“All tides carry their own riptide,” Stephen writes, “and the wave of populist hate that won this Pyrrhic victory is already rolling back.”

It will never be said of Stephen Price Blair that he spilled any ink with half a heart.

What if the Three Musketeers were journalists in Washington, DC? What if journalists were swashbuckling, swaggering, hard-drinking warriors of truth?

The Dream of Poor Bazin is the story behind one of the greatest political intrigues in history. Maybe you read about it, or rather, what they let you read about it, probably as some minor item buried under the back page corrections among the dry-cleaning ads. What happened in DC during the administration of President Bill Lewis was so incredible that to this day the facts have been suppressed in a massive effort to save political careers from disaster.

Item: Young journalist Stephen Price Blair, up from Charlottesville, engages the three greatest reporters of his age in a barroom brawl within hours of his arrival in DC.

Item: A mysterious elder statesman absconds with Stephen’s letter of introduction to White House Press Secretary Bobby Trevor, leading Stephen on a wild chase throughout the beltway.

Item: Which young journalist with the eye of the President organized the controversial Salons4All symposium series at the Washington Post? Was it the same cub reporter whose landlord was escorted out of his seedy U Street apartment in handcuffs by the United States Postal Inspection Service?

Item: What band of intrepid journos located the missing Warren Fries briefcase—right under the noses of the United States Postal Inspection Service?

Item: If you’re a fan of Dumas’s great adventure or of Waugh’s satirical Scoop, you’ll love The Dream of Poor Bazin.

The Dream of Poor Bazin is the story of Stephen Price Blair’s first beats on the road to the White House Press Corps, all the sweeter for being his first, and all the wilder for being true.