The second episode of ABC’s hit show, Scandal was just as enthralling as the premiere. The show opened with a mysterious new client, an elderly woman sitting in in Olivia Pope’s Office. While she and Olivia calmly sit and banter, Olivia’s crackerjack staff quickly cleans out an office. They wiped the hard drives, boxed up the files and bolted, just as the police were pulling up. Olivia is percent and clairvoyant and in the next scene she is standing at the entrance of her office waiting for the Police, whom she greets with a smile. We learn that Olivia has just cleaned out the home office of her client, just before the Police gained a warrant. Ms. Pope’s latest client is Washington’s finest Madam!

The elderly Madam is being investigated for her “services” but the plot of this story, very neatly intersects with a simultaneously progressing plot that involves the President. President Grant has just nominated a Judge to the Supreme Court. His name and reputation are impeccable. No one anticipates a problem because the reserved judge is believed to be a boy-scout. While the President prepares his nominee, Olivia and her staff are searching, high and low for the madam’s client list. After hours of wasted effort, the Madam reveals that she has all of the names, handwritten on sheets of paper that she always carries with her. The list consists of phone numbers only. Soon the work of identifying all of the “Johns” is done. Olivia’s office walls are filled with the faces of D.C.’s most successful men. One of those men, is the President’s recent Supreme Court Nominee! Despite her disdain for the President, Olivia races to the White-House to warn the him.

Olivia and the President’s Chief of Staff confront Judge Keating, the nominee. He denies the charges and Olivia, the most perceptive person in Washington, can tell that he is telling the truth.Pope reluctantly agrees to help “fix” the problem. Through a series of twists and turns, Pope realizes that the Judge never actually visited the Madam, but she gets an idea about who may have. The Judges wife—– Olivia immediately tracks her down and gets a full confession.

The Wife, as it turns out, was a prostitute. She worked for the Madam. On her first night of “work” her “John” didn’t show up. Patrick Keating, then a young student, came into the bar and struck up a conversation. The two hit it off. She was immediately in love. The two began dating but she logged her time with Steven as if he were a “John”. Their relationship was picturesque and their love was pure. They didn’t even have sex until they were married. During their relationship she continued “working the night shift” with the Madam. She paid for his law school with the money she made “working”. Everything the straight laced judge has, he owed to his wife’s activities. If he knew, he would be distraught. Their whole life has been a lie. Olivia forces the wife to confess to her husband. He is crushed. They will lose everything now; their marriage is destroyed and he will never sit on the Supreme Court. But Olivia can’t simply leave it like that!

She assembles the prominent politicians on the Madam’s list and persuades them all that Patrick Keating is an excellent nominee and that he should sail through the nomination process, without much inspection. Even the politicians that were previously opposed to his nomination are persuaded to recant.Olivia Pope has saved the day!

A side plot also developed in which Olivia decided to represent the President’s mistress as a client. The poor woman tried to kill herself after Olivia threatened to destroy her life for “lying” about the President. After discovering that the girl’s story of an affair with the President was true, Olivia was compelled to make amends. A reporter is on the trail of the story and the young lady, will need protection.

Newark New Jersey Mayor, Cory Booker is not only one of the nation’s most successful mayors but he is now a genuine hero. His miraculous of a woman from her burning home, has many calling him America’s Real Mayor (a simultaneous riff and diss on the title given to Rudy Giuliani of New York for his efforts during 9-11). The Assoicated Press is reporting that last night, upon returning from a Television Interview, Mayor Booker noticed that his neighbor’s home was on fire. Mayor Booker immediately sprung into action, along with his security detail. The men charged into the home, searching for victims. They headed for the second floor when Booker reports that “Suddenly [I] had the realization that I can’t find this woman. I look[ed] behind me and [I] see the flames and I think, I’m not going to get out of here. Suddenly, I was at peace with the fact that I was going to jump out the window. I just grabbed her and whipped her out of the bed“. The two made it to the front entrance, where they both collapsed.

Booker has been revered for his yeoman’s effort at transforming New Jersey. But these types of heroics can  propel spectacular politicians to the status of inevitable national figures. It may not be long until we see Booker 2016 (for President) T-shirts. Levity aside, we should all be grateful that Mayor Booker and his neighbor are alive and well.