WASHINGTON — One of the wisest men I ever knew in Washington was the late James H. Rowe Jr. He came out of Montana , went to Harvard Law School and was recruited by Felix Frankfurter for a job on FDR's White House staff. In later years, he became a counselor to Lyndon Johnson , Hubert Humphrey and other Democrats of that generation.

His law office was a block from The Washington Post . When we would bu...