Get Medieval: Dinky Dean Riesner, who died at age 83 in 2002, according to his obituary, was a child star of the 1920s and later a successful screenwriter best known for lines that made Clint Eastwood more famous than the writer, including, "Go ahead, make my day." His first screen credit was on The Code of the Secret Service (1939), which starred Ronald Reagan.

During World War II, Riesner served in the Coast Guard, before returning to writing and acting.

But it was not until the early 1970s that Riesner became more widely known for his screenplays. It was he who wrote such lines as "You have to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, punk?" and "Go ahead, make my day" after being brought in by the director Don Siegel as the fifth screenwriter on Dirty Harry.

He also came up with the original "They'll tie you naked to a chair and get medieval with you" line in Charley Varrick (1973).

Yesterday, under intense interrogation by the Senate Judiciary Committee about a Justice Department memo to the President concerning the legality of torture, Attorney General John Ashcroft was not forced to sing.

So as not to take anything out of context, let us look at the full lyrics: "Let the eagle soar / like she's never soared before / from rocky coast / to golden shore / let the mighty eagle soar. / So with healing in her wings / as the land beneath her sings: / 'Only God, no other kings,' / let the mighty eagle soar. / This country's far too young to die / Though she's cried a bit for what we've put her through / she's soared above the lifted lamp / that guards sweet freedom's door / in the dews, the damps, the watchfires / of a nation torn by war / oh she's far too young to die / you can see it in her eye / she's not yet begun to fly / it's time to let the mighty eagle soar [refrain]."

Ashcroft wrote the text and music in 1997, when meditating on the nation's resilience against President Clinton's marital woes. The revised version above adds new war-oriented material and omits a stanza (and a dangling participle) of moral struggle: "We've still got a lot of climbing to do, / And we can make it if we try. / Built by toils and struggles / God has led us through."

Read the review of "Let the Eagle Soar" in the Columbia Political Review.