A merica has just had its jolting Michael Corleone moment.

In the third and least successful Godfather movie, bigwig crime boss Michael Corleone, who spent years trying to get his "family" into legitimate businesses, says: " Just when I thought I was outhellip; they pull me back in." He's sucked back into the overtly criminal practices of his family's sordid past, and in the end he pays a huge price.

And so it goes in the 21st century where two manifestations of the worst instinct and operative practice in American life were in full, raw, display - complete with their defenders and enablers...