A Special Treat – Patrick Fitzgerald Tells Us What He Really Does For A Living

Patrick Fitzgerald, the no-nonsense U.S. attorney, will show off his rarely seen (or heard) lighter side when he appears this weekend on “Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me,” the current events quiz show produced by Chicago Public Radio for NPR.

Fitzgerald will try his hand at the “Not My Job” segment, in which famous people answer questions on topics completely outside their areas of expertise.

He’ll tape his segment at 6:30 p.m. Thursday when the show originates from Millennium Park. “Several times recently I thought about getting tickets to go watch it, but never got it done,” he said. “Now I know I have a seat.”

As a WBEZ Leadership Circle member, I get to sit in the VIP section and maybe even shake his hand!

I only became aware of Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald, in the more personal sense, when he came to prominence in the Osama case in New York. Call me a “jumper on the bandwagon”, but he became really hot when he indicted Scooter. Now, maybe that is surprising. After all, just look at him. He’s no Johnny Depp. Hell! He’s not even Olivier Martinez, and Olivier is short and French. Mr. Fitzgerald is approximately 45 years old, white, Irish-American Catholic (freakin’ Jesuit trained…), a lawyer and originally from New York. In other words, almost everything I got a passport and went to Latin America to get away from.

And yet, I’m drawn to him. Why? Because he’s so smart. Not just regular Mensa smart, but bonafide Harvard Law, Phi Beta Kappa from Amherst, degree in math and economics (!) smart, unbelievably ruthless and “disorganized yet organized in his own head” smart. Now, that is my kind of guy. If I found out he could order competently in Spanish at Lalo’s, he would have me at “Hola.”