In the classic book, of course, the wounded whale finally sends the ship to the bottom, crew and all (but one), and swims away to the freedom of the deep blue sea.

Forgive the barrage of movie metaphor, but there's quite a bit of the 1944 classic Gaslight in here too — and sure, I'm not the first to notice. In that film, the wicked Charles Boyer manipulates his wife, played by Ingrid Bergman, into thinking she's lost her marbles, in order to cover up his own crimes. That's how I feel when I turn to The New York Times every morning — for instance, today's edition, with the front-page story Trump Proxies Drop by Briefings on Use of F.B.I. Informant (which headline was actually changed on the landing page to Trump's Lawyer and Chief of Staff Appear at Briefings on F.B.I.'s Russia Informant).