When the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Robert Capers, unsealed an indictment late last year against operators of a hedge fund that managed more than $1 billion dollars, he portrayed it as a straightforward fraud.
"Like a Ponzi scheme," were the words Mr. Capers used in a press release that portrayed the founder and chief executive office of Platinum, Mark Nordlicht, as having been on the verge of fleeing to Israel.
Over twenty years ago, during a segment that always followed the introduction of his Sunday program This Week — in what must have been a first for television news programming — the late David Brinkley simply said: "First, as for the news since the Sunday morning papers, there isn't any… so we'll be back with today's program in a moment."
Imagine that. It was a moment of such utter bravery and brevity that it should have earned the host a daytime Emmy Award, the gratitude of television viewers from sea to shining sea, and the attention of broadcast executives across the fruited plain. Especially in Boston.
