This is not directly related to Lindy's post, but it's a good place to put this...

I watched that great old flick "Seven Days in May" on the tube the other night. For those of you who haven't seen it, tear yourself away from the keyboard right now and go to your nearest Lackluster Video and check it out. The cast alone is worth the rental.

Kirk Douglas plays a Marine colonel who stumbles onto what he suspects is a plot by his boss, an Army general and JCS chairman played by Burt Lancaster, to carry out a coup d'etat against the US government.

He reports his suspicions to the President of the United States (Frederick March) who sends him on a mission to try and get hard evidence against the General by interviewing the General's adulterous lover (Ava Gardner), an old friend of the Douglas character.

He gets evidence of the affair, (not about the coup), but it's all they need to destroy the General by blackmailing him into submission.

I won't spoil the rest of the film for you, but the characters are obviously deeply conflicted about using irrelevant personal information gathered dishonestly to attack a political enemy, albeit one who is a serious danger to the Republic, and a traitor to boot. The movie was made in the late fifties or early sixties, and it struck me how innocent we were back then.

It would pose no problem at all in our enlightened age.