It's 1929, Al Capone has recently ordered the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Top FBI G-Man, Elliot Ness has been tasked with taking Capone down. Ness looks into the situation and reports back to J. Edgar Hover:
"Look boss, This Capone thing...I think it's all blown out of perspective. Yes...MAYBE some other gangsters got whacked by lower level functionaries. They do seem to have been targeted because they were rivals of Capone. You know, he has a big organization. He can't be expected to know what's going on with all of his employees. And maybe he is involved in running illegal booze...prostitution, etc. Its all reprehensible, I agree but, hey, all the other gangsters are doing it. You know, I mean, this kind of thing has been going on since long before prohibition. You had your Jesse James, your Billy the Kid...you know, they killed people too."
"I think this is all just a ploy by the John Dillinger/Baby Face Nelson faction to draw attention away from all the good things Capone is doing for the Italian community in Chicago...The Italians love this guy. Dillinger has been known to make disparaging remarks about Italians, you know. He and all his type are just Italian-haters anyway."
"You know, most of the stuff he's done was months and years ago. That's too long to care. We should really not worry about the past and get back to doing the work of the FBI. I don't think there's anything here...What? Well, sure...I've met with Mr. Capone. Yeah...he did offer me a job...He is using my brother's company to transport his products...Yes, he did say that my family would be well taken care of...but, I don't see what that has to do with any of this. I think we should just drop the whole thing."
Reductio ad absurdum
