In The Washington Post today, Richard Cohen writes about Team Obama’s attempt to toss the inept New York Governor David Paterson out of the 2010 campaign. “The Defenestration of New York tells you nothing you did not know about Paterson. But it does tell you something about Obama and a toughness lurking behind that blazing …
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All I can say is, if ever you had the opportunity to be a child (or grandchild) in the good graces of Irene Malanowski, take the job. In all my life, I never doubted my mother’s love, and I do not think it is at all a debatable proposition that for the first 15 or …
While researching what I’m happy to report will become an article in The Washington Monthly on the use of CCTV in Great Britain, I became an admirer of the work of Henry Porter. This means I come to the Porter fan club rather late, since Henry has had a long and distinguished career as a …
Having been an unsuccessful and rejected president long ago liberated Jimmy Carter from the illusion that he might have something to gain by making nice to his former colleagues in government. Carter–pious, a scold, and possessed of a blind spot when it comes to foreign despots–is that sort of person whose views are hard to …
Trawling through photo albums last week, I found these wonderful pictures. Left, Kurt and Kate Andersen; above, George Kalogerakis, Rachel Urquhart, Spike and Graydon Carter. Below left, Molly Malanowski and me. These three photos were taken in 1989 at Kurt’s place in Putnam County. Below right, Molly, earlier that same year, in our apartment in …
I just finished an awfully good debut novel by a young writer named Thomas Leveritt called The Exchange-Rate Between Love and Money. The book takes place among a group of international expatriates who have come to Sarajevo in the still-shaky aftermath of the conflict in the nineties. Quick-buck artists, soldiers of fortune, peacekeepers, international aid …
Several years ago, I had a conversation with the political commentator Jeff Greenfield about how the personal appearance of candidates affects elections. Most of our conversation focused on facial hair, and its almost total disappearance among political candidates, especially among those for national or state-wide office. Jeff thought the fashion against facial hair would be …
That fine old sixties exclamation “That was wild!” has never been particularly useful to me; I always found it vague. Well, never has it seemed more perfect than in describing Inglourious Basterds, the new film by Quentin Tarantino. It is wild! Funny, tense, violent, exciting–it’s really enormously entertaining. In some ways, it’s even more entertaining …
One of the more pleasant respites in what has proven to be a fairly challenging summer (thank goodness for the Yankees–so far) has been the discovery of Battlestar Galactica (above, the trailer for Season One). I am not sure if it was prejudice against the original series or prejudice against the Sci-Fi Channel, or some …
In 1979, the man I worked for, a young New York City Councilman named Tony Olivieri, decided that he had had enough of Jimmy Carter, and took it upon himself to launch a local Draft Kennedy movement. There wasn’t much to do to forward that cause, since Ted Kennedy wasn’t mounting a campaign just yet. …