Woff, Woof, Woof

Sandalmonger by William Safire. Lightly fictionalized in part, but a good read. Probably the first book I read that delved into the unsavory aspect of politics in post revolutionary America. Jefferson used a clerk in the State Department to write articles for a newspaper that he supported financially. He was so desperate to keep his skirts clean that he used cut outs to communicate instructions for dirty tricks to James Madison. Who comes off as a real scalawag. I suppose in a sense you could say that Thomas Jefferson invented plausible deniability.