whigs disowned him and the Democrats didn't want him.  Thus, he falls into the Independent Party.  He offered 209 pardons.  Tyler lifted the average per president quite a bit.

Federalist

There was only 1 Federalist, President John Adams.  Following Washington, he was stingy with the pardons, only granting 20 in his 4 years as president.

Democratic-Republican

The Party of Thomas Jefferson, it primarily competed with the Federalist until they disintegrated after the War of 1812.  Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and John Quincy Adams were Democratic-Republicans.  The party was much more generous with pardons, offering 917.

Democratic

Having lost the 1824 election, Andrew Jackson split from the Democratic-Republicans to create a new party.  This is the Democratic Party that continues to this day.  It is the most generous with pardons, averaging 1,489 per president.  This number does not include Andrew Johnson's blanket pardon for many Confederates after the Civil War or Jimmy Carter's blanket pardon to over 200,000 draft dodgers after Vietnam.  Franklin Pierce was the stingiest with pardons (142), while Joe Biden has more than doubled 2nd place FDR (3,687) with 8,027 pardons so far.

Of particular note, Joe Biden has dramatically lifted the average.  Removing Joe Biden's 8,027 pardons, drops the Democratic average to 1,053 per Democratic president.  How high will it go by January 20th?

This reminds me of Al Gore's hockey stick graph.

Whig

There were only 3 Whig Presidents and two of them died early in their presidencies.  The Whigs only issued 208 pardons.

Republican

The Party of Lincoln has had more presidents than its nearest rival, the Democrats.  A Republican president averages 701 pardons.  Calvin Coolidge offered the most pardons (1,545) of any Republican while George HW Bush offered the fewest (77), if we excluded James Garfield, who issued none before his assassination.

From Eisenhower to Trump (1953 to 2021), there were 8,126 pardons.  President Biden is going for the Guinness Book of World Records.

Three Time Nominee

Generally speaking, politicians only win the nomination for president one or two times.  Parties normally only nominate the politician for a 2nd time if he is the incumbent.  To take examples from recent years, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump were each nominated for 2nd terms while Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole, Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton were not renominated.  The winners get a second shot while the losers are usually tossed aside.  Of course, there are exceptions.  Sometimes the loser is given a second chance.  For instance, Adlai Stevenson lost to Eisenhower in 1952, but was nominated again in 1956; he lost again.  In a couple of cases, there have been three-time losers: both Henry Clay & William Jennings Bryan were nominees in 3 separate elections.

Looking only at men who served as president, how many of them were nominated on three separate occasions?

Thomas Jefferson was the Democratic-Republican nominee for president in 1796, 1800, and 1804.  He came in second place in 1796, which secured him the vice presidency.  He won the presidency in 1800 and was nominated for re-election in 1804.

Andrew Jackson was one of four Democratic-Republican nominees in 1824.  Though he won the plurality of electoral votes and popular vote, he lost to John Quincy Adams in the contingent election.  He was the Democratic nominee (the Democratic-Republican party had split into factions after the 1824 debacle) in both 1828 and 1832.

Martin Van Buren was Andrew Jackson's chosen successor.  He won in 1836 and was renominated in 1840.  Though he lost in 1840, he became the Free-Soil Party candidate in 1848, marking his 3rd time running in the general election.

Grover Cleveland ran for office in 1884 and won.  However, when he ran for re-election in 1888, he lost to Benjamin Harrison.  He secured the Democratic nomination again in 1892 and won.  He was the first president to serve non-consecutive terms.

Richard Nixon ran for president in 1960.  He lost to JFK.  However, he managed to win the nomination again in 1968 and went on to win the presidency.  He won re-election in 1972, though he didn't finish his term.

Donald Trump duplicated Grover Cleveland's feat.  He won in 2016, lost his 2020 re-election bid, but then came back to win in 2024.

Of this group, Jefferson, Jackson, Cleveland, and Trump were nominees in three consecutive elections.

Truncated Presidential Terms

A full term for a US President is 4 years, which is 1,461 days.  Most presidents who did not reach the 1,461 days died in office, resigned, or had been elevated from the vice presidency to fill a vacancy.  However, there are four exceptions, presidents who served a full term and yet it was less than 1,461 days.  How does that work?

George Washington wasn't inaugurated until April 30, 1789.  As the new government was just getting started, Washington wasn't elected until April 6th.  He didn't leave Mt. Vernon until April 16 and was inaugurated upon arriving in New York City.  His first full term was 1,404 days.

John Adams served from March 4, 1797 to March 4, 1801.  Thanks to the absence of a leap day in 1800, his time in office was only 1,460 days.  Leap days don't occur in years divisible by 100 unless it is divisible by 400.  Thus, 2000 had a leap day for Bill Clinton's second term, but 1800 didn't for John Adams.

William McKinley's first term started on March 4, 1897 and ended on March 4, 1901.  Just like Adams, his term was missing a leap day in 1900.  Unlike Adams, he was reelected.  He was assassinated 6 months into his second term.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt served for 3 full terms and began a 4th when he died.  The 20th Amendment had been ratified shortly before his inauguration in 1933.  The amendment changed inauguration day from March 4 to January 20.  FDR's first term began on March 4, 1933, but ended on January 20, 1937.  This proved to be only 1,418 days.

Of note, both John Tyler (1841-1845) and Andrew Johnson (1865-1869) had longer partial terms than either Washington or Roosevelt's full terms.  Tyler took over after William Henry Harrison died only 1 month into office.  That left 1,430 days for Tyler's partial term.  Johnson became president after Lincoln's assassination and served 1,419 days.

Presidents and the Supreme Court

Which president selected the most Supreme Court justices?  It should come as no surprise that President Washington, being the first President, had the opportunity to select every justice on the original court.  However, he only just surpassed another president.  Let's see which presidents had the most judicial picks and those with the fewest.

There have been 116 justices, 17 of whom were Chief Justices.  It is worth noting that the Court began with only 6 justices, before expanding to 7, 9, 10, and then shrinking to the current 9.

Four presidents did not select any justices.  William Henry Harrison (9) died only 1 month into office.  Zachary Taylor (12) died 16 months into office.  The Congress changed the law in order to prevent Andrew Johnson (17) from having an opportunity to select a justice.  Of note, the Court had 10 justices at the time and was slated to shrink to 7.  With Johnson's departure, the Court was restored to 9 justices.  Lastly, Jimmy Carter (39) didn't get to select a justice.

James Monroe (5), John Quincy Adams (6), John Tyler (10), Millard Fillmore (13), Franklin Pierce (14), James Buchanan (15), James Garfield (20), William McKinley (25), Calvin Coolidge (30), Gerald Ford (38), and Joe Biden (46) each selected one justice for the Court.

James Madison (4), Martin Van Buren (8), James K Polk (11), Rutherford B Hayes (19), Chester Arthur (21), JFK (35), LBJ (36), George HW Bush (41), Bill Clinton (42), George W Bush (43), and Barack Obama (44) each selected 2 new justices to the Court.  However, George W Bush had the opportunity to select the 17th Chief Justice, John Roberts.

John Adams (2), Thomas Jefferson (3), Theodore Roosevelt (26), Woodrow Wilson (28), Herbert Hoover (31), and Donald Trump (45) selected three each.  John Adams chose the longest-serving Chief Justice, John Marshall.  Of note, Marshall was the 4th Chief Justice despite being chosen by only the 2nd president.  Hoover selected Charles Evans Hughes for Chief Justice; Hughes had been an associate justice and was Chief Justice William Howard Taft's chosen successor.

Ulysses Grant (18), Grover Cleveland (22 & 24), Benjamin Harrison (23), Warren Harding (29), Harry Truman (33), Richard Nixon (37), and Ronald Regan (40) selected 4 justices for the Court.  Most of these presidents also selected a new Chief Justice among the four picks.  Grant chose Marrison Waite, Cleveland selected Melville Fuller, Harding installed former President William Howard Taft, Truman picked Fred Vinson, Nixon chose Warren Burger, and Reagan elevated William Rehnquist (Rehnquist had been one of Nixon's Associate Justice picks).

Abraham Lincoln (16) and Dwight Eisenhower (34) each had 5 Court picks.  Lincoln chose Salmon Chase as the Chief Justice.  Eisenhower selected Earl Warren to be Chief Justice.

Andrew Jackson (7) and William Howard Taft (27) selected 6 justices for the Court.  Jackson replaced John Marshall with Roger Taney, the Chief Justice who is forever stained with the Dredd Scott decision.  Taft, who would later be appointed Chief Justice, elevated Edward D White to be Chief Justice.  He would replace White only a decade later.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (32) chose 9 justices during his three terms as president.  He elevated Harlan F Stone, an associate justice, to be the Chief Justice.

George Washington (1) selected 10 justices for the Court.  Though there were only 6 justices at the time, the turnover was higher.  In these early days, the Court didn't possess the prestige or power that it would gain in later years.  For the first Chief Justice, he chose John Jay.  Jay stayed in the position for 5 years before resigning to run for governor of New York (he won).  Washington next chose John Rutledge.  Rutledge had been rejected for associate justice by the Senate in 1789 and, when the Senate was again in session, he was rejected for Chief Justice as well.  He served about 5 months as Chief Justice.  Thus, Washington chose the 3rd Chief Justice, Oliver Ellsworth.

Send in the Rookies!

Much has been said about Trump selecting people with insufficient experience, especially from those who have buckets of experience (I'm looking at you, John Bolton).  However, look at what we are getting for our hyper-experienced government employees: disaster.  I am reminded of a quote from William F Buckley: 

I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory, than by the Harvard University faculty.

Experience in government is bad.  The longer people are in government, the more corrupt they will be.  It is not by accident that people with 6-figure salary soon have an 8-figure net worth.  When trillions of dollars are sloshing around, it is very hard to resist appropriating some.  Shrinking government would be a great first step, but only noobs can do that.  After a few years, only the most ethical of people can avoid being corrupted.  Ron Paul managed to stay true to his limited government principles even after 20 years in the House.

During his first term, President Trump tinkered with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which gave us bureaucrats outside the purview of the president.  The spoils system - which saw the president sweep all the offices and give them to supporters - was in poor regard.  Yeah, that's hardly a surprise.  The Pendleton Act took most offices out of the president's hands, effectively making them unresponsive to executive control.  Spoils was bad, but this has proven worse.

Maybe Javier Milei's chainsaw is available.  We have vastly more deadwood to trim than Argentina.

The Anderson Tapes (1971)

Robert "Duke" Anderson (Sean Connery) is released from prison after a 10-year sentence.  His first order of business is to hookup with his old flame, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon).  She happens to be living in an upscale building, thanks to her sugar daddy, Werner (Richard Shull).  The wealth on display get Duke's larcenous desires sparking and he starts planning a heist.  He will need help, including funding and manpower.  He checks in with local mob boss, Pat Angelo (Alan King).  Of course, Angelo is under surveillance and everything that he and Duke discuss is recorded.  Then Duke checks in with the Kid (Christopher Walken), a youth who was released from prison the same day as him.  The Kid was in for drugs and is under surveillance, so everything Duke says to him is recorded.  This repeats with each new recruit, though a different law enforcement agency is recording.  In one case, a private eye is doing the recording.  All the pieces of the planned heist have been revealed but no one sees the whole picture.  The caper launches with the police in the dark.

The story is told in a non-linear fashion.  The various residents of the apartment complex are being interviewed on site as the police carry away bodies on stretchers or attend wounds to the tenants.  Clearly, something went seriously wrong with the heist, but what?  Were the police in the know?  Had they been lying in wait?  How many of Duke's men escaped?

The movie is a commentary on the surveillance state that the US had become but also the uselessness of that surveillance.  Indeed, even today it always turns out that the various law enforcement agencies - most notably the FBI - have a file on the latest mass shooter or bomber.  Is Lumet arguing that surveillance does not help prevent crimes?  Maybe.

This was Christopher Walken's first big screen role.  The halting cadence that is frequently used to mimic him is absent here.  Where this was Walken's first movie, it proved to be Margaret Hamilton's last.  She plays one of the tenants here though she is most remembered as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939).  Also of note, Garrett Morris plays a cop.  This predates his debut as one of the original SNL cast members in 1975.  When I first saw this movie, I expected him to be comic relief rather than a police commando.

This is one of 5 collaborations between Sean Connery and Sidney Lumet.  The first was The Hill (1965), which is the best of the bunch.  Next was The Offence (1973), which is a bleak, dark film.  Then Murder on the Orient Express (1974), where Connery has a small role, and lastly Family Business (1989), which was mediocre.

Just okay.

Borderline (1980)

Jeb Maynard (Charles Bronson) is the head honcho of the La Mesa office of the US Border Patrol.  Illegal crossings have gone way up recently so Jeb sent to Washington for more help - maybe a dozen men; instead, only Jimmy Fante (Bruno Kirby) has been sent.  That night, Jeb takes Jimmy - affectionately nicknamed "the kid" - with him on a border sweep.  Meanwhile, veteran Scooter Jackson (Wilford Brimley) will patrol the highway for suspicious vehicles.  The uptick in crossings can be linked to a new coyote, El Marino (Ed Harris), a Vietnam veteran who has useful skills for smuggling people into the United States.  He is also willing to up the stakes, since he carries firearms.

The story follows Jeb's efforts to find the murderer of one of his border agents and break up a major smuggling ring.  Though the murder officially falls under FBI jurisdiction, they think it is drug-related.  Yeah, even in 1980, the FBI was incompetent.  Jeb has to use boot prints, tomatoes, tire tracks, and an illegal alien to track the murderers.

This was Ed Harris' first big movie role.  He brings his standard intensity to the role, making El Marino an intimidating adversary.

Despite being a 44-year-old movie, it demonstrates how the southern border is a longstanding problem that remains unresolved.  In the movie, it is suggested that illegals are actively imported by big business as cheap labor.  Amazingly, the big businessman behind the scheme (Michael Lerner) is found not guilty in court; he gets away with it though his underlings go to jail.  Of note, there was a lot of cooperation with and input from the US Border Patrol during the making of the film.

Just okay.

The Naked Face (1984)

Dr. Judd Stevens (Roger Moore) is a psychoanalyst in Chicago who has recently been widowed.  As such, his life is consumed by his work and meals at home alone.  Then, one of his patients is murdered.  Curiously, the patient was wearing Dr. Stevens' raincoat when he was stabbed to death.  Lt. McGreavy (Rod Steiger) and Detective Angeli (Elliott Gould) arrive to investigate.  McGreavy almost instantly suspects Stevens as the murderer.  Throughout the investigation, he is hostile to Stevens.  When more people in Dr. Stevens orbit die, Judd starts investigating on his own with the help of Private Investigator Morgens (Art Carney).  Judd believes he is the true target.

Filmed before Moore's final outing as James Bond in A View to a Kill (1985), this is an unusual role for him.  He is neither a lady's man nor a man of action.  When danger approaches, he runs away and hides in the backroom.  When fisticuffs are required, he gets beaten to a pulp.  When his brother-in-law, Dr. Peter Hadley (David Hedison), urges him to date, he begs off.  He's practically a shut-in.

Rod Stieger and Elliott Gould run the good cop - bad cop routine, Stieger being bad cop.  McGreavy's previous partner was killed by a psychopath some years earlier and Dr. Stevens' testimony was decisive for a successful insanity defense.  That explains McGreavy's hostility.  The usually wisecracking Gould has no personality here.  He is a bland character who serves as a whipping post for McGreavy's frustration or a sympathetic ear to Stevens' complaints about McGreavy.  The script does Gould no favors; it could have been a much better role.

Though it proved to be a small role, Art Carney is great as the private eye.  Of course, the haggard and world-weary private eye was his go-to role for some time (e.g. Sunburn, The Late Show).  Where Gould is bland and forgettable, Carney shines in his scenes.

Overall, it is just okay.  The cast is far better than the script.  There are not enough patients to make it a mystery as to which one is the source of Dr. Stevens troubles.  Ann Blake (Anne Archer) is a headliner among a bunch of unknown character actors.  Gee, what could this mean?  However, the ending did come as a surprise.

The Blanket Pardon

Despite promises to the contrary, President Biden has pardoned his son for all crimes - whether convicted, charged, or even suspected - from 2014 through today, December 1, 2024.  Wow, we didn't see that coming at all.  What a huge surprise.  Sure, every political pundit predicted exactly this would happen, but otherwise this comes out of the blue.  Yes, with all the Trump cases dropping away, there is no longer any need to appear 'unbiased' and 'evenhanded' regarding justice.  Nope, now there is no political cost to President Biden for pardoning his son.  Yeah, it may look bad in the history books, but family is family.

Now the real fun begins.  Soon, there will be stories in the media why this was the right thing to do, a noble thing to do, and mostly Trump's and/or Republicans' fault.  Karine Jean-Pierre, White House press secretary, is going to have a stressful day tomorrow.  Good luck.