mrs. klinger takes it home. the next monday comes-up after class. she said, okay, ellis i'm going to give you an a for the course but i'm not really capable of evaluating this material. send this to a professional. i'm a kid from the projects. a professional what? send it to who? and she says well, send it to gwendolyn brooks. you know who she is. yeah, that's the laureate of illinois. send it to her. and a few months later i heard from gwendolyn brooks. she called me in. to her office and she said, look, young man, i don't know what you intend to do with your life but you ought to be a writer. and that made something of an impression on me. [laughter] >> and from there that ended up totally redefining myself and as you know, i went on to become a columnist for the "chicago sun-times" at the age of 19. and my path was sort of set. >> clarence tells a wonderful store about how he got hired on the "chicago tribune" in the 1969 and the west side has gone up in flames and the "chicago tribune" looks around the newsroom who they could send to the west si

mr. klinger, went after the white house counsel, jack quinn, who was the holder of -- the custodian of the documents that the committee was going after. and the president never claimed executive privilege. but alluded to it and kept putting it off. and at one point made a conditional claim of executive privilege, depending on x, y and z. well, the committee got fed up and what they did with schedule, schedule a contempt vote for two weeks hence. actually, they had already contacted -- contented quinn discusses the floor on the house two weeks hence. and within a two-week period, the documents were all turned over. so, that kind of an opportunity, it's what we call a staged process, which i believe that investigative oversight is. so from one point of persuasion to the next to the next to the next. and what's happened over the last 15, 20 years is we skipped the threats, you know, i subpoena and then subpoena mean and the threats of content. and then holding contempt over somebody's head. jack quinn did not want to be held in contempt. >> and, mr. chairman, my time has expired but from my v