Status Updates From Liberty (Jake Grafton #10)

[44 continued] …vacation, plus the usual cast of feudists, fatheads, fools, fanatics, hotshots, incompetents, tattletales, suck-ups, backstabbers...and a few dedicated people who do all the real work.

[44] "Democracies are messy." Jake remarked when the President paused for air."
"Aren't they ever!" The President made a chopping gesture. "The hell of it is that bureaucracies are what governments have to work with to protect human lives. Every bureaucracy has its rules and regulations, rivers of forms and reports and memos and correspondence. in- and out-baskets, federal holidays, people sick or on...