Going Too Far

Try to imagine drug gangsters murdering both Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and his predecessor, Edwin Meese. Next, pretend that drug triggermen and guerrilla allies rub out almost half the Supreme Court -- say, Justices William Brennan, Byron White, Antonin Scalia and Sandra Day O'Connor -- along with hundreds of lower-ranking but still prominent jurists. Expand the list of victims to include Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee and Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates, both slain, and Amy Carter, kidnaped and held briefly as a warning to authorities who might get tough with the narco-barons. And then the grand climax: the 1987...