The real reason AT&T was paying Cohen....

[jberryhill]

No shit. This was predicted years ago.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. He's not just the fixer; he's the bagman.

I think it's a pretty bad thing that the President of the United States has a bag man.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Plot spoiler!

For those of you who haven't seen the movie, probably most of you given how long ago it came out (1967), here's the final conclusion of the movie:

















Everyone hates the phone company.

And that was true. Back then we only had Ma Bell, and I happened to work for her in that long-ago year. It was a monopoly, and for all that people complained, it was a relatively benign monopoly. Unlike a lot of European countries (in 1970 I knew a family in Paris who'd been waiting for a phone for I know longer remember how many years) you could get a phone installed quickly, if your actual phone broke they'e replace it, and the installers were quite full of good information. One installer set up my phone so that I could turn the ring off, and every time after that when I moved and had to have a new phone installed, I'd request that. Eventually, of course, the Bell system was broken up and we got the privilege of buying our own phones. And then there are our cell phones. Ahh, this brave new world!

Trust me, I'm not longing for the days of the Ma Bell monopoly, but it wasn't bad at all.

[jberryhill]

3. Best line in the movie

“Bedouins hate the phone company.”

[HAB911]

4. I know what you mean

I was with the competition, GTE. My father and one uncle retired from Southern Bell, it was a family thang. At GTE we joked that we could almost will our jobs to our kids........then came the breakup which spun us off to eventually join WE as Lucent. Ah, for the good ole days.