Ed Helms

Full stop.

Investigating them and bringing the perpetrators to justice was a worthy and just goal.

But as we will soon see, and as is often the case with government overreach, reasonable and just intentions can very easily warp into horrendous abuse where the original crime becomes less a wrong to be righted and more an excuse for new and far greater injustices.

Now,

Palmer himself is a very interesting guy, and like all of us, a barrel of contradictions.

He was pro-women's suffrage and anti-child labor, which is not exactly going out on a limb of awesomeness, but it was a different time, and that was a bit progressive.

He was raised as a Quaker with pacifist leanings.

Palmer had actually turned down President Wilson's offer to serve as secretary of war, but he wasn't shy about his own presidential ambitions.

And he was well aware that a few high profile wins as attorney general could help pave the way.

So he declared radicals and communists public enemy number one, which, to be fair, probably wasn't too hard considering they just bombed his actual house.

He moved very quickly.

He created a new division within the Justice Department called the General Intelligence Division, later nicknamed the Radical Division.

And he tapped a 24-year-old Justice Department clerk to run it.

I'm going to give you one guess each.

Who this might be.

He's Cohn-y.

He's Cohn-esque.

This is a 24-year-old J. Edgar Hoover.

Oh, yeah.

Of course.