Same As It Ever Was
Even by the standards of a country notorious for losing its innocence every decade or sosurely our national anthem should be "Like a Virgin"September 11, 2001, would appear to deserve its oft-given...
View ArticleThe Dirty Work
Back in the Clinton years, a friend moved to D.C. to become a Washington correspondent. Shortly after he arrived, the job fell through. When I called to ask how he was doing, he told me he was actually...
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Manning Up
John CuneoIIn Master of the Senate, the third volume ofhis massive, still-unfinished biography of Lyndon Johnson, Robert Caro devotes a memorable paragraph to the great man’s fondness for exhibiting...
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Highlight Reel
1. MISSION ACCOMPLISHEDBarry BlittWhen the great Chicago Bears running back Walter Payton scored a touchdown, he never performed an end-zone celebration. He merely handed the ball to a lineman so his...
View ArticleThe Inside Track
Early in the new HBO series Luck, a gangster’s chauffeur-cum-bodyguard, Gus Demitriou (Dennis Farina), goes to L.A.’s Santa Anita racetrack with his boss, Chester “Ace” Bern-stein (Dustin Hoffman), and...
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Rachel Maddow, the Lovable Wonk
(Photo by Frank Micelotta/PictureGroup)I can’t say for sure when it happened—it was after Barack Obama’s swearing-in yet before Keith Olbermann got suspended for giving money to Democrats—but at some...
View ArticleDreams from My President
Every president plays a symbolic, almost mythological role that’s hard to talk about, much less quantify—it’s like trying to grab a ball of mercury. I’m not referring to using the bully pulpit to shape...
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The Hidden Candidate
(John Cuneo)When Gore Vidal died a few weeks ago, eulogies quoted his famous observation that “the more money an American accumulates the less interesting he himself becomes.” Vidal originally wrote...
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