The idea, like so many of massive effect and modest intention, came in an instant. The fact that it involved an anachronistic actor of unique swagger and fortitude as well as one of the world's most recognized yet private persons, a woman of English elegance and California beauty, surely inspired the madness that would follow in its wake and set fire to a lumpen nation with a fetish for celebrity, sex and scandal. And so it began with an idea that was actuated with a photograph and abetted by technology, dispirit accomplices, clandestine maneuverings, exquisite branding, and an epic humiliation that would leave a large portion of America burning and the whole country choking on its own foul dust. And so it began...