The Anglosphere: Men Behind Bars edition

When it was revealed that Mark Felt was Deep Throat, Nixon henchman Chuck Colson was given ample time on the evening cable TV shows to express his outrage at betrayal. And there were plenty of spinners willing to indulge him. Here's Josh Marshall taking note of a loony pro-Colson Peggy Noonan column and an op-ed piece from New York Newsday chronicling the media rehabilitation of Nixon's subversives.

But bursts of claimed outrage are a lucrative business these days, and Chuck Colson has a book to sell. Or will have as of the Twelfth of July (a nod to Ulster Unionism?) when Chuck Colson: A Life Redeemed goes on sale. Authored by Old Etonian Jonathan Aitken.

Now that is a clever synergy, to have two conservative politicans who've each done time hook up as biographer and subject. Here's the Wikipedia entry on Aitken, who was busted for lying on the stand in the libel action that he had brought against a claim that an expensive Paris hotel stay for his family was paid for by a Saudi businessman. Indeed, in its aspect of conservative politicians having lucrative dealings with shady Saudis, Aitken is well matched with Bush-era conservatism in the US. But at least the British media are more frank about Aitken's past when his name does come up, unlike the Deep-Throat-was-the-real-criminal amnesia that infected their US counterparts regarding Colson.