“Son, this is a Washington, D.C., kind of lie. It’s when the other person knows you’re lying, and also knows you know he knows.”

This from Allen Drury’s novel “Advise and Consent.”

The 1959 account of conniving and blood sport in a high-profile Senate confirmation won the Pulitzer in fiction.

For a modern-day masterwork about deceit in the Senate, however, turn to Donald Trump’s “defense” in his impeachment trial. Call it “Obstruct a...