Maureen Dowd writes about new LA Police Chief-designee William Bratton today in From Vertical to Horizontal. Bratton's swearing-in ceremony is Monday in Los Angeles. We'll be there, and we'll share our impressions with you as soon as we get back to a computer.

Dowd writes:

"As police commissioner of New York City in the mid-90's, Mr. Bratton made the cover of Time for helping Mayor Rudy Giuliani tame the untamable New York, from squeegee guys to wilding thugs. But Rudy, loath to share top billing, forced his brassy chief out."

"Mr. Giuliani thought Mr. Bratton was living too large, hanging out at Elaine's, getting a lot of money for a memoir, flying on private planes, engaging in serial marriages. But given Rudy's subsequent transformation from puritanical to operatic, with Judy Nathan, memoir riches and his own triumphant Time cover, Mr. Bratton may have just been ahead of his time in the Giuliani administration. "There's a certain irony there," Mr. Bratton says dryly."

"Mr. Bratton, who describes himself as "a progressive....says he just wants to focus on moving from "vertical" crime-fighting to "horizontal," and find "new prescriptions" to counter fresh threats: "I would like the opportunity to get the patient through radiation and chemo and into rehab and then into intensive care."

Well said, Bill.