It was 40 years ago this month that a criminal conspiracy was hatched in the Oval Office — a fact that bears noting as we witness the self-immolation of Anthony Weiner over matters of far less import and ask ourselves just what determines which sins are punished, which forgiven and which forgotten in the public arena. The occasion in 1971 was the publication of the first installment of the Pentagon Papers, a 2.5-million-word secret history of the Vietnam War.
