On Saturday, after a quick road trip to Virginia and back, I sat down at my desk and the phone rang. Yes, it was her. Ms. Pigette, the all-seeing sage of Boothbay and environs who holds up the mailbox across from Joan Rittall’s house on Route 27.

Before I could say hello, she started in. “I took lots of time out of my busy social schedule to return your call of last week and you didn’t call me back. What gives? It looks like you are spending more time with Ham Meserve’s dead whale, than your old friend and best secret source, namely, me.”

I started to explain that I went out of town for a couple of days and did not get her call, when she interrupted.

“Look, Mister Fat Old News-Hawk, if you want me to share the inside political skinny, you have to keep in touch. Just for the record, you do have more than one faithful reader? Don’t you?”

I ignored her insult and asked if she was referring to last week’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearings, where the former FBI director claimed the new president said he hoped the bureau could go easy on a retired general because he was a good guy.

“Yea, that’s the one, the claim that sent the Democrats into a tizzy claiming POTUS committed Obstruction of Justice. On the other hand, some Republicans said it was no such thing. If you ask me they are both wrong.”

“How so,” I said.

“Look. The new guy is a hot shot New Yorker who was born on third base and thinks he got there by hitting a triple. He had a terminal case of ‘bigshotitis’ before he backed into the presidency.”

“Do tell,” I said. And she did.

“The new guy thought he could bully the director of the FBI into dropping a case on his pal, the general like he would bully a New York City meter maid into tearing up a parking ticket. He just thought that was the way things are done.

“Last week, he found out he was wrong. How was he to know? New York City big shots have been putting in ‘The Fix’ for ages. It is part of their culture.”

I told her I understood, but that comment sent lots of folks in government and the press into a giant hooray claiming he committed a crime that could lead to impeachment.

“That is a lot of bunk,” she said. “Our revered founding fathers did not mean impeachment as a tool to be used by political opponents as a Mulligan to overturn an election. Yes, it was stupid for him to ask the FBI guy to fix the ticket for his pal, the general, but is stupid a reason to fire POTUS?

If stupid was a firing offense, Congress, the brass hats in the bureaucracy, and much of the press corps would be looking for honest work,” she said.

I thought for a minute and asked her if she thought that all the name calling and invective caused us to miss the real news that came out of that committee hearing.

“D’oh, Mr. Homer Simpson, you figured it out. The real news coming out of that hearing had to do with Russia. For months, our top intelligence officials have been warning that computer hackers controlled by the Kremlin tried to influence our presidential election. The new guy has pooh-poohed that as fake news. But at the hearing, the new guy’s two top spymasters, both experienced and highly qualified men, said, under oath, that it was a real attempt, one as serious as a heart attack.”

Isn’t that what Robert Mueller, the special counsel, is supposed to be investigating?

“Exactamundo, Grasshopper. But slow down for a minute. This is a real investigation and Mueller is a real pro. He is not NCIS’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs who figures out the scam and catches the bad guys in less than an hour.

Real investigations, especially those at the highest levels of government, take lots of time, not to mention manpower and money. So, hold on to your knickers buster, you will get a story, but it won’t come in today’s news cycle.”

I turned to a couple of other topics that came out of that committee hearing and asked her what she thought about leaks and lies.

“Wake up, weak eyes. Washington has always seen more leakers and leaks than a fireplug located across the street from a dog park.

It is just part of the culture. As for lies, I am shocked anyone would ever accuse our political leaders and the journalistic chattering class of telling a fib.

But, now that you ask, it does seem that lots of folks are a lot more interested in the Second Amendment than the Ninth Commandment.”