When I was in Saudi Arabia , I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women
I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women 's rights were strangled , an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men 's club than a modern nation
They told me , somewhat defensively , that the kingdom was moving at its own pace , glacial as that seemed to outsiders
How could such spirited women , smart and successful on every other level , acquiesce in their own subordination
I was puzzling over that one when it hit me : As a Catholic woman , I was doing the same thing
I , too , belonged to an inbred and wealthy men 's club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity
I , too , remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world
I , too , rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals , blind to the benefits of welcoming women 's brains , talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity
To circumscribe women , Saudi Arabia took Islam 's moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Muhammad ; the Catholic Church took its moral codes and orthodoxy to extremes not outlined by Jesus
In the New Testament , Jesus is surrounded by strong women and never advocates that any woman whether she 's his mother or a prostitute be treated as a second-class citizen
Negating women is at the heart of the church 's hideous and criminal indifference to the welfare of boys and girls in its priests ' care
Lisa Miller writes in Newsweek 's cover story about the danger of continuing to marginalize women in a disgraced church that has Mary at the center of its founding story : `` In the Roman Catholic corporation , the senior executives live and work , as they have for a thousand years , eschewing not just marriage , but intimacy with women ... not to mention any chance to familiarize themselves with the earthy , primal messiness of families and children .
No wonder that , having closed themselves off from women and everything maternal , they treated children as collateral damage , a necessary sacrifice to save face for Mother Church
And the sins of the fathers just keep coming
On Friday , The Associated Press broke the latest story pointing the finger of blame directly at Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger , quoting from a letter written in Latin in which he resisted pleas to defrock a California priest who had sexually molested children
As the longtime Vatican enforcer , the archconservative Ratzinger now Pope Benedict XVI moved avidly to persecute dissenters
But with molesters , he was plodding and even merciful
As the A.P. reported , the Oakland diocese recommended defrocking Father Stephen Kiesle in 1981
The priest had pleaded no contest and was sentenced to three years ' probation in 1978 in a case in which he was accused of tying up and molesting two boys in a church rectory
In 1982 , the Oakland diocese got what it termed a `` rather curt '' response from the Vatican
It was n't until 1985 that `` God 's Rottweiler '' finally got around to addressing the California bishop 's concern
He sent his letter urging the diocese to give the 38-year-old pedophile `` as much paternal care as possible '' and to consider `` his young age .
Ratzinger should have been more alarmed by the young age of the priest 's victims ; that 's what maternal care would have entailed
As in so many other cases , the primary concern seemed to be shielding the church from scandal
Chillingly , outrageously , the future pope told the Oakland bishop to consider the `` good of the universal church '' before granting the priest 's own request to give up the collar even though the bishop had advised Rome that the scandal would likely be greater if the priest were not punished
While the Vatican sat on the case asking the diocese to resubmit the files , saying they might have been lost Kiesle volunteered as a youth minister at a church north of Oakland
The A.P. also reported that even after the priest was finally defrocked in 1987 , he continued to volunteer with children in the Oakland diocese ; repeated warnings to church officials were ignored
The Vatican must realize that the church 's belligerent , resentful and paranoid response to the global scandal is not working because it now says it will cooperate with secular justice systems and that the pope will have more meetings with victims
It is too little , too late
The church that through the ages taught me and other children right from wrong did not know right from wrong when it came to children
Crimes were swept under the rectory rug , and molesters were protected to molest again for the `` good of the universal church .
And that is bad , very bad a mortal sin
The church has had theological schisms
This is an emotional schism
The pope is morally compromised
Take it from a sister
Once the West Coast glowed with prosperity and was the harbinger of hip new things
Now it 's in the grip of recession and repression
California 's cool has been stolen by , of all places , Iowa
White-bread , cornfed , understated Iowa was the first state to ratify the black rookie Barack Obama and has usurped the role everyone thought California would play as a leader in the fight to give gays the right to marry
Now it 's flyover country that 's starting high-flying trends
The mayor of Des Moines , Frank Cownie , called the San Francisco mayor , Gavin Newsom , to leave him a message about the Iowa Supreme Court decision
`` That caught me , candidly , by surprise , proverbially flat-footed , '' Newsom said in an interview at City Hall
`` It was around April 1st , so I thought , honestly , it was an April Fool 's joke .
It seemed so topsy-turvy
`` It 's pretty extraordinary , '' the Irish Catholic mayor said , in an office filled with Kennedy memorabilia and the ghosts of the Harvey Milk-George Moscone murders
`` Now you have four states that are legally sanctioning same-sex marriage , and New York and California are not among them
Who could have predicted that ?
The Dream Factory is being left in the dust by the Field of Dreams
Matt McCoy , an openly gay Iowa legislator , was so excited by the court 's unanimous decision that he posted a video inviting everyone , `` gay and straight , '' to come get married and settle in Iowa
Max Mutchnick , the co-creator of `` Will and Grace , '' who married the entertainment lawyer Erik Hyman in Beverly Hills just days before Proposition 8 passed last November theirs is among the 18,000 or so marriages now in legal limbo was tickled by the idea of Iowa as the new California
`` Will we see David Geffen rollerblading in the Des Moines skywalk ?
Mutchnick mused
`` Will paparazzi chase after farmers looking for candid shots
Will Ashton and Demi be BlackBerrying friends from their corner table at Applebee 's
Will there be a new line of Kiehl 's products for goats ?
Mutchnick , who is raising twin girls with Hyman , frets that President Obama may be behind the country on this issue , and that the Obamas do not have enough gays around them
`` If more homosexuals were in the Obamas ' lives , '' the writer said , `` there is no way Michelle would have worn a twin set when she met the queen .
Newsom is running for governor , even though his cause foundered , and he may have trouble wooing those blacks and Latinos who supported Prop 8
He does n't like the image of California reeling backward and `` becoming the first state in U.S. history to use the Constitution to strip people 's rights away .
The dashing mayor , now 41 , was a pariah at the 2004 Democratic convention because some Democrats thought his operatic parade of gay marriages had helped W. and Karl Rove buzz the base and eke out a victory against John Kerry
Over what he called a `` Vitamin V '' vodka at the St. Regis hotel here , Newsom 's predecessor , Willie Brown -LRB- who prefers Jerry Brown for governor and thinks Newsom should run for lieutenant governor -RRB- disputed this , laughing : `` You think John Kerry lost because Gavin Newsom married people
No way
It was because he was on that sky-diving piece of equipment
He was wind-surfacing all over the world .
Newsom said he has n't sat down with Barney Frank , who warned the mayor to win approval in court before issuing marriage licenses , but that he had reconciled with Dianne Feinstein , who said Newsom had pushed the issue `` too much , too fast , too soon .
While he says he does n't like being a chew toy for Ann Coulter , Bill O'Reilly and the religious right , or getting ugly Twitter messages or obscene gestures from people at airports , he asserts that his brazen approach in 2004 made it harder for Democrats `` to speak from both sides of their mouths to justify their position that separate is equal , '' and caused a `` softening '' in discrimination
`` People watched and saw a human face , '' he said
`` They saw somebody who looked like their next-door neighbor and said , ` That 's not the person with chaps in the big gay parade . '
He said he has been rereading Martin Luther King 's `` Letter From Birmingham Jail '' and feels he needs to `` do more , now and better .
`` If we did n't do it in 2004 , do you think the party would have wanted us to do it in 2006 during the midterm elections to take back Congress ?
he said
`` God forbid
Well , it 's another presidential year
And now people are saying 2010
That 's another critical year to hold Congress , and we 've got statehouses across the nation
Another presidential year
Another Congressional year
Wait does almost always mean never
That was Dr. King 's point .
He spent the week taking the fun out of dysfunction , putting the `` I '' in id , and getting flaky just when Hillary has to be flawless
In a mystifying burst of nuttiness , right in time for the Sunday talk shows , Bill twice dredged up Hillary 's rococo story about sniper fire in Bosnia
He defended his wife on confusing her facts by confusing his facts a disconcerting reminder about what climbing back on a presidency-built-for-two would be like
`` A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me , '' the unamused former president said Thursday night in Boonville , Ind.
He 's absolutely crazed , and not just because he feels that he never got the sort of incandescent press coverage that Obama gets except maybe when he and Al Gore were on that bus , hailed as `` Heartthrobs of the Heartland .
Bill is also crazed about the ineluctable fact that he is n't Obama
`` He ca n't compute that he 's not the new kid on the block , '' said a former Clinton adviser
`` It 's about his mortality and immortality
He needs her to win because if she does n't become president , he goes down as a minor president
If she wins , it 's the Adamses and the Roosevelts and the Clintons .
But he knows it 's going down the drain , and that Obama is the hot new thing and they 're the establishment retreads
The 22nd Amendment not to mention his dwindling political skills prevents Bill from doing what he truly wants done : the demolition of the Obama phenomenon
Instead , he 's stuck propping up a candidate who is not a natural
-LRB- See the video of Hillary dancing at a seniors ' aerobics class at a Philly Y.M.C.A. Awk .
Bill 's horse whisperer , Doug Sosnik , a former White House aide who was dispatched to keep him calm and play Hearts and Oh Hell with him , has been out of the country recently
His other personable aide , Matt McKenna , left to manage Hillary 's Montana campaign
The Big Dog was unguarded
Hillary started telling her tall tale about Bosnia as early as January and continued until her Iraq speech on March 17 at George Washington University
Bill mistakenly asserted that she had told the story only once , at 11 p.m. when she was tired , and `` immediately '' admitted her mistake
`` And , oh , they acted like she was practically Mata Hari , you know
Just making up all this stuff , '' he said , adding : `` And you would 've thought , you know , that she 'd robbed a bank the way they all carried on about this .
Given her 3 a.m. ads -LRB- that has got to be her hedge fund manager on the phone -RRB- it was not very flattering for Bill to rant on and suggest that her 60-year-old brain was fuzzy
In a characteristic bout of self-pity , he accused the press of `` a double-standard about misstatements .
Straining to recover on Friday and give the illusion that President Hillary would keep him reined in , Bill told the press : `` Hillary called me and said , ` You do n't remember this
You were n't there
Let me handle it .
I said , ` Yes , ma'am . '
Just as Mark Penn got Hillary into trouble with a conflict of interest on the Colombia free trade agreement , so did her husband
`` In the trade deal , your husband received $ 800,000 for four speaking engagements essentially for the trade deal or by a group that supports the trade deal , '' a reporter said to Hillary in Pennsylvania
`` You 've given your money to your campaign
Is that a conflict of interest ?
Hillary responded with that mirthless do n't - go-there laugh
`` I mean , '' she said dismissively , `` and how many angels dance on the head of a pin ?
But the dubious deals of her husband , a seven-diamond influence peddler , do provide an unsavory contrast with some of the candidate 's positions
The larger point of last week 's imbroglio about Bosnia is that Hillary 's stretcher offers an interesting insight into her thinking
After the health care disaster , she retreated into traditional first lady duties , teas and hospital openings , traveling around the world on good-will missions
The job of first lady could be amazing for someone who took advantage of its potential ; Bono shows the good that fame , properly aimed , can do
But after she got knocked back as co-president , Hillary felt trapped in the East Wing , ineffectual and marginalized , which is probably why she felt the need to retroactively add some heft to her travelogue in Bosnia and Ireland
You ca n't go from being a self-loathing first lady to self-aggrandizing about being first lady
Eric Schmidt looks innocent enough , with his watercolor blue eyes and his tiny office full of toys and his Google campus stocked with volleyball courts and unlocked bikes and wheat-grass shots and cereal dispensers and Haribo Gummi Bears and heated toilet seats and herb gardens and parking lots with cords hanging to plug in electric cars
The C.E.O. of Google does n't look like a Dick Cheney World Domination sort whom we should worry about as Google ogles our houses , our oceans , our foibles , our movements and our tastes
But there is a vaguely ominous Big Brother wall in the lobby of the headquarters here that scrolls real-time Google searches porn queries are edited out from people around the world
You could probably see your own name if you stayed long enough
In one minute of watching , I saw the Washington association where my sister works , the Delaware beach town where my brother vacations , some Dave Matthews lyrics , calories Panera , females feet , soaps in depth and Douglas Mangum , whoever he is
The 53-year-old Schmidt is soft-spoken , exuding the calm knowingness of a therapist as he explains why privacy is pass and why pass newspapers are not going to pry more money out of Google to save themselves
The therapist tone works with me because my profession is in a meltdown
Firms , like Google here and Craigslist in San Francisco , have hijacked journalism , making us feel about as modern as the Tyrannosaurus rex model that sits on the Google campus
Google is in a battle royal over whether it has the right to profit so profligately from newspaper content at a time when journalism is in such jeopardy
Robert Thomson , the top editor of The Wall Street Journal , denounced Web sites like Google as `` tapeworms .
His boss , Rupert Murdoch , said that big newspapers do not have to let Google `` steal our copyrights .
The A.P. has threatened to take legal action against Google and others that use the work of news organizations without obtaining permission and sharing a `` fair '' portion of revenue
But what 's fair will be hard to prove
`` So , '' I ask Schmidt in a small conference room that , disturbingly , has an ejector seat
`` Friend or foe ?
`` We claim we 're friends , '' he replies , maintaining equanimity even when a cartoon stuffed doll on a desk behind him falls on his head
Why ca n't Google , which likes to see itself as a `` Do n't Be Evil '' benevolent force in society , just write us a big check for using our stories , so we can keep checks and balances alive and continue to provide the search engine with our stories
After all , Schmidt acknowledges that a lot of what 's on the Internet is `` a sewer .
He told me people do n't come to Google for `` crap , '' but for what 's `` useful .
He declines to pony up money , noting that newspapers could opt out of giving their content to Google free and adding , `` We actually like making our own money for obviously good capitalist reasons .
He says : `` The best way to get out of this is to invent a new product
That 's the way Google thinks
Incumbents very seldom invent the future .
He admits that it 's harder for newspapers to target ads as precisely as Google does
If you 're reading about a murder with a knife , he says , you ca n't show a cutlery ad
He 's talking to newspapers about a new ad model that `` understands your history '' and your interests
`` They 'd know enough about your demographic to know male , female , age group , what have you , '' he says
`` The whole secret here is the ads are worth more if they 're more targeted , more personal , more precise .
To save journalism , Google has to know my most intimate secrets
`` Johnny Carson smoked , and for 30 years he was never pictured smoking a cigarette , '' Schmidt says
`` Today that would be impossible .
Of course Google is a leader in stripping away privacy , although Schmidt says if anyone complains about being captured in an embarrassing shot by Google Street View cameras , they will implement a `` de-facing '' device known as `` the anonymizer .
`` It 's fair to say that there will be no heroes , '' Schmidt says
`` Heroism requires understanding the person in the absolute best light
I 'm not sure this is good
What was Barack Obama like in elementary school
` Oh , yeah , here 's a picture of him picking his nose
God , he 's no longer a hero . '
When I ask him if human editorial judgment still matters , he tries to reassure me : `` We learned in working with newspapers that this balance between the newspaper writers and their editors is more subtle than we thought
It 's not reproducible by computers very easily .
I feel better for a minute , until I realize that the only reason he knew that I was n't so easily replaceable is that Google had been looking into how to replace me
You know you 're in trouble when Old Europe chastises you for being too socialist
But , hey , nobody 's perfect except maybe Michelle Obama , who landed in London with a huge Obama entourage , wearing a daffodil yellow dress and looking like a confident ray of U.S.A. sunshine
As President Obama renegotiates the terms of American leadership this week in Europe , those of us left at home struggle to get over our affluenza
That condition , the bane of the middle class , is defined in a book of the same name as `` a painful , contagious , socially transmitted condition of overload , debt , anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more .
The president is obviously worried about leaving us alone and under the economic weather ; that must be why his Department of Health and Human Services put up some advice Tuesday on its Web site about `` Getting Through Tough Economic Times .
`` Economic turmoil -LRB- e.g. , increased unemployment , foreclosures , loss of investments and other financial distress -RRB- can result in a whole host of negative health effects both physical and mental , '' the government Web page sympathized , offering warning signs such as `` persistent sadness\/crying '' and `` excessive irritability\/anger '' and tips for managing stress , including : `` Trying to keep things in perspective recognize the good aspects of life and retain hope for the future .
And one particularly useful for Rick Wagoner and those of us in the newspaper business : Develop new employment skills
It even went so far as to list suicide warning signs that sagely included `` looking for ways to kill oneself .
I heard a French scientist on a radio show once explain that Americans would always insist on supersizing things because our `` reptilian brain '' likes things big
We 're still big , as Norma Desmond said
It 's everything around us that 's collapsing and shrinking
The Wall Street Journal had an article last week reporting that , now that gas prices have gone back down , almost half a million fuel-frugal small cars are piling up unsold at dealers around the country
`` I do n't think Americans really like small cars , '' Beau Boeckmann , a Ford dealer in California , told The Journal
`` They drive them when they think they have to , when gas prices are high
But we 're big people , and we like big cars .
That 's the big nettle we 're grasping
How big do we need to be to still feel American
How big can our national debt grow
How big can our cars be
And how big is our clout abroad these days
Will Michelle 's style in Europe make as big a splash as Carla Bruni-Sarkozy 's
The cowboy push by W. and Dick Cheney to be a hyperpower and an empire left America a weakened and tapped-out power , straining to defend its runaway capitalism even as it uneasily adapts to its desperation socialism
How do we come to terms with the gluttony that exploded our economy and still retain our reptilian American desire for living large
How do we make the pursuit of the American dream a satisfying quest rather than a selfish one
Many people were wringing their hands about the president forcing the resignation of Wagoner , whose G.M. lost $ 82 billion in the last four years , took $ 13.4 billion in bailout money and asked for $ 16.6 billion more , even as the carmaker 's market share melted from 33 percent to 18 percent and its stock slid from more than $ 70 a share to less than $ 4 about the price of a couple gallons of gas
But Mr. Obama 's move was bracing , a sign , at long last , that the president will not tolerate failure , not when he has to print all the money in the universe to underwrite obtuseness
Wagoner showed no foresight or willingness to curb an unhealthy appetite for the big
He failed to eliminate brands and launched the Hummer line in 2001
-LRB- Hummers remain icons of power in Iraq .
`` I thought it was absolutely bizarre , '' said Maryann Keller , an independent automotive analyst , adding that `` it was aimed at people who did n't know what to do with the money they had
It was discretionary spending by males who clearly had other cars in their garages .
Wagoner stuck to gas-guzzling pickups and S.U.V. 's long after it was clear that higher gas prices meant he should vary the fleet with more fuel-efficient vehicles
The Iran hostage crisis in 1979 put America on notice that future relations with the Middle East would be volatile and that we had better get some methadone or ethanol or switch grass or something and get over our addiction to oil
But Detroit defiantly stuck its head in the sand
A lot of longtime auto watchers felt relief and excitement at Wagoner 's crisp dismissal , knowing that the reckoning is at last here
The problems in the car industry have been so apparent for so long , and the failure to face up to them and move into a greener future has been so frustrating
President Obama must nurse us through our affluenza , addressing both our visceral need to be big and our cerebral decision to be leaner and much , much smarter
It had to be the first time in history that a presidential candidate had a hip-hop moment
Barack Obama , who says he listens to Jay-Z along with his `` old school guy '' favorites like Earth , Wind & Fire and the Temptations , alluded to the rapper 's 2003 hit `` Dirt Off Your Shoulder '' on Thursday to sweep away concerns about his pugnacity
After conceding that the Philly debate was tough , he brushed the imaginary lint of Hillary , George and Charlie from his shoulders , in a wordless reference to Jay-Z 's lyrics in his anthem about not letting anyone crimp your ride as you cruise from the bottom to the top : `` Got some , dirt on my shoulder , could you brush it off for me .
There 's no doubt the cat is cool
It 's easy to imagine the wild reception many parts of the world would give a President Obama as he loped down the stairs of Air Force One in his aviator glasses , the chic and chiseled Michelle on his arm
The imagery of the 2008 race is all about cool and hot
Obama is cool in a good way
He continues to look to the stars as the Clintons drag him down to the gutter , even when Hillary suggests he should scamper out of the kitchen since he 's so obviously sensitive to heat
The Clintons are still scalded over the cool new kid in school precociously usurping the dream of Hillary , granddaughter of a Scranton lace mill worker and wife of a man who thinks he owes her the presidency
This spurred the delicious spectacle of Bill Clinton , king of self-pity , suggesting that Obama was whining too much about the tone of the debate
Like Bill , John McCain has his hot-headed flashes and struggles to stay cool
But before it 's signed , sealed and delivered , as his campaign song goes , Obama will have to balance his cool with some heat , as J.F.K. did
He seems too imperious about the power of hot-button values issues that have proved so potent for most of his lifetime
Sometimes when he answered questions at the ABC debate , you could see white letters on a black background scrawling across the screen of a Republican attack ad
He can create an uplifting new kind of politics if he becomes president , but first he 's going to have to get past the shallow and vicious old politics he says he disdains -LRB- even if his campaign knows how to dip into the Clinton toolbox -RRB-
The thorny questions Obama got in the debate were absolutely predictable , yet he seemed utterly unprepared and annoyed by them
He did not do well for the same reason he failed to outmaneuver Hillary in a year 's worth of debates : he disdains the convention , the need for sound bites and witty flick-offs and game-changing jabs
He needs to be less philosophical and abstract , and more visceral and personal
Some of the topics he acted dismissive about are real things on the minds of many Americans
Obama does not need to wear a flag pin
By the time NBC colored its peacock logo with the Stars and Stripes after 9\/11 , it was clear that patriotism had been co-opted by commercialism
And he 's right that W. and Cheney used patriotism in a corrosive way to goad Americans into going along with their trumped-up war
But when a voter from Latrobe asked in the debate why he does n't wear a flag pin , he high-hatted it as a `` manufactured issue , '' then , backing in tepidly , added , `` I could not help but love this country for all that it 's given me .
Asked about his friendly relationship with the former Weather Underground anarchist William Ayers an association that The Wall Street Journal suggests could turn into the Swift Boat of 2008 given Ayers 's statement that `` I do n't regret setting bombs ; I feel we did n't do enough '' Obama defended him with a line that only the eggheads orbiting his campaign could appreciate
Ayers , he said , is `` a professor of English in Chicago .
Obama has to prove to Americans that , despite his exotic background and multicultural looks , he shares or at least respects their values and understands why they would be upset about his associations with the Rev. Wright and an ex-Weatherman
Even though his supporters raised Cain about ABC , Obama is smart enough to know he will need a better game against a canny war hero
Campaigning in Pennsylvania on Friday , he seemed eager to show he was not highfalutin
He said he and Michelle were n't born with silver spoons ; he shared how `` burned up '' he was when his sick mother could not get health insurance ; he hugged a disabled veteran who thanked him for getting into the race , and he left a rally with a lusty `` God Bless America .
He 's trying , as Jay-Z says , to get flow
SAN FRANCISCO Alfred Hitchcock would have loved the Twitter headquarters here
Birds gathering everywhere , painted on the wall in flocks , perched on the coffee table , stitched on pillows and framed on the wall with a thought bubble asking employees to please tidy up after themselves
In a droll nod to shifting technology , there 's a British red telephone booth in the loftlike office that you are welcome to use but you 'll have to bring in your cellphone
I was here on a simple quest : curious to know if the inventors of Twitter were as annoying as their invention
-LRB- They 're not
They 're charming .
I sat down with Biz Stone , 35 , and Evan Williams , 37 , and asked them to justify themselves
ME : You say the brevity of Twitter enhances creativity
So I wonder if you can keep your answers to 140 characters , like Twitter users must
Twitter seems like telegrams without the news
We now know that on the president 's trip to Trinidad , ABC News 's Jake Tapper 's shower was spewing brown water
Is there any thought that does n't need to be published
BIZ : The one I 'm thinking right now
ME : Did you know you were designing a toy for bored celebrities and high-school girls
BIZ : We definitely did n't design it for that
If they want to use it for that , it 's great
ME : I heard about a woman who tweeted her father 's funeral
Whatever happened to private pain
EVAN : I have private pain every day
ME : If you were out with a girl and she started twittering about it in the middle , would that be a deal-breaker or a turn-on
BIZ -LRB- dryly -RRB- : In the middle of what
ME : Do you ever think `` I do n't care that my friend is having a hamburger ?
BIZ : If I said I was eating a hamburger , Evan would be surprised because I 'm a vegan
ME : What do you think about the backlash to Twitter on the blogs
Is n't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black
BIZ : If people are passionate about your product , whether it 's because they 're hating or loving it , those are both good scenarios
People can use it to help each other during fuel shortages or revolts or earthquakes or wildfires
That 's the exciting part of it
ME : Why did you think the answer to e-mail was a new kind of e-mail
BIZ : With Twitter , it 's as easy to unfollow as it is to follow
-LRB- They 're spilling past 140 characters now , but it must feel good to climb out of their Twitter bird cage
Evan has to leave
Biz and I continue .
ME : Do n't you get worried about being swallowed up by Google
BIZ : They do n't swallow you up
They call you up
ME : Why did you call the company Twitter instead of Clutter
BIZ : We had a lot of words like `` Jitter '' and things that reflected a hyper-nervousness
Somebody threw `` Twitter '' in the hat
I thought `` Oh , that 's the short trivial bursts of information that birds do .
ME : Oprah unleashed mayhem in the Twittersphere last week when , in her first tweet , she greeted `` Twitters '' instead of `` Twitterers .
BIZ : I 'm still kinda old-school
We 're twittering , and we 're all twitterers
And we write tweets
The only thing I do n't love is twits
ME : Would Shakespeare have tweeted
BIZ : Brevity 's the soul of wit , right
ME : Was there anything in your childhood that led you to want to destroy civilization as we know it
BIZ : You mean enhance civilization , make it even better
ME : What 's your favorite book
BIZ : I loved Sherlock Holmes when I was a kid
ME : But you 've helped destroy mystery
BIZ : When you put more information out there , sometimes you can just put a little bit of it out , which just makes the mystery even broader
ME : When newsprint blows away , I want a second career as a Twitter ghostwriter
Which celebrity on Twitter most needs my help
BIZ : Definitely not Shaq
Britney , maybe
ME : Gavin Newsom announced his candidacy for governor today on Twitter and elsewhere
Does that make you the new Larry King
BIZ : Did he
I did n't know
ME : Have you thought about using even fewer than 140 characters
BIZ : I 've seen people twitter in haiku only
James Buck , the student who was thrown into an Egyptian prison , just wrote `` Arrested .
ME : I would rather be tied up to stakes in the Kalahari Desert , have honey poured over me and red ants eat out my eyes than open a Twitter account
Is there anything you can say to change my mind
BIZ : Well , when you do find yourself in that position , you 're gonna want Twitter
You might want to type out the message `` Help .
The very fact that he ca n't shake her off has become her best argument against him
`` Why ca n't he close the deal ?
Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday
She 's been running ads about it , suggesting he does n't have `` what it takes '' to run the country
Her message is unapologetically emasculating : If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place , when superdelegates are deserting me , money is drying up , he 's outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads , my husband 's going crackers and party leaders are sick of me , how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama
Now that Hillary has won Pennsylvania , it will take a village to help Obama escape from the suffocating embrace of his rival
Certainly Howard Dean will be of no use steering her to the exit
It 's like Micronesia telling Russia to denuke
`` You know , some people counted me out and said to drop out , '' said a glowing Hillary at her Philadelphia victory party , with Bill and Chelsea by her side
`` Well , the American people do n't quit
And they deserve a president who does n't quit , either .
The Democrats are growing ever more desperate about the Attack of the 50 Foot Woman
With gas prices out of control , with the comically oblivious President Bush shimmying around New Orleans the city he let drown and Condi sneaking into Baghdad as rockets and mortars hail down on the Green Zone , beating the Republicans should be a cinch
But the Democrats watch in horror as Hillary continues to scratch up the once silvery sheen on Obama , and as John McCain not only consolidates his own party but encroaches on theirs by boldly venturing into Selma , Ala. , on Monday to woo black voters
They also cringe as Bill continues his honey-crusted-nut-bar meltdown
With his usual exquisite timing , just as Pennsylvanians were about to vote , Hillary 's husband became the first person ever to play the Caucasian Card
First , he blurted out to a radio interviewer that the Obama camp had played the race card against him after he compared Obama 's strength in South Carolina to Jesse Jackson 's
And then , with a Brobdingnagian finger-wagging on the screen , he denied it to an NBC News reporter
`` You always follow me around and play these little games , and I 'm not going to play your games today , '' he said , accusing the reporter of looking for `` another cheap story to divert the American people from the real urgent issues before us .
If there 's one person who knows about crass diversions , it 's Bill
But even for him , it was an embarrassing explosion , capped with some blue language to an aide that was caught on air
The Democrats are eager to move on to an Obama-McCain race
But they ca n't because no one seems to be able to show Hillary the door
Despite all his incandescent gifts , Obama has missed several opportunities to smash the ball over the net and end the game
Again and again , he has seemed stuck at deuce
He complains about the politics of scoring points , but to win , you 've got to score points
He knew he tanked in the Philadelphia debate , but he was so irritated by the moderators and by having to stand next to Hillary again that he could n't summon a single merry dart
Is he skittish around her because he knows that she detests him and he 's used to charming everyone
Or does he feel guilty that he cut in line ahead of her
As the husband of Michelle , does he know better than to defy the will of a strong woman
Or is he simply scared of Hillary because she 's scary
He is frantic to get away from her because he ca n't keep carbo-loading to relate to the common people
In the final days in Pennsylvania , he dutifully logged time at diners and force-fed himself waffles , pancakes , sausage and a Philly cheese steak
He split the pancakes with Michelle , left some of the waffle and sausage behind , and gave away the French fries that came with the cheese steak
But this is clearly a man who ca n't wait to get back to his organic scrambled egg whites
That was made plain with his cri de coeur at the Glider Diner in Scranton when a reporter asked him about Jimmy Carter and Hamas
`` Why '' he pleaded , sounding a bit , dare we say , bitter , `` ca n't I just eat my waffle ?
His subtext was obvious : Why ca n't I just be president
Why do I have to keep eating these gooey waffles and answering these gotcha questions and debating this gonzo woman
Before they devour themselves once more , perhaps the Democrats will take a cue from Dr. Seuss 's `` Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now !
-LRB- The writer once mischievously redid it for his friend Art Buchwald as `` Richard M. Nixon Will You Please Go Now ! ''
They could sing : `` The time has come
The time has come
The time is now
Just go
... I do n't care how
You can go by foot
You can go by cow
Hillary R. Clinton , will you please go now
You can go on skates
You can go on skis
... You can go in an old blue shoe
Just go , go , GO !
Related Searches Clinton , Hillary Rodham Add Alert Obama , Barack Add Alert Presidential Election of 2008 Add Alert Democratic Party Add
Now that everybody can check their iPhones and laptops for news that personally interests them , now that they can Google , blog and tweet , as well as shop and stalk on Craigslist , old-school newspapers seem like aging silent film stars , stricken to find themselves outmoded by technology
As a disgusted Desmond asks from behind dark glasses : `` And who have they got now
Some nobodies a lot of pale little frogs croaking pish-posh .
Eric Schmidt , the Google C.E.O. , reassured me that newspapers would last 500 years , but only for a boutique market : commuters taking trains , cabs and subways on the East Coast and in cities like London and Paris
`` For somebody who lives in the suburbs , '' he said , `` especially if they 're driving and they have kids screaming in the back seat , why would they prefer a physical newspaper over something that is more personal .
Journalists are still hot in Hollywood
Russell Crowe , playing a messy and morally ambiguous Washington investigative journalist , teaches the self-regarding blogger , Rachel McAdams , a thing or three , including why a pen is necessary
`` The Soloist , '' based on an inspiring story about a schizophrenic musician by the Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez , was shot in the Times newsroom
But in real life , journalists are feeling the chill
Calling his purchase of The L.A. Times and The Chicago Tribune `` a mistake , '' Sam `` The Sham '' Zell said , `` It 's very obvious that the newspaper model in its current form does not work and the sooner we all acknowledge that , the better .
He said he probably would not try for a merger because `` that 's like asking someone in another business if they want to get vaccinated with a live virus .
Many L.A. Times journalists were outraged over a recent front-page NBC ad for the cop show `` Southland '' that was tarted up to look like a real news feature story -LRB- a tactic the paper repeated with an ad supplement for `` The Soloist '' -RRB-
`` It 's one thing being marched to the gallows by an uncaring and unappreciative public , sentenced by shifting technological and cultural habits and a few bonehead moves of your own , '' Phil Bronstein , San Francisco Chronicle editor at large , said in a blog , summing up the attitude of the 100-plus journalists at The L.A. Times who signed a petition protesting the `` Southland '' ad
`` But it 's quite another having to go to your death stripped naked as a jaybird .
When I met up with Bronstein in San Francisco where The Chronicle was bleeding nearly a million a week last year he said he thought the L.A. Times reporters had overreacted , and that newspapers should not be so prudish
`` The principle is a sound one you do n't want to deceive your readers , '' he said
`` But I 'm not all that convinced your readers are so deceivable
A lot of readers think we 're biased , and because we think we 're unbiased , we think they must be stupid
But they 're not
They 're just opinionated .
Bronstein prefers action to self-pity : `` The death spiral stuff is all so self-referential , a lot of fake righteousness .
I asked him to take me on a justify-your-existence tour
He started by driving me past an old journalism hangout
`` That 's kind of a dead thing , a newspaper bar , '' he said
Continuing with the obsolescence theme , he showed me the Linotype machine in the lobby of The Chronicle and his old conference room upstairs
`` This is called the Komodo Dragon Room , for obvious reasons , '' he said dryly , referring to the time his ex-wife , Sharon Stone , gave him a meet-and-greet session with a Komodo dragon , who mistook his foot for a snack
We pass another conference room where the San Francisco political consultant Clint Reilly tangled with Bronstein and left on a stretcher with a broken leg
We drove around the city for hours , looking at places where journalism had had an impact
At police headquarters , he told of The Chronicle 's coverage of police brutality that forced the department to create a database tracking misbehaving officers
He talked about the paper 's AIDS coverage as we drove through the Castro and past San Francisco General Hospital , where the AIDS wards once overflowed
Parked outside the Giants ' ballpark , he praised the paper 's reporting on Barry Bonds and the steroids scandal , noting that `` there are far fewer fly balls going out in the bay .
His tour ended with cold comfort , as he observed that longer life expectancies may keep us on life support
`` For people who still love print , who like to hold it , feel it , rustle it , tear stuff out , do their I. F. Stone thing , it 's important to remember that people are living longer , '' he said
`` That 's the most hopeful thing you can say about print journalism , that old people are living longer .
Maybe I 've been reading too many stories about the fad of teenage vampire chick lit , worlds filled with parasitic aliens and demi-human creatures , but there 's something eerie going on in this race
Hillary grows more and more glowy as Obama grows more and more wan
Is she draining him of his precious bodily fluids
Leeching his magic
Siphoning off his aura
It used to be that he was incandescent and she was merely inveterate
Now she 's bristling with life force , and he looks like he wants to run away somewhere for three months by himself and smoke
Hillary is not getting much sleep or exercise , and does n't , like the ascetic Obama , abstain from junk food and coffee and get up at dawn to work out on the road
She 's still a long shot and she 's 14 years older than her rival
Yet she 's the one who is more energetic and focused and beaming , and he 's the one who seems uneven and gauzy , often fatigued and unable to disguise being fed up with the slog
Even his speeches do n't have the same pizazz
A man at a sports bar in Latrobe , Pa. , advised Obama , `` Get some sleep , Barack , you look like you 're tired , man .
When the candidate noted he 's been running for president for 15 months , the guy offered another tip : `` You need a drink .
Obama disdains convention and touts his new politics , but on Friday , he had a news conference in an uninspired setting a gas station emptied out by his Secret Service detail
He does n't emulate Bobby Kennedy , who defied political tropes and underscored his concern about the poor by taking reporters on treks to rural Appalachia or odysseys to roiling inner cities for speeches on street corners
With Indiana polls showing the Democratic combatants in a dead heat , and 21 percent of Democrats undecided , this is a perilous time for Obama to lose his fizz
He tried to recapture the magic and erase the bowling debacle by shooting hoops with kids in Kokomo on Friday night
As a basketball player , he should know he 's in overtime in his race with Hillary and overtime is not the period to indulge in whining
Instead of jokingly complaining that babies have learned to walk and talk since he first got in the race , he should remind voters that , if Hillary prevails , some people will slouch toward middle age having never known a White House without a Bush or a Clinton
Even some Obama fans find Hillary 's toughness and shameless shape-shifting compelling
Having lost the White House twice to brass-knuckled pols , the Dems may be drawn to a woman who thinks like Karl Rove
James Clyburn , the influential black congressman from South Carolina , says that some blacks are buying into the 2012 Tonya Harding conspiracy theory : that the Clintons know they ca n't beat Obama this time , so they are `` hell-bound , '' as Clyburn put it , to shred him so he 'll lose to McCain and Hillary will be able to try again in 2012 when McCain is 76
In interviews , Clyburn called the tactics of the Clintons and their henchmen `` bizarre , '' `` disingenuous '' and `` scurrilous .
Obama is burdened by Jeremiah Wright 's inflammatory remarks on race and his comment to Bill Moyers that Obama `` does what politicians do .
And Hillary is burdened by her husband 's inflammatory remarks on race and her own willingness to burn the party to save the party
The Nixonian Hillary has a ravenous hunger that Obama lacks
Literally at a birthday party in Philly for her photographer , she was devouring the chips and dip with two hands and viscerally
At Joe 's Junction gas station in Indianapolis , Obama did his best to shoo away the pesky elitist label
Accused by an Indianapolis reporter of looking like a GQ cover , he said he has only four pairs of shoes and buys `` five of the same suit and then I patch them up and wear them repeatedly .
But his campaign refused to reveal the brand , presumably because it 's not J. C. Penney
He dutifully enthused about carbs , assuring reporters that when he had dinner as a child with his Kansas grandparents , the food `` would have been very familiar to anybody here in Indiana
A lot of pot roast , potatoes and Jell-O molds .
But then he resumed wry whingeing about his 37 bowling score , explaining that he finished only seven frames , including two that `` were bowled by a 10-year-old '' and another by a 3-year-old
`` I do n't want to go out of my way to sort of prove my street cred as a down-to-earth guy , '' he said , after going out of his way
`` People know me .
Not yet , but we will , one of these years
The wood-paneled Senate committee room had an old-school look
The combed-over committee chairman , Carl Levin , had an old-school look
And the Congressional hearing trying to illuminate surreptitious and avaricious behavior by an amoral , macho gang was the 2010 equivalent of the 1950s Mafia hearing depicted in `` Godfather II .
`` Government Sachs , '' as the well-connected Goldman Sachs is known , was called to account by the actual government on Tuesday
And the traders and executives who dreamed up the idea of packaging smoke were every bit as slick , evasive and dismissively unapologetic as Michael Corleone
He only claimed to trade in olive oil ; they actually delivered the snake oil
You know you 're ethically compromised when Senator John Ensign scolds you about ethics
The Nevada Republican is under investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee and the F.B.I. for chicanery surrounding an affair with a staffer
His wealthy parents paid off the mistress and her husband , who was also on Ensign 's payroll
`` I think most people in Las Vegas would take offense at having Wall Street compared to Las Vegas
Because in Las Vegas , actually people know that the odds are against them
They play anyway , '' said the righteous Ensign
`` On Wall Street , they manipulate the odds while you 're playing the game
And I would say that it 's actually much more dishonest .
There was a bipartisan jackpot in casino metaphors
`` How does that differ from going out to Caesars Palace , the sports book , and making a wager on the outcome of an athletic contest ?
Senator John McCain of Arizona asked C.E.O. Lloyd Blankfein
But the Republicans ' whacking of Wall Street 's wise guys lost a little of its punch when you knew that they were ducking out to the Senate floor , trying to thwart Democrats ' efforts to pass a bill tightening regulation of Wall Street
Republicans ignored the contradiction in this , the same way Goldman Sachs ignored the conflict in betting against the product it sold to clients
President Obama bashed Wall Street to pose as a tough populist
The S.E.C. dragged itself away from porn long enough to make an example of Goldman Sachs to shore up its image as a strict enforcer
And Goldman Sachs came to Washington to try to recover an image for integrity
As Americans lost homes and lined up for jobs , Goldman made $ 13 billion in 2009 , and Blankfein got a bonus of , as he haltingly admitted to McCain , `` um , um , nine million .
`` The idea that Wall Street came out of this thing just fine , thank you , is something that just grates on people , '' Delaware Senator Ted Kaufman told Blankfein
`` They think that you did n't just come out fine because it was luck
They think that you guys just really gamed this thing real , real well .
Baby-faced Josh Birnbaum , the former managing director who urged betting against subprime mortgages , did not polish the firm 's reputation with his elitist smirk and name-dropping of Wharton
`` Mr. Birnbaum , do you know what a stated income loan is ?
Senator Kaufman asked
`` I think it 's just what it sounds like , '' Birnbaum replied , like a petulant schoolboy in detention
The Goldman crowd was certainly cosmopolitan
Blankfein dropped a Latin phrase -LRB- Goldman had a `` de minimis '' business in direct home loan mortgages -RRB- and French peppered Senate Exhibit No. 62 , from the petite , handsome Fabrice Tourre , the S.E.C. target who called himself `` the fabulous Fab '' in a 2007 e-mail
`` More and more leverage in the system , l'edifice entier risqu de s ` effondrer a tout moment
... Seul survivant potentiel , '' gushed the highflying Frenchman charged with creating subprime mortgage investment deals intended to fail
That translates loosely to : the cheese stands alone
Continuing to talk about himself in the third person , he wrote , `` Standing in the middle of all these complex , highly levered , exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all the implications of those monstruosities ! !
Anyway , not feeling too guilty about this
... '' In an e-mail to his girlfriend , he called his `` Frankenstein '' creation `` a product of pure intellectual masturbation , the type of thing which you invent telling yourself : ` Well , what if we created a `` thing , '' which has no purpose , which is absolutely conceptual and highly theoretical and which nobody knows how to price ? '
In another e-mail to her , he blithely joked that he was selling toxic bonds `` to widows and orphans that I ran into at the airport .
At least the Fabulous Fab had the good manners to cloak his feelings of fabulousness in front of the committee and put on an earnest mask
Luckily for Goldman , greed may trump ethics
The firm 's stock closed higher Tuesday
Wholesale olive oil closed higher as well
The chairwoman of the committee , Dianne Feinstein , began by telling Cheney that she was `` shocked personally '' by what she had learned about the brutality of the way prisoners were treated
`` Those insects were n't even poisonous , '' Cheney growled
`` Facial slaps
Abdominal slaps
Throwing a naked man into a wall
Kid stuff
Those methods worked
They kept us safe for seven years
Safer than with that delicate Hawaiian orchid in the White House
America is coming across as weak and indecisive
Just when Rummy and I had stomped out that ` Blame America First ' flower-child culture , Obama has dragged it back , apologizing profusely all over the world for the country he 's running , canoodling with greasy dictators , kissing up to those weasels in Europe , which is only free today because of our military
Friends and foes alike will be quick to take advantage if they think they 're dealing with a Creamsicle .
Senator John McCain , looking disgusted , began yelling at Cheney , telling him that waterboarding someone 183 times in a month was against the law
`` The Japanese who did that in World War II were tried and hanged , '' he sneered
`` Shut your piehole , '' Cheney replied flatly
`` Everyone 's sick of you being an apologist for torture
Why do n't you go join that pantywaist Specter on the other side where you belong ?
Senator Russ Feingold got into the fray , asking Cheney sarcastically : `` Can you tell us exactly which terrorist plots were foiled by torture ?
Cheney offered his mirthless smile
`` Certainly , '' he replied
`` Shortly after 9\/11 , we disrupted a plot to assassinate a senator , penetrating two terrorist cells and uncovering a Serbian scheme
Our interrogator used a chokehold , threatened to withhold a detainee 's heart medicine , and broke a few laws , but it was well worth it .
Feingold interrupted with thinly veiled contempt : `` You 're telling us now that the Serbs are linked to Al Qaeda ?
Cheney nodded
`` Of course
Then , the following year , we were able to get a lead on an international terrorist named Syed Ali and stop a nuclear bomb from being detonated in Los Angeles
Sure , an enemy combatant was shot in the chest
Yes , a hacksaw came into play
There was some wall slamming , throat grabbing and when Ali would n't talk because he was doing ` Allah 's work , ' our agent had to feign the shooting death of Ali 's first-born son
But in the end we averted World War III with three Middle East countries and kept America safe from a suitcase bomb
`` In 2004 , we thwarted the spread of a deadly weaponized virus strain
The following year , after some unsuccessful attempts at sensory disorientation with detainees , we got a torture specialist who had a way with a taser and his trusty syringe
Strict measures , like breaking fingers one by one and using an electrical cord from a lamp to shock a suspect , were necessary
We were under attack by a terrorist named Habib Marwan who controlled a bunch of Middle East terrorist cells
They were planning to meltdown nuclear power plants across the country , shoot down Air Force One and set off a nuclear missile
On top of that , we were dealing with a mole in our counterterrorism unit
`` In 2006 , after an incident with the man who made history by becoming the first black president ... '' Senator Feinstein interrupted : `` Excuse me , Mr. Cheney , are you talking about Barack Obama ?
`` I said the first black president , '' Cheney snapped , before continuing : `` Our interrogator needed to do some things outside protocol
There was an exploding vest , a foot digging into a wound , an injection of pain-inducing hyoscine-pentothal , a threat to cut out the eyes of a suspect being interrogated unless he confessed where the Sentox nerve gas cannisters were
But the Geneva Conventions are a small thing to give up when you consider that we broke up a nefarious plot that reached to the highest levels the Oval Office .
Senator Olympia Snowe looked confused : `` But you were in the Oval Office in 2006 , Mr. Cheney .
Something dawned on Evan Bayh and he smiled grimly
`` Did n't it turn out in the end , Dick , '' he asked , `` that some of these so-called terrorist plots were really domestic villains with black ops teams scheming to control the oil supply and get rich
Sort of like what you did with Iraq and Halliburton ?
Cheney glared at him , saying `` We 're the patriots .
Bayh walked over and whispered something to the chairwoman
`` Mr. Cheney , '' Feinstein said , sounding shocked , `` your testimony is delusional , not to mention derivative .
Cheney looked apoplectic , not to mention apocalyptic
`` How dare you , '' he cried , `` demean our country 's finest counterterrorism agent , Jack Bauer ?
Democrats getting jittery about the alienating effects of the endless soap opera they call their campaign should buck up
These `` hand-wringers , '' as the Hillary strategist Harold Ickes calls them , are not seeing the larger picture
Hillary is cruelly misunderstood , and she deserves more credit for her benevolence
Not only does she have a lot in common with Rocky , as she said Tuesday in Philadelphia , but she has a lot in common with another famous character the Marschallin in Strauss 's bittersweet comic opera `` Der Rosenkavalier .
The Marschallin is a princess married to a Viennese field marshal who has a liaison dangereuse with a younger man , Count Octavian
Though she 's worried about her fleeting youth and the fickleness of men , she instructs the young man on the ways of love and then gracefully sets him free , allowing him to find happiness with young Sophie as a soaring waltz plays
Whether or not she wins , Hillary has already given noble service as a sophisticated political tutor for Obama , providing her younger colleague with much-needed seasoning
Who else was going to toughen him up
Howard Dean
John Edwards
Dennis Kucinich
Obama had not been hit hard until this campaign ; he sailed through his Senate race
Without Hillary , he never would have learned to be a good debater
He never would have understood how to robustly answer distorted and personal attacks
He never would have been warned about how harmful an unplugged spouse can be
He never would have realized how a luminous speech can be effective damage control
When pressed about whether he 's ready for Swift-boating , Obama has seemed a bit cavalier
But the Hillary camp will garrote him with his mistakes until he fully appreciates what garroting feels like
Ickes told a Web site Tuesday that he has been pursuing superdelegates by pressing the Rev. Wright issue
Besides coaching Obama , Hillary is also shielding him
If she had not fibbed about the Tuzla airport landing , and then fibbed to get out of a fib , the press would have stayed focused on Wright
She has been an invaluable lightning rod
Hillary has clearly raised Obama 's consciousness about the importance of courting the ladies
Touring a manufacturing plant in Allentown , Pa. , Tuesday , he was flirtatious , winking and grinning at the women working there , calling one `` Sweetie , '' telling another she was `` beautiful , '' and imitating his daughters ' dance moves by twirling around
Later , at a Scranton town hall , he went up to Denise Mercuri , a pharmacist from Dunmore wearing a Hillary button
`` What do I need to do
Do you want me on my knees ?
he charmed , before promising : `` I 'll give you a kiss .
Obama has been less adept at absorbing the lesson of Hillary 's metamorphosis from entitled queen of the party to scrappy blue-collar mama
His strenuous and inadvertently hilarious efforts to woo working-class folk in Pennsylvania have only made him seem more effete
Keeping his tie firmly in place , he genteelly sipped his pint of Yuengling beer at Sharky 's sports cafe in Latrobe and bowled badly in Altoona
Challenging Obama to a bowl-off , Hillary kindly offered to `` spot him two frames .
At the Wilbur chocolate shop in Lititz Monday , he spent most of his time skittering away from chocolate goodies , as though he were a starlet obsessing on a svelte waistline
`` Oh , now , '' the woman managing the shop told him with a frown , `` you do n't worry about calories in a chocolate factory .
The Times 's Michael Powell reports that , after watching five plump , white-haired women in plastic hairnets spin the chocolate into such confections as `` Phantom of the Opera '' masks and pink high heels , he ventured : `` Do you actually eat the chocolate or do you get sick of it ?
They giggled at his silliness
He looked even more concerned when he was offered a chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting
`` Oh , man .
he said
`` That 's too decadent for me .
One of the most valuable lessons the gritty Hillary can teach the languid Obama and the timid Democrats is that the whole point of a presidential race is to win
It 's not to share power , or force the squabbling couple into an arranged marriage
The winner wins , even if it 's only by a fraction of a percentage point or one Supreme Court justice
Winning has no margin of error , as the Democrats should have learned by now
And the winner gets to decide his or her running mate
But the ultimate favor Hillary can do for the Illinois freshman is to fight him full-out until the finale and then gracefully release him so he can find happiness with another
Hillary 's work is done only when she is done , because the best way for Obama to prove he 's ready to stare down Ahmadinejad is by putting away someone even tougher
`` I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds , '' he said
`` One of those tricks I had learned : People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves
They were more than satisfied ; they were relieved such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who did n't seem angry all the time .
Obama and his aides often brag about his Zenlike serenity
`` I 've learned that I have what I believe is the right temperament for the presidency , which is I do n't get too high when I 'm high and I do n't get too low when I 'm low , '' he told Chris Wallace on `` Fox News Sunday .
The next morning , he was hurtled into the worst political crisis of his life
On Tuesday , the Sort Of Angry Black Man appeared , reluctantly spurred into action by The Really Angry Black Man
Speaking to reporters in the heart of tobacco country in Winston-Salem , N.C. , the poor guy looked as if he were dying for a smoke
`` When I say I find these comments appalling , I mean it , '' Obama said
`` It contradicts everything I am about and who I am .
He said that the riffs of the man he prayed with before his announcement speech give `` comfort to those who prey on hate .
Obama , of course , will only ratchet up the skepticism of those who do n't understand why he stayed in the church for 20 years if his belief system is so diametrically opposed to Wright 's
He 's back on the tricky path he faced as a child , navigating between two racial cultures
At Trinity , he may have ignored what he should have heard because he was trying to assimilate to black culture
Now , he may be outraged by what he belatedly heard because he 's trying to relate to the white lunch-pail set
Having been deserted at age 2 by his father , Obama has now been deserted by the father-figure in his church , the man who inspired him to become a Christian , married him , dedicated his house , baptized his children , gave him the title of his second book and theme for his presidential run and worked on his campaign
At the very moment when his fate hangs in the balance , when he is trying to persuade white working-class voters that he is not an exotic stranger with radical ties , the vainglorious Rev. Wright kicks him in the stomach
In a narcissistic explosion that would impress Bill Clinton , the preacher dragged Obama into the '60s maelstrom that he had pledged to be an antidote to
In two days worth of solipsistic rants , the man of faith committed at least four of the seven deadly sins wrath , envy , pride and greed -LRB- book and lecture fees ?
while grandiosely claiming he was defending the black church
He was certainly sore at Obama , after helping him get connected in Chicago politics , for distancing himself
But he was also clearly envious that Obama has been hailed by his flock as the halo-wearing Redeemer of America 's hope
If Obama was going to co-opt his role as charismatic evangelist , why could n't he morph into a spinning politician
Obama 's anger , an unused muscle , had to be stoked by his advisers , who pressed him with drooping poll numbers and the video of Wright at the National Press Club
He again heard the preacher turning Farrakhan into an American idol , and his flame-throwing assertions that the U.S. government had infected blacks with the AIDS virus and had brought terrorist attacks on itself by practicing terrorism abroad
But in the end , it was Wright showing `` disrespect '' by implying that Obama was a phony that sparked the candidate 's slow-burning temper
`` What I think particularly angered me , '' he said , `` was his suggestion somehow that my previous denunciation of his remarks was somehow political posturing .
For some , Obama did n't offer enough outrage
`` He talks about Reverend Wright violating his core beliefs as if he is detailing why he does n't like cheesecake or cream cheese , '' said one Hillary Democrat
`` He 's more passionate about basketball .
The Illinois senator does n't pay attention to the mythic nature of campaigns , but if he did , he would recognize the narrative of the classic hero myth : The young hero ventures out on an adventure to seek a golden fleece or an Oval Office ; he has to kill monsters and face hurdles before he returns home , knocks off his father and assumes the throne
Tuesday was more than a Sister Souljah moment ; it was a painful form of political patricide
`` I did not vet my pastor before I decided to run for the presidency , '' Obama said
In a campaign that 's all about who 's vetted , maybe he should have
Father Gabriele Amorth , the chief exorcist for the Holy See , said in Rome that The Times 's coverage of Pope Benedict , which cast doubt on his rigor in dealing with pedophile priests , was `` prompted by the Devil .
`` There is no doubt about it , '' the 85-year-old priest said , according to the Catholic News Agency
`` Because he is a marvelous pope and worthy successor to John Paul II , it is clear that the Devil wants to grab hold of him .
The exorcist also said that the abuse scandal showed that Satan uses priests to try to destroy the church , `` and so we should not be surprised if priests too ... fall into temptation
They also live in the world and can fall like men of the world .
Actually , falling into temptation is eating cupcakes after you 've given them up for Lent
Rape and molestation of children is far beyond what most of us think of as succumbing to worldly temptation
This church needs a sexorcist more than an exorcist
As this unholy week of shameful revelations unfurls , the Vatican is rather overplaying its hand
At the moment , the only thing between Catholics and God is a defensive church hierarchy that can not fully acknowledge and heal the damage it has done around the globe
How can the faithful enjoy Easter redemption when a Good Friday service at the Vatican was more concerned with shielding the pope than repenting the church 's misdeeds
The Rev. Raniero Cantalamessa , preacher of the papal household , told those at St. Peter 's Basilica , including the pope , that he was thinking about the Jews in this season of Passover and Easter because `` they know from experience what it means to be victims of collective violence and also because of this they are quick to recognize the recurring symptoms .
Amazingly enough , it turns out that the Franciscan priest was not referring to the collective violence and recurring symptoms of the global plague of Catholic priests who harmed children , enabled by the malignant neglect of the Vatican
He was talking about the collective violence and recurring symptoms of those critics including victims , Catholics worldwide and commentators who want the church to face up to its sins
Father Cantalamessa went on to quote from the letter of an unnamed Jewish friend : `` I am following with indignation the violent and concentric attacks against the church , the pope and all the faithful by the whole world
The use of stereotypes , the passing from personal responsibility and guilt to a collective guilt , remind me of the more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism .
As they say in Latin , `` Ne eas ibi .
Do n't go there
Mindful of the church 's long history of anti-Semitism , Leon Wieseltier , the New Republic literary editor and Jewish scholar , noted : `` Why would the Catholic Church wish to defend itself by referring to other enormities in which it was also implicated
Anyway , the Jews endured more than a bad press .
This solidarity with Jews is also notable given that Italy 's La Repubblica reported that `` certain Catholic circles '' suspected that `` a New York Jewish lobby '' was responsible for the outcry against the pope
It 's insulting to liken the tragic death of six million Jews with the appropriate outrage of Catholics at the decades-long cover-up of crimes against children by the very men who were supposed to be their moral guides
Even the Vatican spokesman , the Rev. Federico Lombardi , tried to walk the cat back : `` I do n't think it 's an appropriate comparison .
Father Cantalamessa was expressing the sense of self-victimization permeating the Vatican at a time when more real victims are pouring forth
News reports said that the abuse hot line set up by the Catholic Church in Germany imploded the first day out when more than 4,000 callers charging abuse flooded the lines
There is the pope 's inability to say anything long , adequate and sincere about the scandal and what role he has played , including acceding to the petition of the Wisconsin priest who abused 200 deaf kids that he should not be defrocked in his infirmity , to spare his priestly `` dignity .
And there is his veiled dismissal of criticism as `` petty gossip .
All this keeps him the subject of the conversation
It is in crises that leaders are tested , that we get to see if they succumb to their worst instincts or summon their better angels
All Benedict has to do is the right thing
The hero of the week , for simply telling the truth , is Ireland 's Archbishop Diarmuid Martin
His diocese is Dublin , where four archbishops spent three decades shrugging off abuse cases
`` There is no shortcut to addressing the past , '' he said during a Holy Week Mass. `` This has been a difficult year
We see how damaging failure of integrity and authenticity are to the body of Christ
Shameful abuse took place within the church of Christ
The response was hopelessly inadequate .
Barack Obama grew up learning how to slip in and out of different worlds black and white , foreign and American , rich and poor
The son of an anthropologist , he developed a lot of `` tricks , '' as he put it , training himself to be a close observer of human nature , figuring out what others needed so he could get where he wanted to go
He was able to banish any fear in older white folk that he was an angry young black man with smiles , courtesy and , as he wrote in his memoir , `` no sudden moves .
He learned negotiating skills as a community organizer and was able to ascend to the presidency of the Harvard Law Review by letting a disparate band of self-regarding eggheads feel that they were being heard and heeded
As Charles J. Ogletree Jr. , a Harvard law professor who mentored the young Obama , put it , `` He can enter your space and organize your thoughts without necessarily revealing his own concerns and conflicts .
He can leave you thinking he agrees , when often he 's only agreeing to leave you thinking he agrees
He privately rolls his eyes at the way many in politics and government spend so much time preening and maneuvering for credit rather than simply doing their jobs
Yet with that detached and novelistic eye that allows him to be a great writer , he is also able to do a kind of political jujitsu , where he assesses the bluster and insecurities of other politicians , defuses them , and then uses them to his advantage
Gabriel Byrne 's brooding psychoanalyst on `` In Treatment '' might envy Barack Obama 's calming psychoanalysis in Europe
He may not have come away with all he wanted substantively
His hand was too weak going in , and there was too much hostility toward America , thanks to W. 's blunders and Cheney 's bullying
But he showed a psychological finesse that has been missing from American leadership for a long time
`` Each country has its own quirks , '' he said at his London press conference , indicating that you had to intuit how much you could prod each leader
W. always bragged about his instincts , saying he knew whom to trust based on his gut
But even with the help of psychologists putting together profiles of dictators and other major players for our intelligence services , Bush and his inner circle were extraordinarily obtuse about reading the motivations and the intentions of friends and foes
How could it never occur to them that Saddam Hussein might simply be bluffing about the size of his W.M.D. arsenal to keep the Iranians and other antagonists at bay
W. bristled at French and German leaders because he thought they were condescending to him
He thought he saw into Vladimir Putin 's soul until the Russian leader showed his totalitarian stripes
W. and Condi were so clueless about the mind-set of Palestinians that Condi was blindsided by the Hamas victory in 2006 , learning the news from TV as she did the elliptical at 5 a.m. in the gym of her Watergate apartment
The Bush chuckleheads misread the world and insisted that everyone else go along with their deluded perception , and they bullied the world and got huffy if the world did n't quickly fall in line
President Obama , by contrast , employed smart psychology in the global club , even on small things , like asking other leaders if they wanted to start talking first at news conferences
With Anglo-American capitalism on trial and Gordon Brown floundering in the polls , Mr. Obama took pains to drape an arm around `` Gordon '' and return to using the phrase `` special relationship .
He gave a shout-out to the Brown kids , saying he 'd talked dinosaurs with them
He won points with a prickly Sarkozy when he intervened in an argument about tax havens between the French and Chinese leaders , pulling them into a corner to help them `` get this all in some kind of perspective '' and find a middle ground
Mr. Obama also played to the ego of the Napoleonic French leader , saying at their press conference , `` He 's courageous on so many fronts , it 's hard to keep up .
Soon Sarko was back gushing over his charmant Americain ami
Having an Iowa-style town hall in Strasbourg with enthusiastic French and German students was a clever ploy to underscore his popularity on the world stage , and put European leaders on notice that many of their constituents are also his
Like a good shrink , the president listens ; it 's a way of flattering his subjects and sussing them out without having to fathom what 's in their soul
`` It is easy to talk to him , '' Dmitri Medvedev said after their meeting
`` He can listen .
The Russian president called the American one `` my new comrade .
Mr. Obama , the least silly of men , was even willing to mug for a silly Facebook-ready picture , grinning and giving a thumbs-up with Medvedev and a goofy-looking Silvio Berlusconi
Now that America ca n't put everyone under its thumb , a thumbs-up and a killer smile can go a long way
John McCain 's saucy mother says her boy was always a scamp and a hell-raiser
And one of the senator 's great charms is that he wore those appellations proudly
So it was quite disheartening Thursday to see a McCain spokeswoman telling The Associated Press , in a story about how Cindy McCain helped her husband 's political career bloom with her multimillion-dollar fortune from the family beer business , that the senator is a virtual teetotaler
`` Senator McCain rarely , if ever , drinks alcohol , '' Jill Hazelbaker averred
McCain 's pals know him as a man who enjoys libations of vodka with little green cocktail olives
Over the years , at dinners with reporters , I noted he had the habit of ordering one double vodka and sipping it slowly
And there was that famous Hillary-McCain Estonian drink-off in 2004 , when Hillary instigated a vodka shot contest and McCain agreed with alacrity -LRB- even though he later offered a sketchy denial -RRB-
Maybe now that he 's the presumptive Republican nominee , his campaign wants to put his vices in a vise and sanitize the wild side of the man whose nicknames in high school were `` Punk , '' `` Nasty '' and `` McNasty .
Next they 'll deny he likes to gamble in Vegas -LRB- `` I 'll put $ 50,000 on Bomb Iran , with 3-to-1 odds '' -RRB- , socialize with liberals and lash out at people who annoy him
-LRB- As a toddler , he had `` tiny '' rages
`` I would go off in a mad frenzy and then , suddenly , crash to the floor unconscious , '' he wrote
His parents would drop him into a bathtub of icy water .
If his campaign is bowdlerizing , let 's hope it stops before he 's a bland McNice
Americans , after all , do n't trust candidates without any vices
They got turned off by the picture-perfect Mitt Romney , whose khakis were never wrinkled and whose hair stayed eerily in place even while he was jogging in a campaign commercial
Do we really need McCain obfuscating on drinking , and Obama putting up a smoke screen on smoking
Ever since Chicago reporters followed the up-and-coming Obama and saw him flicking his ashes and butts out the windows of moving vehicles , the senator has had a testy relationship with the press about his addictions to cigarettes and littering
-LRB- Obama , wrote one reporter on his blog , was `` one of those reprehensible nicotine addicts who seems to believe that the world is his ashtray . ''
When Chris Matthews tried to pin down Obama on when he 'd had his last cigarette , he radiated guilt , even though he dryly noted that `` having your wife say on '60 Minutes ' that if you see Barack with a cigarette , let me know ' was a heck of a deterrent
`` I fell off the wagon a couple times during the course of it and then was able to get back on , '' the candidate admitted
`` But it is a struggle like everything else .
In his book and last week 's bio-tour , McCain painted himself as a cool bad boy
He was a girl-loving , authority-defying , plane-crashing Top Gun
In his memoir , Obama played up his vices to depict himself as a cool bad boy , too , recalling that he had smoked pot and done `` a little blow .
But now the two men are sticking to the straight and narrow
Everyone may imagine that Obama and his press corps spend all their time quaffing Champagne and celebrating the astonishment of his very being
But the candidate is boringly abstemious and reporters traveling with him find him aloof
On a 2005 trip to Russia , he priggishly requested that his vodka shot glass be filled with water
Oddly , Hillary , a Tracy Flick Goodie Two Shoes growing up , is the only one who seems to be enjoying her vices even beyond the delight she takes in the dark and costly Mark Penn , and the gusto with which she bedazzled her r sum and then bedazzled some more when she got caught bedazzling
Her campaign does n't deny that she likes to kick back , at the end of a long day , with a vodka on her plane
Bill Clinton is a cautionary tale about what happens if you surrender too many cherished vices
Curtailed from Burkling , international jet-setting , cholesterol-chowing and race-baiting , Bill has gotten raspy and lost his legendary charm
He blew up at a California superdelegate who objected that Bill Richardson , a former Clinton cabinet member , was being painted as Judas because he was n't willing to transfer his affections from Bill to Hillary and no doubt one day to Chelsea
The ex-prez railed against the `` political elite '' and said it was a `` bunch of bull '' that there were calls for Hillary to leave the race
In Lawrenceburg , Ind. , he dubbed himself a `` rural hitman '' for his wife
Churlish Bill does n't even follow his own advice
According to the Clinton tax returns , he gave only $ 1 million to charity out of the $ 6.3 million he made for his book `` Giving '' even though his income has gone up 6,900 percent since his White House years
Let the Big Dog off his leash
There can be virtue in a little vice
Related Searches Presidential Election of 2008 Add Alert Biographical Information Add Alert McCain , John Add Alert Clinton , Hillary Rodham Add
I 'm a Catholic woman who makes a living being adversarial
We have a pope who has instructed Catholic women not to be adversarial
It 's a conundrum
I 've been wondering , given the vitriolic reaction of the New York archbishop to my column defending nuns and the dismissive reaction of the Vatican to my column denouncing the church 's response to the pedophilia scandal , if they are able to take a woman 's voice seriously
Some , like Bill Donohue of the Catholic League , seem to think women are trying to undermine the church because of abortion and women 's ordination
I thought they might respond better to a male Dowd
My brother Kevin is conservative and devout his hobby is collecting cr ches and has raised three good Catholic sons
When I asked him to share his thoughts on the scandal , I learned , shockingly , that we agreed on some things
He wrote the following : `` In pedophilia , the church has unleashed upon itself a plague that threatens its very future , and yet it remains in a curious state of denial
The church I grew up in was black and white , no grays
That 's why my father , an Irish immigrant , liked it so much
The chaplain of the Police and Fire departments told me once ` Your father was a fierce Catholic , very fierce .
My brothers and I were sleepily at his side for the monthly 8 a.m. Holy Name Mass and the guarding of the Eucharist in the middle of the night during the 40-hour ritual at Easter
Once during a record snowstorm in 1958 , we were marched single-file to church for Mass only to find out the priests next door could n't get out of the rectory
The priest was always a revered figure , the embodiment of Christ changing water into wine
-LRB- Older parishioners took it literally .
The altar boys would drink the dregs
When I was in the 7th grade , one of the new priests took four of us to the drive-in restaurant and suggested a game of ` pink belly ' on the way back ; we pulled up a boy 's shirt and slapped his belly until it was pink
When the new priest joined in , it seemed like more groping than slapping
But we thought it was inadvertent
And my parents never would have believed a priest did anything inappropriate anyway
A boy in my class told me much later that the same priest climbed into bed with him in 1958 at a rectory sleepover , but my friend threw him to the floor
The priest protested he was sleepwalking
Three days later , the archbishop sent the priest to a rehab place in New Mexico ; he ended up as a Notre Dame professor
Vatican II made me wince
The church declared casual Friday
All the once-rigid rules left to the whim of the flock
The Mass was said in English -LRB- rendering useless my carefully learned Latin prayers -RRB-
Holy days of obligation were optional
There were laypeople on the heretofore sacred ground of the altar performing the sacraments and worse , handling the Host
The powerful symbolism of the priest turning the Host into the body of Christ cracked like an egg
In his book , ` Goodbye
Good Men , ' author Michael Rose writes that the liberalized rules set up a takeover of seminaries by homosexuals
Vatican II liberalized rules but left the most outdated one : celibacy
That vow was put in place originally because the church did not want heirs making claims on money and land
But it ended up shrinking the priest pool and producing the wrong kind of candidates drawing men confused about their sexuality who put our children in harm 's way
The church is dying from a thousand cuts
Its cover-up has cost a fortune and been a betrayal worthy of Judas
The money spent came from social programs , Catholic schools and the poor
This should be a sin that cries to heaven for vengeance
I asked a friend of mine recently what he would do if his child was molested after the church knew .
I would probably kill someone , ' he replied
We must reassess
Married priests and laypeople giving the sacraments are not going to destroy the church
Based on what we have seen the last 10 years , they would be a bargain
It is time to go back to the disciplines that the church was founded on and remind our seminaries and universities what they are
-LRB- Georgetown University agreeing to cover religious symbols on stage to get President Obama to speak was not exactly fierce .
The storm within the church strikes at what every Catholic fears most
We take our religion on faith
How can we maintain that faith when our leaders are unworthy of it ?
But with my savings and salary shrinking , it seemed worth a try
Heck , how hard could it be
I 'd seen `` The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , '' the 1948 classic starring Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston
-LRB- `` Badges
... I do n't have to show you any stinkin ' badges ! ''
That movie was the best meditation on prospecting for gold , and falling prey to greed , ever done until the Bernie Madoff story
Besides , with the American dream wobbling and the Golden State 's luster dimmed , it seemed fitting to return to the Mother Lode of the Sierra Nevada foothills where the dream of audaciously striking it rich overnight was born 160 years ago , a Gold Rush that stimulated the world economy
The 49ers who Mark Twain described as `` a wild , free , disorderly , grotesque society '' of `` unspeakably happy '' men stopped in San Francisco , two-and-a-half hours west of here , to buy supplies , such as bullets , salt meat and Levis
-LRB- And to buy shady ladies , or `` soiled doves , '' as they were known , but we wo n't get into that .
My San Francisco supplies were more modern : pre-torn jeans , a skim latte , a G.P.S. , a cellphone and a laptop to get updates on the price of gold
With the dollar diminished and financial institutions in the doghouse , a hard nugget suddenly seems a safer bet than an ephemeral derivative
-LRB- Gold is trading at about $ 880 an ounce .
News reports are heralding a neo-Gold Rush from Modesto to the Mojave Desert , a revival in prospectors at California 's streambeds , spurred by the sputtering national economy , the state 's 10.5 percent unemployment rate leaving many with free time and the weighty price of gold
Panners have been finding `` the sweat of the sun , '' as the Incas called gold
Mining claims , membership in prospecting clubs and sales at mining supply stores are up all over the state
One prospector from the East Coast boasted to NBC of finding $ 10,000 in gold in one day
My adventure did feel like time travel into the past , especially when the G.P.S. began flashing near Yosemite that we were `` entering an area where turn-by-turn guidance can not be provided .
As with Chaucer 's `` Pardoner 's Tale , '' with its moral of `` radix malorum est cupiditas '' or `` greed is the root of all evil , '' my two friends and I quickly fell to arguing about whether we would keep our own booty or split it three ways , suspicions blooming
As we walked into Brent Shock 's gold prospecting shop on Main Street here , we heard someone singing that old Burl Ives staple `` Jimmy crack corn , and I do n't care .
We paid $ 200 for our two-hour `` sluice and pan , '' and headed down to Shock 's resurrected mining camp at Woods Creek , where about 15 people , including some families , were out digging in waders
John Fonseca , a 27-year-old Brazilian from Salt Lake City , was there with his uncle , Jorge de Jesus , who had heard about Jamestown on The Travel Channel
Fonseca , who has done millwork for stores like Chanel and Armani , says work has slowed down , so he figured he 'd hunt for gold
He had a small vial full of gold flakes from three hours of mining that day , which he said ruefully was `` not enough to sell '' or `` pay the bills .
Gary Speed , 58 , who works for McClatchy 's Cars.com unit , drove half an hour from Groveland , Calif. , with his wife , Margaret , to celebrate her birthday
He 's considering gold panning `` as another source of income because I 'm going to retire soon .
He was intent on not losing the gold flakes in his sluice
`` That can buy a can of cat food , '' he noted
With a gray beard , a mouth of missing teeth , intense blue eyes and a Marlboro Red dangling from his lip , the 57-year-old Shock is a throwback to prospectors of yore
`` Gold has been driving people crazy for years , '' he said
`` Man is man .
For kids , Shock sometimes helps Mother Nature , salting the river with fool 's gold , pyrite , so they can be sure to find some treasure
I picked up a glittery nugget , but Shock disabused me
`` We call that California leverite , '' he said , `` as in , leave ` er right here .
He taught us how to swirl the pan around , with only your wrist and `` no body language , '' and separate silt from flecks
Aaron Levin , a 33-year-old FedEx manager from San Jose , said it was such hard work for so little return that if he needed extra money , he 'd rather `` get a second job delivering pizzas .
In the end , Shock helped us round up a few flakes , which did not even merit a `` Eureka !
and looked more like goldfish food than the ticket out of a fishy economy
`` It 's $ 1,000 worth of conversation , '' Shock reassured us
It 's also one more reminder that get-rich-quick schemes are often the road to empty pockets
Back at the National Hotel bar on Main Street , where grizzled prospectors traded gold for whiskey long ago , we tried to trade our vial of flakes for Ramos gin fizzes and a lemon drop martini
`` Sure , I 'll take it , '' said the bartender , `` along with a credit card .
Maybe it was because I was sitting in the back of the Senate chamber with three war protesters grim-faced , chanting women dressed in black hooded cloaks , white makeup and blood-red hands that I felt as though I were watching a production of `` Macbeth '' rather than a hearing on Iraq
`` Fair is foul , and foul is fair , '' the witches in the play said
`` Hover through the fog and filthy air .
Many words hovered Tuesday in the Senate including some pointed ones by the woman and two men vying to be commander in chief
But the words seemed trapped in a labyrinth leading nowhere
The Surge Twins were back , but the daylong testimony of David Petraeus and Ryan Crocker before two committees seemed more depressing this time
As the Bard writes in `` Macbeth '' : `` From that spring whence comfort seemed to come , discomfort swells .
They arrived on the heels of the Maliki debacle in Basra , which made it stunningly clear after a cease-fire was brokered in Iran that we 're spending $ 3 trillion as our own economy goes off a cliff so that Iran can have a dysfunctional little friend
Not good news , given Ahmadinejad 's announcement that his scientists are putting 6,000 new uranium-enriching centrifuges in place
I like General Petraeus 's air of restrained competence and Ambassador Crocker 's air of wry world-weariness
But now they seem swallowed up by the fresh violence and ancient tribal antagonisms that they were supposed to be overcoming
The guardians of Iraq offer more of the same a post-Surge Pause or `` consolidation and evaluation , '' as the general generically puts it and no answers about how we can stop our ward from aligning with our enemy
The way forward , General Petraeus said , should be `` conditions-based .
Even in a place as prosaic as the Senate , this news spurred existential angst
Senator Evan Bayh summed up the Dada nature of our plan in Iraq : `` We 'll know when we get there , and we do n't know when we 're going to get there .
A confused Chuck Hagel asked the pair : `` So , where 's the surge
What are we doing
I do n't see Secretary Rice doing any Kissinger-esque flying around
Where is the diplomatic surge
... So , where is the surge
What are you talking about ?
Condi is too busy floating trial balloons about being John McCain 's running mate to bother about the fact that she was instrumental in two historic blunders : 9\/11 and Iraq
It 's hard to follow the narrative of our misadventure in Iraq
We went in to help the Shiites that we betrayed in the first Gulf War shake off their Sunni tormentors
But then , predictably for everyone except the chuckleheaded W. and Cheney , the Shiites began tormenting the Sunnis
So we put 90,000 Sunni Sons of Iraq some of the same ones who were exploding American soldiers on our payroll so they 'd stop shooting at Americans and helping Al Qaeda
Our troops have gone from policing a Sunni-Shiite civil war to policing a Shiite-Shiite power struggle , while Osama bin Laden plots in peace as Al Qaeda in Iraq distracts us and drains our military resources
Even some senators got confused
John McCain seemed to repeat his recent confusion over tribes , mistakenly referring to Al Qaeda again as a `` sect of Shiites '' before correcting himself and saying : `` or Sunnis or anybody else .
And Joe Biden theorized that `` The Awakening , '' made up of Sunnis , might decide to get into a civil war with Sunnis , presumably meaning Shiites
But Senator Biden asked a trenchant , if attenuated , question of Mr. Crocker about Al Qaeda : `` If you could take it out , you had a choice , the Lord Almighty came down and sat in the middle of the table there and said , ` Mr. Ambassador , you can eliminate every Al Qaeda source in Afghanistan and Pakistan , or every Al Qaeda personnel in Iraq , ' which would you pick ?
Given the progress beating back Al Qaeda in Iraq , the ambassador replied , he would pick the hiding place of bin Laden
`` That would be a smart choice , '' Mr. Biden noted
Senator John Warner asked the essential question the one that makes it clear that W. and Cheney hurt the national interest : Is the war making us safer here at home
General Petraeus avoided answering
But he acknowledged that the `` fragile '' gains there are `` reversible .
`` The Champagne bottle , '' he told Senator Bayh , `` has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator .
You know you 're in trouble when Barbara Boxer is the voice of reason
`` Why is it , '' she asked , `` after all we have given 4,024 American lives , gone ; more than half-a-billion dollars spent ; all this for the Iraqi people , but it 's the Iranian president who is greeted with kisses and flowers ?
She warmed to : `` He got a red-carpet treatment , and we are losing our sons and daughters every single day for the Iraqis to be free
It is irritating is my point .
Ambassador Crocker dryly assured the senator from California that he believed that Dick Cheney had also gotten kissed on his visit to Iraq
And certainly not covering up the sex stuff
That happens here all the time , too
First people uncover ; then they cover up
Nobody 's ever had sex with that woman until , suddenly , they have
The stunning admission Edwards made to ABC 's Bob Woodruff , and in a written statement from Chapel Hill on Friday afternoon , was that he 's a narcissist
He admitted that wallowing in `` self-focus '' out on the trail and thinking you 're `` special '' can result in a solipsism that `` leads you to believe you can do whatever you want , you 're invincible and there 'll be no consequences .
Auto-psychoanalysis by the perp
That 's really rich
When Bill Clinton acknowledged an affair , after equally adamant denials , he simply went into an old-fashioned spiral of penitence , his allegedly long , dark night of his alleged soul
Even in confessing to preening , Edwards was preening
His diagnosis of narcissism was weirdly narcissistic , or was it self-narcissistic
Given his diagnosis , I 'm sure his H.M.O. would pay
The creepiest part of his creepy confession was when he stressed to Woodruff that he cheated on Elizabeth in 2006 when her cancer was in remission
His infidelity was oncologically correct
So narcissist walks into a New York bar and meets a legendarily wacky former Gotham party girl whose '80s exploits were chronicled in a novel by her former boyfriend Jay McInerney because the behavior of her and her friends `` intrigued and appalled me .
When you appall Jay McInerney , you know you 're in trouble
The president manqu gives Rielle Hunter , formerly Lisa Druck , more than $ 114,000 to shoot vain little videos for his Web site -LRB- even though she 's a neophyte -RRB- , one of which is scored with the song `` True Reflections '' about the Narcissus pool , which goes : `` When you look into a mirror , do you like what 's looking at you
Now that you 've seen your true reflections , what on earth are you gonna do ?
He has an affair with Hunter , while he 's honing his speech on the imperative to `` live in a moral , honest , just America .
A married former aide says he 's the father when she gets pregnant , even though she 's telling people Edwards is the dad
And one of his campaign donors pays off Hunter to get her resettled with the baby out of North Carolina
But the Breck Girl wants a gold star for the fact that he sent his marriage into remission when his wife was in remission
That 's special
In his statement , he bleats : `` You can not beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself
I have been stripped bare .
Is n't stripping bare how he got into this mess
It is n't like we did n't know that the son of a millworker was a little enraptured by himself , radiating self-love from his smile and his man-in-a-hurry airs and the notorious $ 800 bill for a pair of haircuts and his two-minute YouTube hair primping to the tune of `` I Feel Pretty .
Certain men assume that power confers sexual privilege
And in American politics , there is an eternal disjunction between character and achievement
Sinners do good things , saints do bad things
Still , it 's bizarre the way these pols spend millions getting their faces plastered everywhere and then think they can do something in secret
`` Yeah , I did n't think anyone would ever know about it , I did n't , '' Edwards said
In one of the Web films Hunter directed , he actually flirts with the blonde , laughingly telling her that his address on morality is `` a great speech '' and complaining , `` Why do n't you hear me give it live ?
For some reason , super-strivers have a need to sell what is secretly weakest about themselves , as if they yearn for unmasking
Edwards 's decency and concern for the weak in society except for his own wife
Bill Clinton 's intellect and love of community except for his stupidity and destructiveness about Monica
Bush the Younger 's jocular , I 'm - in-charge self-confidence except for turning over his presidency , as no president ever has , to his Veep
Eliot Spitzer 's crusade for truth , justice and the American way except at home
In the Hunter video titled `` Plane Truths , '' Edwards is relaxing on his plane , telling the out-of-frame director : `` I 've come to the personal conclusion that I actually want the country to see who I am , who I really am , but I do n't know what the result of that will be
But for me personally , I 'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am , not based on some plastic Ken doll that you put up in front of audiences .
Ken could n't have said it better
Back in 2002 , Edwards sent me a Ken doll dressed in bathing trunks , Rio de Janeiro Ken , with a teasing note , because he did n't like my reference to him as a Ken doll in a column
In retrospect , the comparison was not fair to Ken
We food shopped and ate dinner together but always squabbled over what groceries to buy
It got to the point where the only food we could agree on was corn , so that was what we got
This upset my mother , who used to call me regularly to ominously demand : `` Do you know why the Incas are extinct ?
This was B.G. -LRB- Before Google .
So I simply assumed that it either had to do with too much maize in the Inca diet or that Mom was just trying to scare me into healthier behavior - as when she attempted to ward off any tequila-tippling by calling to ask portentously : Do you know why so many tequila drinkers have nervous breakdowns
Anyway , on one shopping expedition , I had a big fight with a roommate , no doubt over whether to get canned or frozen corn , creamed or whole kernel
We were at a supermarket in a blighted part of D.C. My roommate got furious , stormed off in her car and left me stranded
I called my brother Kevin to come get me
On the way back to school , he offered this advice : `` Never pick a fight with the guy who 's driving .
I took that to heart , literally and metaphorically
It has spared me plenty of problems since
The serendipity of ending up with roommates that you like , despite your differences , or ca n't stand , despite your similarities , or grow to like , despite your reservations , is an experience that toughens you up and broadens you out for the rest of life
So I was dubious when I read in The Wall Street Journal last week that students are relying more on online roommate matching services to avoid getting paired with strangers or peers with different political views , study habits and messiness quotients
A University of Florida official told The Journal that a quarter of incoming freshmen signed up to a Facebook application called RoomBug to seek out a roommate they thought would be more compatible than a random selection
Other students are using URoomSurf
It makes matches with questions like these : How often do you shower
How neat are you
How outgoing are you
What 's your study\/party balance
Is it O.K. for your roommate to use your belongings
I guess if I had used URoomSurf , I might have avoided those donnybrooks with one pill of a roommate , who yelled at me for such infractions as allegedly stretching out her sweater and eating a whole can of Campbell 's Chunky Soup when I could have made do with half
But co-habiting with snarly and moody roomies prepared me for the working world , where people can be outlandishly cantankerous over small stuff
Just as rooming with Donna taught me humility
She was the sexiest girl on campus , an actress who would later brush off John Travolta in the Bee Gees-scored opening credits of `` Saturday Night Fever .
And Susan , who would n't leave the room when it rained and who lost 20 pounds on an all-brownies diet , taught me to tolerate quirks
I knew the lovely Susan would be my friend for life when I arrived in our freshman-year room shadowed by my mom , who was carrying a butcher knife , a can of Mace and a letter opener
Mom wanted us to be well armed against rapists - she wrote down instructions about how to insert the letter opener into an attacker 's jugular - and Susan appreciated the gesture
As in Darwinian evolution , cross-pollination with diverse strains promotes species development
One young woman I know was appalled at first that the giggly cheerleader and former prom queen sharing her freshman room at the University of Pennsylvania put up 'N Sync posters `` unironically .
But in the end , she realized that just because her roommate loved 'N Sync and wore cute outfits did not necessary mean she was shallow
And the prom queen realized that just because you hum when you write papers does n't mean you 're mentally ill.
The prom queen lightened up the brooding , cynical , emo chick , and even got her to an 'N Sync concert - unironically
Choosing roommates who are mirror images may fit with our narcissistic and microtargeted society , but it retards creativity and social growth
This reluctance to mix it up also has been reflected in the lack of full-throated political and cultural debates on campuses -LRB- as opposed to ersatz debates on cable TV -RRB- , replaced by a quiet P.C. acceptance of differing views or an obnoxious stereotyping of anyone different
As The Times 's Michiko Kakutani noted , the diminished debate syndrome at schools `` suggests a closing off of the possibilities of growth and transformation .
Besides intensifying partisanship and conspiracy theories - think the birthers - the Internet divides the world more firmly into niches , birds of a feather avidly flocking together
As you leave behind high school to redefine and even reinvent yourself as adult , you need exposure to an array of different ideas , backgrounds and perspectives - not a cordon of clones
College is not only where you hit the books
It also should be where you learn not to judge a book by its cover
You may recall the seventh rule of `` Fight Club '' : Fights will go on as long as they have to
In this summer of our discontent , fights are spreading like mountain wildfires from a town hall in Lebanon , Pa. , to one in Kinshasa , Congo
Never before have we had so many tools to learn and to communicate
Yet the art of talking , listening and ascertaining the truth seems more elusive than ever in this Internet and cable age , lost in a bitter stream of blather and misinformation
The postpartisan , postracial , post-Clinton-dysfunction world that Barack Obama was supposed to usher in when he hit town on his white charger , with turtle doves tweeting , has vanished
Hillary 's KO in the Congo on Monday made the covers of both New York tabloids
Using tough hand gestures not seen since `` The Sopranos '' went off HBO , Hillary snapped back at an African college student who asked about the growing influence of China on Africa and then , according to the translator , wanted to know : `` What does Mr. Clinton think ?
It turned out that the student was trying to ask how President Obama felt about it
But before he was able to clarify , the secretary of state flared : `` Wait , you want me to tell you what my husband thinks
My husband is not the secretary of state
I am .
This raw , competitive response showed that the experiment in using the Clintons as a tandem team on diplomacy may not be going as smoothly as we had hoped ; once more , as with health care , the conjugal psychodrama drags down the positive contribution the couple can make on policy
At Tuesday 's State Department briefing , Assistant Secretary P.J. Crowley explained that Hillary was particularly irritated to feel overshadowed by men in Africa , where she is pushing her `` abiding theme '' of `` empowering women .
Nice try , P.J.
But we all know Hillary could just as well have made the same comment in Paris
-LRB- And looking unhinged about your marriage on an international stage hardly empowers women .
She may have been steamed about Bill celebrating his upcoming 63rd birthday in Las Vegas with his posse
The Times 's Adam Nagourney irritated Clinton Inc. when he reported that Bill went to the pricey Craftsteak restaurant at the MGM Grand Hotel Monday night with Hollywood moguls Steve Bing and Haim Saban , and former advisers Terry McAuliffe and Paul Begala , among others
Another rule of `` Fight Club , '' as Brad Pitt explained , is : When someone yells `` stop '' or goes limp , the fight is over
Unfortunately for Arlen Specter and Claire McCaskill , that rule did n't apply at their donnybrooks on health care on Tuesday
The senators were punching bags for audience members irate about everything from the trillions in debt and illegal immigrants to term limits and toilet paper
As Katy Abram told Fox News after passionately confronting Specter : `` I know that years down the road , I do n't want my children coming to me and asking me , ` Mom , why did n't you do anything
Why do we have to wait in line for , I do n't know , toilet paper or anything ? '
Besides the chilling prospect of 21st-century America morphing into a cold war state with Sheryl Crow in charge of toilet-paper rationing there are also delusional fears about the government tapping bank accounts and convening `` death panels , '' as Sarah Palin dubbed them , to exploit the cost-saving potential of euthanizing the old and disabled
At his more placid town hall in Portsmouth , N.H. , on Tuesday , the president had to explain that he did not intend to `` pull the plug on grandma .
He said that the specter of death panels had spun out of a proposal from a Republican , Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia , who has long espoused helping Medicare patients learn about options for care at the end of their lives
In an interview with The Washington Post on Monday , Isakson diagnosed Palin 's interpretation of his suggestion as `` nuts .
The young grass-roots army that swept Obama into office has yet to mobilize now that the fight is about something complicated rather than a charismatic hope-monger
No , they ca n't
Instead of a multicultural tableau of beaming young idealists on screen , we see ugly scenes of mostly older and white malcontents , disrupting forums where others have come to actually learn something
Instead of hope , we get swastikas , death threats and T-shirts proclaiming `` Proud Member of the Mob .
President Obama has proven quicksilver instincts , but not in this case
You would think that a politician schooled in community organizing and the foul balls of a presidential campaign would be ready to squash this kind of nuttiness
-LRB- Like it or not , Speaker Pelosi , that 's democracy in action .
Instead , the president 's overconfident Harvard Law Review side , expecting a high-minded debate , prevailed
He knows how to rise to the occasion , even when others are in the dirt
But he may be running out of time
While Obama was spending three hours watching `` The Dark Knight '' five time zones away , and going to a fund-raiser featuring `` Aloha attire '' and Hawaiian pupus , Hillary was busy planning her convention
You can almost hear her mind whirring : She 's amazed at how easy it was to snatch Denver away from the Obama saps
Like taking candy from a baby , except Beanpole Guy does n't eat candy
In just a couple of weeks , Bill and Hill were able to drag No Drama Obama into a swamp of Clinton drama
Now they 've made Barry 's convention all about them their dissatisfaction and revisionism and barely disguised desire to see him fail
Whatever insincere words of support the Clintons muster , their primal scream gets louder : He ca n't win
He ca n't close the deal
We told you so
Hillary 's orchestrating a play within the play in Denver
Just as Hamlet used the device to show that his stepfather murdered his father , Hillary will try to show the Democrats they chose the wrong savior
Her former aide Howard Wolfson fanned the divisive flames Monday on ABC News , arguing that Hillary would have beaten Obama in Iowa and become the nominee if John Edwards 's affair had come out last year an assertion contradicted by a University of Iowa survey showing that far more Edwards supporters had Obama as their second choice
Hillary feels no guilt about encouraging her supporters to mess up Obama 's big moment , thus undermining his odds of beating John McCain and improving her odds of being the nominee in 2012
She 's obviously relishing Hillaryworld 's plans to have multiple rallies in Denver , to take out TV and print ads and to hold up signs in the hall that read `` Denounce Nobama 's Coronation .
In a video of a closed California fund-raiser on July 31 that surfaced on YouTube , Hillary was clearly receptive to having her name put in nomination and a roll-call vote
She said she thought it would be good for party unity if her gals felt `` that their voices are heard .
But that 's disingenuous
Hillary was the one who raised the roll-call idea at the end of May with Democrats , who were urging her to face the math
She said she wanted it for Chelsea , oblivious to how such a vote would dim Obama 's star turn
Ever since she stepped aside in June , she 's been telling people privately that there might have to be `` a catharsis '' at the convention , signaling she wants a Clinton crescendo
Bill continues to howl at the moon and any reporters in the vicinity about Obama ; he 's starting to make King Lear look like Ryan Seacrest
The way the Clintons see it , there 's nothing wrong with a couple making plans for their future , is there
That 's the American way and , as their pal Mark Penn pointed out , they have American roots while Obama `` is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values .
The Clintons know that a lot of Democrats are muttering that their solipsistic behavior is `` disgusting .
But they 're too filled with delicious schadenfreude at the wave of buyer 's remorse that has swept the Democratic Party ; many Democrats are questioning whether Obama is fighting back hard enough against McCain , and many are wondering , given his inability to open up a lead in a country fed up with Republicans , if race will be an insurmountable factor
Some Democrats wish that Obama had told the Clintons to `` get in the box '' or get lost if they ca n't show more loyalty , rather than giving them back-to-back , prime-time speaking gigs at the convention on Tuesday and Wednesday
Al Gore clipped their wings in 2000 , triggering their wrath by squeezing both the president and New York Senate candidate into speaking slots the first night and then ushering them out of L.A. Wednesday will be all Bill
The networks will rerun his churlish comments from Africa about Obama 's readiness to lead and his South Carolina meltdowns
TV will have more interest in a volcanic ex-president than a genteel veep choice
Obama also allowed Hillary supporters to insert an absurd statement into the platform suggesting that media sexism spurred her loss and that `` demeaning portrayals of women ... dampen the dreams of our daughters .
This , even though postmortems , including the new raft of campaign memos leaked by Clintonistas to The Atlantic another move that undercuts Obama finger Hillary 's horrendous management skills
Besides the crashing egos and screeching factions working at cross purposes , Joshua Green writes in the magazine , Hillary 's `` hesitancy and habit of avoiding hard choices exacted a price that eventually sank her chances at the presidency .
It would have been better to put this language in the platform : `` A woman who wildly mismanages and bankrupts a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar campaign operation , and then blames sexism in society , will dampen the dreams of our daughters .
Not because of his outburst against the `` professional left .
He was right about that
In an interview with The Hill last week , Gibbs once more proved Michael Kinsley 's maxim that a gaffe is just truth slipping out
He said the president 's lefty critics `` ought to be drug-tested , '' would only `` be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we 've eliminated the Pentagon , '' and `` would n't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president .
His colleagues tried to excuse Gibbs by saying he was suffering from a bug going around the White House
But the press secretary and the president are understandably frustrated over the asymmetry at the heart of American politics : Rand Paul and Sharron Angle aside , Republicans often find a way to exploit their extremes for political advantage , while Democratic extremes typically do damage to a Democratic president
One of the most disgusting things about Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl , and now the former maverick John McCain , is that they are happy to be co-opted by the radicals in their party to form one movement against President Obama
On the Republican side , the crazies often end up helping the Republican leadership
On the Democratic side , the radicals are constantly sniping at Obama , expressing their feelings of betrayal
Fox built up a Republican president ; MSNBC is trying to make its reputation by tearing down a Democratic one
We 've known that the left was mad at Obama , but now we know Obama is mad at the left
Obama and Gibbs are upset that the lefties wo n't recognize the necessity of compromise
The left is snapping back : What necessity
You won 365 electoral votes
You have both houses of Congress
And bipartisanship is an illusion
Democrats are not prepared to go the whole way to appease their ideologues
The Republican leaders on the Hill , on the other hand , seem perfectly happy to go all out
W. 's reign of error so enraged Democrats that they were bound by one desire : to get rid of him
Bush , Cheney and Rove inspired the Democrats to spawn a powerful lefty tower of babble led by Rachel Maddow , Michael Moore and the blogosphere
After Bush , Democrats thought the way to paper over the distinction between liberals and radical lefties was to call everyone progressives
But calling yourself a progressive is just a stupid disguise where you pretend the contradiction is n't there
Some liberals , like the president , felt he could live without the public option , whereas lefties thought the public option was essential
Some liberals , like the president , think you can escalate our wars to end them , whereas lefties just want the wars ended
There are deep schisms within the Democratic Party that were masked for a time , first by Bush and then by Obama 's election
Now that the Democrats have the presidency and the power and can enact legislation , it 's apparent that the word progressive is kind of meaningless
President Obama is testing how elastic he can be , how much realism he can have before he betrays his idealism
For better and worse , he is an elitist and a situationist
But the professional left - like the professional right - often considers pragmatism a moral compromise
The lefties came to the defense of the centrist Clinton during impeachment
Now that Obama is under attack , however , they are not coming to his defense , even though he has given more to the liberal cause than the scandal-stunted Clinton ultimately achieved
He has shepherded the biggest expansion of social programs since the Great Society and spearheaded the biggest spending program with the stimulus
But for the left -LRB- and for some economists -RRB- , it was not as big as it ought to have been
Obama got elected because of the clarity of his campaign and his speeches
But , surprisingly , he 's in some ways an incoherent president
He 's with the banks , he 's against the banks
He 's leaving Afghanistan , he 's staying in Afghanistan
He strains at being a populist , but his head is in the clouds
He needs to communicate more clearly
And , in that department , Gibbs is n't helpful
He 's often unresponsive and sometimes hostile to the press
His adversarial barking has only heightened tensions with a press that was once lampooned for fawning over his boss
Gibbs does not see his job as a bridge between the press and the presidency
He sees himself more as a moat
He has always wanted to be an inside counselor to the president
So Obama - who bonded with Gibbs during the campaign , over sports , missing their families and how irritating the blog-around-the-clock press corps is - would be wise to promote him to a counselor
Let someone who shows less disdain for the press work with the press , and be the more engaging face of the White House
I 'm not sure the man who popped off and tweeted that Sonia Sotomayor was a `` Latina woman racist '' is the best Henry Higgins for the Eliza Doolittle of Alaska
But Newt Gingrich was a professor
And he does know something about pulling yourself up by dragging down others and imploding when you take center stage both Palin specialties
Besides , he agrees with Sarah who fretted that her parents and son Trig might be in danger from Obama `` death panels '' that we should be very wary about trusting government with end-of-life decisions
So Newt took it upon himself to become Palin 's Pygmalion
He told Politico that the out-of-work pol should write a book ; take a commentator gig on TV ; get a condo in D.C. or New York to use as an East Coast base ; and prepare three types of speeches one `` to make money , '' another to `` project her brand '' before universities and interest groups , and a vivid campaign stump speech to use for Republican candidates in 2010
Most important , he advised , the dizzy Palin has to be `` clear in her own head what she wants to do .
At the moment , what she wants to do is tap into her visceral talent for aerial-shooting her favorite human prey : cerebral Ivy League Democrats
Just as she was able to stir up the mob against Barack Obama on the trail , now she is fanning the flames against another Harvard smarty-pants Dr. Zeke Emanuel , a White House health care adviser and the older brother of Rahmbo
She took a forum , Facebook , more commonly used by kids hooking up and cyberstalking , and with one catchy phrase , several footnotes and a zesty disregard for facts , managed to hijack the health care debate from Mr. Obama
Sarahcuda knows , from her brush with Barry on the campaign trail , that he is vulnerable on matters that demand a visceral and muscular response rather than a logical and book-learned one
Mr. Obama was charming and informed at his town hall in Montana on Friday , but he 's going to need some sustained passion , a clear plan and a narrative as gripping as Palin 's I-see-dead-people scenario
She has successfully caricatured the White House health care effort , making it sound like the plot of the 1976 sci-fi movie `` Logan 's Run , '' about a post-apocalyptic society with limited resources where you can live only until age 30 , when you must take part in an extermination ceremony called `` Carousel '' or flee the city
Painting the Giacometti-esque Emanuel as a creepy Dr. Death , Palin attacked him on her Facebook page a week ago , complaining that his `` Orwellian thinking '' could lead to a `` death panel '' with bureaucrats deciding whether to pull the plug on less hardy Americans
Never mind that Palin herself had endorsed some of the same end-of-life counseling she now depicts as putting Grandma down
As the Democratic National Committee pointed out , Palin put out a 2008 proclamation for Healthcare Decisions Day `` to raise public awareness of the need to plan ahead for healthcare decisions , related to end of life care ... and to encourage the specific use of advance directives to communicate these important healthcare decisions .
Consistency was long ago sent to a death panel in Palin world
Sensing traction , she took more shots against Dr. Emanuel , quoting the bioethicist 's past writing that some medical services might not be guaranteed to those `` who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens
... An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia .
`` Dr. Emanuel , '' she wrote ominously , `` has also advocated basing medical decisions on a system which ` produces a priority curve on which individuals aged between roughly 15 and 40 years get the most chance , whereas the youngest and oldest people get chances that are attenuated . '
She crowed that she had him on the run , and the White House felt that the doctor , who was being portrayed as a proponent of euthanasia , needed to get out there and explain his opposition to euthanasia
So he interrupted his hiking vacation in the Italian Alps to give a raft of phone interviews saying he was taken out of context and calling Palin 's charges `` completely off the wall .
But , much to Sarah 's delight , he also conceded to The Washington Times that his `` thinking has evolved '' on the `` very vexing '' issue of deciding who gets treatment and who does n't
`` When I began working in the health policy area about 20 years ago ... I thought we would definitely have to ration care , that there was a need to make a decision and deny people care , '' he told the paper , adding that he now feels that if we get rid of expensive `` unnecessary care '' that `` we would have absolutely no reason to even consider rationing except in a few cases .
A few cases
Sounds like another Facebook entry for Sarah
After eight years , the president 's gut remains gullible
He 'll go out as he came in ignoring reality ; failing to foresee , prevent or even prepare for disasters ; misinterpreting intelligence reports ; misreading people ; and handling crises in ways that makes them exponentially worse
He has spent 469 days of his presidency kicking back at his ranch , and 450 days cavorting at Camp David
And there 's still time to mountain-bike through another historic disaster
As Russian troops continued to manhandle parts of Georgia on Friday , President Bush chastised Russian leaders that `` bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century '' and then flew off to Crawford
His words might have carried more weight if he , Cheney and Rummy had not kicked off the 21st century with a ham-fisted display of global bullying and intimidation modeled after Sherman 's march through the other Georgia
We knew we could count on the cheerleader in chief to be jumping around like a kid in Beijing with bikini-clad beach volleyball players while the Re-Evil Empire was sending columns of tanks into its former republic
-LRB- Georgia made the mistake of baiting the bear .
If only W. had taken the rest of his presidency as seriously as he 's taken his sports outings
When I interviewed him at the start of his first presidential run in 1999 , he took an obvious shot and told me , `` I believe the big issues are going to be China and Russia .
But after 9\/11 , he let Cheney , Rummy and the neocons gull him into a destructive obsession with Iraq
While America has been bogged down and bled dry , China and Russia are plumping up
China has bought so much of America that we 'd be dead Peking ducks if they pulled their investments out of our market , and Russia has transformed itself from a pauper nation to a land filled with millionaires all through our addiction to oil
What was so galling about watching W. 's giddy sightseeing at the Olympics was that it underscored China 's rise as a superpower and , thanks to the administration 's derelict foreign and economic policies , America 's fade-out
It 's as though China has become us and we 've become Europe
Like Russia , China has also been showing jagged authoritarian ways and ignoring America 's preaching , including W. 's tame criticism as he flew into Beijing to revel in the spectacle of China 's ascension
Despite his 1999 prediction that Russia and China would be key to security in the world , W. never bothered to study up on them
In 2006 , at the Group of Eight summit meeting in St. Petersburg , Russia , a microphone caught some of the inane remarks of W. to the Chinese president , Hu Jintao
`` This is your neighborhood , '' W. said
`` It does n't take you long to get home
How long does it take you to get home
Eight hours
Me , too
Russia 's a big country and you 're a big country .
President Bush and his Russian `` expert '' Condi have played it completely wrong with Russia from the start
W. saw a `` trustworthy '' soul in a razor-eyed K.G.B. agent who has never been a good guy for a single hour
Now the Bush crowd , which can do nothing about it , is blustering about how Russian aggression `` must not go unanswered , '' as Cheney put it
-LRB- W. 's other Russian expert , Bob Gates , was , as always , the only voice of realism , noting , `` I do n't see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation . ''
The Bush administration may have a sentimental attachment to Georgia because it sent 2,000 troops to Iraq as part of the fig-leaf Coalition of the Willing , and because Poppy Bush and James Baker were close to Georgia 's first president , Eduard Shevardnadze
But with this country 's military and moral force so depleted , the Bushies can hardly tell Russia to stop doing what they themselves did in Iraq : unilaterally invade a country against the will of the world to scare the bejesus out of some leaders in the region they did n't like
W. and Condi are suddenly waking up to how vicious Vladimir is
In a press conference with Condi on Friday , Mikheil Saakashvili , the president of Georgia , chided the West for enabling Russia to resume its repressive tactics
`` Unfortunately , today we are looking evil directly in the eye , '' he said
`` And today this evil is very strong , very nasty and very dangerous , for everybody , not only for us .
As Michael Specter , the New Yorker writer who has written extensively about Russia , observed : `` There was a brief five-year period when we could get away with treating Russia like Jamaica that 's over
Now we have to deal with them like grown-ups who have more nuclear weapons than anybody except us .
When the president skittered back from his grandiose declaration at an iftar celebration at the White House Friday that Muslims enjoy freedom of religion in America and have the right to build a mosque and community center in Lower Manhattan , he offered a Clintonesque parsing
`` I was not commenting , and I will not comment , on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there , '' he said the morning after he commented on the wisdom of making a decision to put a mosque there
`` I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding
That 's what our country is about .
Let me be perfectly clear , Mr. Perfectly Unclear President : You can not take such a stand on a matter of first principle and then take it back the next morning when , lo and behold , Harry Reid goes craven and the Republicans attack
What is so frightening about Fox News
Some critics have said the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9\/11 hijackers would be to allow a mosque to be built near ground zero
Actually , the ultimate victory for Osama and the 9\/11 hijackers is the moral timidity that would ban a mosque from that neighborhood
Our enemies struck at our heart , but did they also warp our identity
The war against the terrorists is not a war against Islam
In fact , you ca n't have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam
George W. Bush understood this
And it is odd to see Barack Obama less clear about this matter than his predecessor
It 's time for W. to weigh in
This - along with immigration reform and AIDS in Africa - was one of his points of light
As the man who twice went to war in the Muslim world , he has something of an obligation to add his anti-Islamophobia to this mosque madness
W. needs to get his bullhorn back out
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are both hyper-articulate former law professors
But Clinton never presented himself as a moral guide to the country
So when he weaseled around , or triangulated on some issues , it was part of his ultra-fallible persona - and consistent with his identity as a New Democrat looking for a Third Way
But Obama presents himself as a paragon of high principle
So when he flops around on things like `` do n't ask , do n't tell '' or shrinks back from one of his deepest beliefs about the freedom of religion anywhere and everywhere in America , it 's not pretty
Even worse , this is the man who staked his historical reputation on a new and friendlier engagement with the Muslim world
The man who extended his hand to Tehran has withdrawn his hand from Park Place
Paranoid about looking weak , Obama allowed himself to be weakened by perfectly predictable Republican hysteria
Which brings us to Newt Gingrich
Gingrich fancies himself an intellectual , a historian , a deep thinker - the opposite number , you might say , of Sarah Palin
Yet here is Gingrich attempting to out-Palin Palin on Fox News : `` Nazis do n't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington .
There is no more demagogic analogy than that
Have any of the screaming critics noticed that there already are two mosques in the same neighborhood - one four blocks away and one 12 blocks away
Should they be dismantled
And what about the louche liquor stores and strip clubs in the periphery of the sacred ground
By now you have to be willfully blind not to know that the imam in charge of the project , Feisal Abdul Rauf , is the moderate Muslim we have allegedly been yearning for
So look where we are
The progressive Democrat in the White House , the first president of the United States with Muslim roots , has been morally trumped by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey , two moderate Republicans who have spoken bravely and lucidly about not demonizing and defaming an entire religion in the name of fighting its radicals
Criticizing his fellow Republicans , Governor Christie said that while he understood the pain and sorrow of family members who lost loved ones on 9\/11 , `` we can not paint all of Islam with that brush .
He charged the president with trying to turn the issue into a political football
But that is not quite right
It already was a political football and the president fumbled it
Next up in bookstores : `` Madoff 's Other Secret : Love , Money , Bernie , and Me , '' by Sheryl Weinstein , a 60-year-old former executive with the Jewish women 's group Hadassah , who writes that she was romantically involved with the fraudulent financier in the early '90s , though both were married
The last thing you probably need in your head at this point are images of the Wall Street sociopath nuzzling and nickering
Weinstein , according to a preview in The New York Daily News , gets her revenge for losing her life savings by revealing that Madoff 's unimpressive assets were not merely financial
She also recalls that her friends called her Bernie `` Winky Dink '' because he blinked anxiously when he was around her
Jenny Sanford is still sharing about her husband 's affair as well
Her interview in Vogue is accompanied by a leggy photo of the 47-year-old in a beach cover-up that looks like a fetching ad for a new , less embarrassing husband
She has moved out of the governor 's mansion but says she 's still open to getting back together , noting that pastoral and marriage counseling taught her that `` these affairs are almost like an addiction to alcohol or pornography .
`` I think , '' she tells the interviewer , `` my husband has got some issues that he needs to work on , about happiness and what happiness means .
She could n't resist Googling her husband 's Maria and generously deemed her `` pretty .
`` I am sure she is a fine person , '' she says
`` It ca n't be fun for her , though I do sometimes question her judgment
If she knew the newspaper had those e-mails back in December , why did she want him to come in June ?
Jenny , who says she was n't `` madly in love '' with Mark Sanford when she married him , is praying for her husband 's soul mate
Her friends agreed that she 'd be fine with or without him ; one commented that , for a long time , Mark `` has been dead on the inside .
There 's even a TV show inspired by the wives of misbehaving politicians women who long to never hear the words `` long suffering '' again
In the new CBS drama `` The Good Wife , '' Julianna Margulies channels Jenny , Silda , Hillary and Elizabeth , summoning stoicism even when her teenage daughter tells her , `` Some girl said Dad slept with a hooker my age .
When the Sanford scandal broke , some chatterers contended that it was a sign that we should have more women in public office because they get less caught up in sexual intrigue
A pol paying for sex with a call girl is an old story
But even Heidi Fleiss dropped plans for a bordello for female clients outside Pahrump , Nev. , telling The Las Vegas Review-Journal that she 's now focused on alternative energy because `` that 's where the money is .
The only place at the moment where you can see women forking over money to have sex with a gigolo is on HBO 's salaciously named `` Hung .
The kooky comedy is about a divorced Detroit high school basketball coach , Ray Drecker -LRB- played by the hunky Thomas Jane -RRB- , who needs money after his house burns down and his twin teenagers are forced to go live with their mother
He decides to sell his best asset , dubbing himself `` a happiness consultant , '' and teams up with an unlikely pimp , Tanya Skagle -LRB- played by Jane Adams -RRB- , an aspiring poet who listens to PBS and has `` Proust '' tattooed on her forearm
His first lesson on the job is that women frequently derive sensual happiness in a more complex way than men
One of his first clients is a sexy blond ad executive who has had bad luck with guys
He is befuddled to find he must fulfill her fantasies rather than her libido running along the lake laughing and picnicking with her ; going to couples therapy and pretending to be a rich ex-boyfriend ; and feigning falling madly in love with her because it 's their fate
After paying him cash to pick her up by the side of the road , she accuses him of making `` an inappropriate pass .
His Proustian pimp has to explain that the young woman with the `` bruised heart '' is seeking a romantic connection more than a physical one
`` O.K. , '' he says with exasperation
`` I 'll pretend I 'm totally in love with this freak .
After many rewrites and redos , Drecker tries to summon the necessary acting chops to give his client what she 's paying for
In the parking lot of the roadside diner where they keep eating , a la `` Groundhog Day , '' while he struggles to figure out what this woman wants , he grasps for a better performance
`` I just wish in some crazy long-shot version of this universe , '' he tells her , `` that you would stay here with me and not vanish from my life .
When he spits out the word `` destiny , '' he finally manages to please her momentarily
Back in the early '60s , Holly was the woman we wanted to be
The slender and stylish New York beauty was supported by men , yet she seemed free
Now , back in the early '60s on TV , Betty is the woman we do n't want to be
The slender and stylish New York beauty is supported by men , and she seems trapped
`` Breakfast at Tiffany 's '' was cool because of its modern glamour , ushering in a sexy future
`` Mad Men '' is cool because of its retro glamour , recalling a sexy past
Audrey Hepburn 's Holly Golightly , a call girl with a crazy streak , got money from strange men at bo tes for `` trips to the powder room .
January Jones 's Betty Draper , a housewife with a crazy streak , cheated on her husband , when she was pregnant , with a strange man at a bo te
The tightly wound Betty is a gilded bird in a cage ; she needs to belong to someone , this season to a new , older husband , an adviser to Governor Rockefeller
The wild-child Holly is terrified someone will put her in a cage - in the Truman Capote novella , she wo n't even walk past the Central Park Zoo - and she does n't want to belong to anyone
-LRB- She also does n't want anything to belong to her ; that 's why she dumps her cat in a garbage can at the end
In the tacked-on happy ending of the movie , she finds the cat ; in the book , which has no leading man to tell her she 's already in a cage of her own making , she does n't .
The alcohol-swigging Betty never calls her blue periods `` the mean reds , '' as the alcohol-swigging Holly did , but the women have their vertiginous moods in common : luminescent looks overlaying dark psyches
In Georgetown , in the window of a vintage store called Annie Creamcheese , there 's an iconic poster of Audrey Hepburn as Holly , sleek with cigarette holder , long black Givenchy dress and pearls
Right around the corner , in the window of Banana Republic , there 's a huge picture of Jon Hamm , looking sleek with Don Draper 's mysterious , matinee-idol smolder
Even though many of us grew up not realizing it , Holly 's a hooker
And in the new season of AMC 's `` Mad Men , '' which started last Sunday , Don hires a hooker and wants to be slapped
Set in the same era , the two Manhattan fantasies are dashing escapes from the prim , airless Eisenhower era
Both feature magnetic characters , smoke rings and , in Capote 's phrase , `` martini laughter .
Their gorgeous visual style cloaks strangled emotions , and both narratives brim with louche trysts , sexual liberation , bohemian flashes , suppressed demons and reinvented lives
In `` Mad Men , '' the single Richard Whitman from Pennsylvania coal country morphs into the married Don Draper after an accident in the Korean War
In `` Breakfast at Tiffany 's , '' the married Lulamae Barnes morphs into the single Holly Golightly to get out of the backwater Tulip , Tex.
`` In New York you can become anything , '' Sam Wasson , who wrote the new book `` Fifth Avenue , 5 a.m. : Audrey Hepburn , Breakfast at Tiffany 's and the Dawn of the Modern Woman , '' told Vanity Fair
Wasson asserts that Holly was the precursor of Carrie and the `` Sex and the City '' singletons -LRB- not to mention TV trailblazers Mary Tyler Moore and Ally McBeal .
Truman Capote had wanted Marilyn Monroe for the role of the teenage hillbilly turned chic prostitute , and it would have been fun to see that version , too
But when the producers chose the less exhausting Audrey , her real-life good-girl persona helped mask the raciness of her character
In the 1960 movie of John O'Hara 's `` Butterfield 8 , '' Elizabeth Taylor 's call girl had to die in a car crash for her sins , just as 20 years earlier , Vivien Leigh , playing a ballerina-turned-prostitute in `` Waterloo Bridge , '' had to be punished for her wicked ways when she killed herself on the bridge
It would be many years before audiences would embrace overt hookers as heroines : Jamie Lee Curtis in `` Trading Places '' in 1983 , Julia Roberts in `` Pretty Woman '' in 1990 and Kim Basinger in `` L.A. Confidential '' in 1997
Married to the oppressive Mel Ferrer and with a new baby boy , Hepburn 's princess-swan image bled into Holly , making her seem less like a member of the oldest profession and more like a modern , fun-loving single girl
`` In ` Breakfast at Tiffany 's , ' all of a sudden - because it was Audrey who was doing it - living alone , going out , looking fabulous and getting a little drunk did n't look so bad anymore , '' Wasson writes
`` Being single actually seemed shame-free
It seemed fun .
So , as a haute hooker , Audrey Hepburn was a fairy godmother , not only to feminism but to the prevailing ethos that style and cool trump all
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction : Correction : August 1 , 2010 A previous version of this article misstated the way in which Vivien Leigh 's character in `` Waterloo Bridge '' died
In the dead of night in a small hideaway office in the deserted Capitol , a clandestine meeting takes place between two senators with one goal
They grin at each other as they lift their celebratory shots of brutally cold Stolichnaya
`` Our toast to The One , '' they say in unison , `` is that he 's toast .
`` Obama should have picked you , Hillary , '' John McCain tells her
`` It is n't fair , my friend
But it just makes it easier for me to whup him .
`` Do n't worry , John , I 've put it behind me , '' Hillary replies
`` I 'm looking toward the future now , a future that looks very bright , once we send Twig Legs back to the back bench .
They chortle with delight
`` He 's a bright young man , but he got ahead of himself , '' McCain says
`` He needs to be taught a lesson , and we 're the ones to do it
Have you seen the new Bloomberg poll
Obama 's dropped and we 're even again
The Bullet 's getting all the credit , but you and I know , Hillary , that it 's these top-secret counseling sessions we 're having
And thanks again for BlackBerrying me the Rick Warren questions while I was in the so-called cone of silence .
`` Oh , John , you know I love you and I 'm happy to help , '' Hillary says
`` The themes you took from me are working great painting Obama as an elitist and out-of-touch celebrity , when we 're rich celebrities , too
Turning his big rallies and pretty words into character flaws , charging him with playing the race card that one always cracks me up
And accusing the media , especially NBC , of playing favorites
It 's easy to get the stupid press to navel-gaze ; they 're so insecure .
`` They 're all pinko Commies , '' McCain laughs
`` Especially since they deserted me for The Messiah
Seriously , Hill , that Paris-Britney ad you came up with was brilliant
I owe you .
Looking pleased , Hillary expertly downs another shot
`` His secret fear is being seen as a dumb blonde , '' she says
`` He wants to take a short cut to the top and pose on glossy magazine covers , but he does n't want to be seen as a glib pretty boy .
McCain lifts his glass to her admiringly
`` If I do say so myself , while the rookie was surfing in Hawaii , I ate his pupus for lunch
Pictures of him pushing around a golf ball while I 'm pushing around Putin
Priceless .
`` I have a little secret to tell you about that , John
Bill made it happen
He loves you so much
He called Putin and told him that if he invaded Georgia , he could count on being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative every year for the rest of his life .
`` Wow
Should I call him
I saw your husband 's kind words about me in Las Vegas on Monday , saying I 'd be just as good as Obama on climate change .
`` I think he 'd like that , '' Hillary smiles
`` He 's still boiling at Obama
And you do n't have to worry about my army of angry women
We 've spread the word in the feminist underground as opposed to that wacky Obama Weather Underground that ` catharsis ' is code for ` No surrender .
My gals know when I say ` We may have started on two separate paths but we 're on one journey now ' that Skinny 's journey is to the nearest exit .
`` But Obama 's says he 's finally ready to hit back , '' McCain says , frowning
`` He 's starting a blistering TV campaign and attacking me for attacking his patriotism .
`` Now , John , you know that every time he tries to get tough , he quickly runs out of gas
Sometimes in debates , he 'd be exhausted by the third question
He must use up all his energy in the gym
He does n't have any stamina , and he certainly does n't have our bloodlust
Besides , you can throw that Mark Penn stuff at him that I could n't use in a Democratic primary about how he 's not fundamentally American in his thinking and values
While he 's up on his high-minded pedestal , you 'll scoot past him in your Ferragamos .
`` How can I ever thank you , my friend ?
`` You can announce that you wo n't be running for re-election because you 'd be 76 , and you can pick somebody really lame to run with , like your pal Lieberman
That means one term for you , and two for me .
`` It 's a deal , '' McCain says , sticking out his hand to shake on it
`` That was inspired to snatch his convention away makes him look so weak
Listen , why do n't you stop in Sedona on the way to Denver
Wear a black wig and I 'll spirit you up to the cabin for the night
I 'll catch a catfish in the mill pond and grill it for you
It will be an adventure .
There 's a knock on the door
Jesse Jackson sticks his head into the meeting
`` Is it over ?
he asks his co-conspirators
`` Yes , he 's over , '' they respond in unison
At the Bunch of Grapes bookstore on Martha 's Vineyard , the sojourning President Obama bought a few books , including `` To Kill a Mockingbird '' by Harper Lee
It was for his daughter , but it may have also conjured a sweet memory for the beleaguered president
Only a couple of years ago , when he was campaigning , Obama inspired comparisons with the noble lawyer Atticus Finch
Now , after flipping about on some hot-button issues , most recently the plan for an Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero , he 's more likely to be painted by disillusioned supporters as Atticus Flinch
The bookstore gave the president a copy of `` Freedom , '' a new novel by Jonathan Franzen about a dysfunctional family in America
This is apt , since Obama is the head of the dysfunctional family of America - a rational man running a most irrational nation , a high-minded man in a low-minded age
The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown , with the right spreading fear and disinformation that is amplified by the poisonous echo chamber that is the modern media environment
The dispute over the Islamic center has tripped some deep national lunacy
The unbottled anger and suspicion concerning ground zero show that many Americans have n't flushed the trauma of 9\/11 out of their systems - making them easy prey for fearmongers
Many people still have a confused view of Muslims , and the president seems unable to help navigate the country through its Islamophobia
It is a prejudice stoked by Rush Limbaugh , who mocks `` Imam Obama '' as `` America 's first Muslim president , '' and by the evangelist Franklin Graham , who bizarrely told CNN 's John King : `` I think the president 's problem is that he was born a Muslim
His father was a Muslim
The seed of Islam is passed through the father , like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother .
Graham added : `` The teaching of Islam is to hate the Jew , to hate the Christian , to kill them
Their goal is world domination .
A poll last week by the Pew Research Center tracked a strange spike in the number of Americans who believe , despite all evidence to the contrary , that Obama is a Muslim
And even the ones who do n't think he 's a Muslim do n't necessarily believe he 's a Christian
The percentage of Americans who now believe that our Christian president is a Muslim has risen to 18 percent
It was 12 percent when Obama ran for president and 11 percent after his inauguration
Just as some Americans once feared that John Fitzgerald Kennedy -LRB- who was a Catholic -RRB- would build a tunnel to Rome , now some fear that Barack Hussein Obama -LRB- whose name sounds scary -RRB- will build a tunnel to Mecca
In `` Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds , '' a history of such national follies as England 's South Sea Bubble and Holland 's Tulip Frenzy , the Scottish historian Charles Mackay observed : `` Men , it has been well said , think in herds ; it will be seen that they go mad in herds , while they only recover their senses slowly , one by one .
He also concluded that people are more prone to believe the `` Wondrously False '' than the `` Wondrously True .
`` Of all the offspring of time , Error is the most ancient , and is so old and familiar an acquaintance , that Truth , when discovered , comes upon most of us like an intruder , and meets the intruder 's welcome , '' Mackay wrote , adding that `` a misdirected zeal in matters of religion '' befogs the truth most grievously
You can have an opinion on the New York mosque , for or against
But there are n't two sides to the question of whether Obama is a Muslim
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said , `` Everyone is entitled to his own opinion , but not his own facts .
How can a man who has written two best-selling memoirs and been on TV so much that some Democrats worried he was overexposed be getting less known and more misunderstood by the day
The president who is always talking about wanting to be perfectly clear is ever more opaque
The One , who owes his presidency to the intense feeling he stirred up , turns out to be a practical guy who ca n't deal with intense feeling
He ran as a man apart - Joe Biden was enlisted to folksy him up - and now he must deal with the fact that many see him as a man apart
Too lofty to pay heed to the daily bump and grind of politics , Obama has failed to present himself as someone with the common touch
And to the extent that people do n't know him or do n't get him , he becomes easier to demonize
Obama is the victim of the elevated expectations he so skillfully created in 2008
He came as a redeemer and then - tied up in W. 's Gordian knots , dragged down by an economy leeched by wars and Wall Street charlatans - did n't redeem
And nothing bums out a nation that blows with the wind like a self-appointed messiah who disappoints
If we 're not the ones we 've been waiting for , who are we
I ended up sitting a stiletto 's throw away from Anna Wintour at the Monkey Bar , after the Museum of Modern Art screening of the new documentary about her
Nuclear Wintour looked summery in a floaty print Prada dress so au courant it has n't yet hit the stores
Just like Meryl Streep 's Miranda Priestly in `` The Devil Wears Prada , '' Wintour can be seen in the new film clutching a Starbucks cup in her office and the back of her chauffeur-driven car
It seems to be her only sustenance , so I was curious to get the skinny on what the Skinny One eats
`` I 'll have what she 's having , '' I told a startled waiter , who assumed I was kidding and pointed me to the part of the menu he thought suited me better : Chasen 's chili and Mrs. Carter 's butter tart
`` Anna eats steak and burgers , protein , and drinks a little wine , '' said the Vogue editor Andr Leon Talley , mesmerizingly mountainous in a navy Armani with a white saber-toothed tiger tooth necklace and Manolo framboise velvet Woodstock sandals
The documentary by R. J. Cutler chronicles Anna and her courtiers compiling the September 2007 issue of Vogue
Setting a record at 840 pages , 727 of them ads , and weighing as much as a preemie 4 pounds , 9 ounces that issue is now detritus of the Golden Age of excessive spending
So the question invariably arises : Behind those bangs and dark glasses , is Anna human
Or did she tie Herm s scarves together and make a daring escape from District 9 in a getaway car driven by Oscar de la Renta
On CBS 's `` Early Show '' on Thursday , Talley said it was a misconception that `` she 's an ice floe or an iceberg and that she has no human flesh or bones .
Tom Florio , the publisher of Vogue , concedes in the documentary that `` she 's not warm and friendly .
At the screening Wednesday , towering with gorgeous girls in bondage gladiator heels and threaded with famous designers , one designer not favored by Anna muttered that she was a sartorial Star Chamber who smothered creativity
David Letterman will probe Monday night to find out if Wintour is as frigid as we think
But there 's no need for her to drop the Cruella de Vil guise
Moviegoers want to see a brittle Anna belittle , Simon Cowell-style
We enjoy the editrix as dominatrix
She 's a sacred monster , an embodiment of the highest standard of style , and we do n't expect our monsters to be nice
`` She 's the Sun King and you do n't want the Sun King to act like the mayor , '' says Gioia Diliberto , a fashion writer for The Huffington Post
Just like Miranda Priestly , who dismissed her assistant with a cold `` That 's all , '' Anna frostily murmurs `` That 's it
There 's nothing else ?
as she surveys photos and clothes and prods a staffer : `` It 's Vogue , O.K.
Please , let 's lift it .
She dresses down one editor for `` sameness , '' deems a Sienna Miller cover photo too toothy , and tells designers they should `` edit '' and be more exciting
Looking at a picture of a slender Jennifer Garner , Anna says ominously , `` She looks pregnant .
Her lovely daughter makes light of the gravity at Vogue , saying , `` Some of the people act like fashion is life .
Indeed , the Vogue priestesses choosing glamour spreads in `` The September Issue '' seem just as intense as the soldiers in Iraq defusing bombs in `` The Hurt Locker .
There is friction in the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards relationship between the 59-year-old Anna and her closest collaborator , the 68-year-old flame-haired creative director and former model Grace Coddington , who is the only one willing to tweak `` the Pope , '' as Anna is dubbed by a staffer
Coddington tells French Vogue , `` We have a real mutual respect for each other , even though sometimes I feel like killing her .
The Vogue team and moviemakers did n't know they were dancing on the deck of the Titanic
This September , ad pages in Vogue plummeted 36 percent and a Wall Street Journal story trumpeted `` Thick Fashion Magazines Are So Last Year .
The real question about Anna is not whether she 's warm she has her furs for that but whether she can stay relevant in a more down-market age and stay happy if she ca n't continue to throw away $ 50,000 photo shoots that are not up to her exacting standards
In the new issue , there 's a small bow to democratization
A piece called `` What Price Fashion ?
allows that `` overpriced fashion no longer makes sense '' and features an Oscar de la Renta dress for under $ 2,000 and a Proenza Schouler executive touting the `` very best skinny stretch-twill pant you 've ever seen '' for $ 550
Anna herself continues to resist egalitarian impulses
As Keith Kelly wrote in The New York Post , Cond Nast may be slashing costs , but Anna is not scaling back at the upcoming fall fashion shows in Europe
She 's keeping her suite at the Paris Ritz , her chauffeured Mercedes sedans and her entourage of 10 that costs a quarter of a mill
That 's all
My mom did not approve of men who cheated on their wives
She called them `` long-tailed rats .
During the 2000 race , she listened to news reports about John McCain confessing to dalliances that caused his first marriage to fall apart after he came back from his stint as a P.O.W. in Vietnam
I figured , given her stringent moral standards , that her great affection for McCain would be dimmed
`` So , '' I asked her , `` what do you think of that ?
`` A man who lives in a box for five years can do whatever he wants , '' she replied matter-of-factly
I was startled , but it brought home to me what a powerful get-out-of-jail-free card McCain had earned by not getting out of jail free
His brutal hiatus in the Hanoi Hilton is one of the most stirring narratives ever told on the presidential trail a trail full of heroic war stories
It created an enormous credit line of good will with the American people
It also allowed McCain , the errant son of the admiral who was the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific during Vietnam his jailers dubbed McCain the `` Crown Prince '' to give himself some credit
`` He has been preoccupied with escaping the shadow of his father and establishing his own image and identity in the eyes of others , '' read a psychiatric evaluation in his medical files
`` He feels his experiences and performance as a P.O.W. have finally permitted this to happen .
The ordeal also gave a more sympathetic cast to his carousing
As Robert Timberg wrote in `` John McCain : An American Odyssey , '' `` What is true is that a number of P.O.W. 's , in those first few years after their release , often acted erratically , their lives pockmarked by drastic mood swings and uncharacteristic behavior before achieving a more mellow equilibrium .
Timberg said Hemingway 's line that people were stronger in the broken places was not always right
So it 's hard to believe that John McCain is now in danger of exceeding his credit limit on the equivalent of an American Express black card
His campaign is cheapening his greatest strength and making a mockery of his already dubious claim that he 's reticent to talk about his P.O.W. experience by flashing the P.O.W. card to rebut any criticism , no matter how unrelated
The captivity is already amply displayed in posters and TV advertisements
The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell , the pastor who married Jenna Bush and who is part of a new Christian-based political action committee supporting Obama , recently criticized the joke McCain made at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally encouraging Cindy to enter the topless Miss Buffalo Chip contest
The McCain spokesman Brian Rogers brought out the bottomless excuse , responding with asperity that McCain 's character had been `` tested and forged in ways few can fathom .
When the Obama crowd was miffed to learn that McCain was in a motorcade rather than in a `` cone of silence '' while Obama was being questioned by Rick Warren , Nicolle Wallace of the McCain camp retorted , `` The insinuation from the Obama campaign that John McCain , a former prisoner of war , cheated is outrageous .
When Obama chaffed McCain for forgetting how many houses he owns , Rogers huffed , `` This is a guy who lived in one house for five and a half years in prison .
As Sam Stein notes in The Huffington Post : `` The senator has even brought his military record into discussion of his music tastes
Explaining that his favorite song was ` Dancing Queen ' by Abba , he offered that his knowledge of music ` stopped evolving when his plane intercepted a surface-to-air missile .
` Dancing Queen , ' however , was produced in 1975 , eight years after McCain 's plane was shot down .
The Kerry Swift-boat attacks in 2004 struck down the off-limits signs that were traditionally on a candidate 's military service
Many Democrats are willing to repay the favor , and Republicans clearly no longer see war medals as sacrosanct
In a radio interview last week , Representative Terry Everett , an Alabama Republican , let loose with a barrage at the Democrat John Murtha , a decorated Vietnam War veteran who is the head of the House defense appropriations subcommittee , calling him `` cut-and-run John Murtha '' and an `` idiot .
`` And do n't talk to me about him being an ex-marine , '' Everett said
`` Lord , that was 40 years ago
A lot of stuff can happen in 40 years .
The real danger to the McCain crew in overusing the P.O.W. line so much that it 's a punch line is that it will give Obama an opening for critical questions : While McCain 's experience was heroic , did it create a worldview incapable of anticipating the limits to U.S. military power in Iraq
Did he fail to absorb the lessons of Vietnam , so that he is doomed to always want to refight it
Did his captivity inform a search-and-destroy , shoot-first-ask-questions-later , `` We are all Georgians , '' mentality
If I read all the vile stuff about me on the Internet , I 'd never come to work
I 'd scamper off and live my dream of being a cocktail waitress in a militia bar in Wyoming
If you 're written about in a nasty way , it looms much larger for you than for anyone else
Gossip goes in one ear and out the other unless you 're the subject
Then , nobody 's skin is thick enough
`` The velocity and volume on the Web are so great that nothing is forgotten and nothing is remembered , '' says Leon Wieseltier , the literary editor of The New Republic
`` The Internet is like closing time at a blue-collar bar in Boston
Everyone 's drunk and ugly and they 're going to pass out in a few minutes .
Those are my people , I protested , but I knew what he meant
That 's why I was interested in the Case of the Blond Model and the Malicious Blogger
Sooner or later , this sort of suit will end up before the Supreme Court
It began eight months ago when Liskula Cohen , a 37-year-old model and Australian Vogue cover girl , was surprised to find herself winning a `` Skankiest in NYC '' award from an anonymous blogger
The online tormentor put up noxious commentary on Google 's blogger.com , calling Cohen a `` skank , '' a `` ho '' and an `` old hag '' who `` may have been hot 10 years ago .
Cohen says she 's `` a lover , not a fighter .
But the model had stood up for herself before
In 2007 , at a New York club , she tried to stop a man named Samir Dervisevic who wanted to drink from the vodka bottle on her table
He hit her in the face with the bottle and gouged a hole `` the size of a quarter , '' as she put it , requiring plastic surgery
This time , she punched the virtual bully in the face , filing a defamation suit to force Google to give up the blogger 's e-mail
And she won
`` The words ` skank , ' ` skanky ' and ` ho ' carry a negative implication of sexual promiscuity , '' wrote Justice Joan Madden of State Supreme Court in Manhattan , rejecting the Anonymous Blogger 's assertion that blogs are a modern soapbox designed for opinions , rants and invective
The judge cited a Virginia court decision that the Internet 's `` virtually unlimited , inexpensive and almost immediate means of communication '' with the masses means `` the dangers of its misuse can not be ignored
The protection of the right to communicate anonymously must be balanced against the need to assure that those persons who choose to abuse the opportunities presented by this medium can be made to answer for such transgressions .
Cyberbullies , she wrote , can not hide `` behind an illusory shield of purported First Amendment rights .
Once she had the e-mail address , Cohen discovered whence the smears : a cafe society acquaintance named Rosemary Port , a pretty 29-year-old Fashion Institute of Technology student
Cohen called and forgave Port , but did not get an apology
She had her lawyer , Steve Wagner , drop her defamation suit
But now Port says she 'll file a $ 15 million suit against Google for giving her up
Port contends that if Cohen had n't sued , hardly anyone would have seen the blog
-LRB- If a skank falls in the forest and no one hears it ... ?
But Cohen says the Internet is different than water-cooler gossip
`` It 's there for the whole world to see , '' she told me
`` What happened to integrity
Why go out of your way solely to upset somebody else
Why ca n't we all just be nice ?
She said she may become an activist , and has been e-mailing with Tina Meier , mother of Megan Meier , the 13-year-old who killed herself after getting cyberbullied by the mother of a classmate who pretended to be a teen suitor named `` Josh .
`` If that woman had started a MySpace page as herself , that little girl would still be in her mother 's arms , '' Cohen said
The Internet was supposed to be the prolix paradise where there would be no more gatekeepers and everyone would finally have their say
We would express ourselves freely at any level , high or low , with no inhibitions
Yet in this infinite realm of truth-telling , many want to hide
Who are these people prepared to tell you what they think , but not who they are
What is the mentality that lets them get in our face while wearing a mask
Shredding somebody 's character before the entire world and not being held accountable seems like the perfect sting
Pseudonyms have a noble history
Revolutionaries in France , founding fathers and Soviet dissidents used them
The great poet Fernando Pessoa used heteronyms to write in different styles and even to review the work composed under his other names
As Hugo Black wrote in 1960 , `` It is plain that anonymity has sometimes been assumed for the most constructive purposes .
But on the Internet , it 's often less about being constructive and more about being cowardly
I 've been to a lot of conventions , and there 's always something gratifyingly weird that happens
Dan Quayle acting like a Dancing Hamster
Teresa Heinz Kerry reprising Blanche DuBois
Dick Morris getting nabbed triangulating between a hooker and toes
But this Democratic convention has a vibe so weird and jittery , so at odds with the early thrilling , fairy dust feel of the Obama revolution , that I had to consult Mike Murphy , the peppery Republican strategist and former McCain guru
`` What is that feeling in the air ?
I asked him
`` Submerged hate , '' he promptly replied
There were a lot of bitter Clinton associates , fund-raisers and supporters wandering the halls , spewing vindictiveness , complaining of slights , scheming about Hillary 's roll call and plotting trouble , with some in the Clinton coterie dissing Obama by planning early departures , before the nominee even speaks
At a press conference with New York reporters on Monday , Hillary looked as if she were straining at the bit to announce her 2012 exploratory committee
`` Remember , 18 million people voted for me , 18 million people , give or take , voted for Barack , '' she said , while making a faux pro-Obama point
She keeps acting as if her delegates are out of her control , when she 's been privately egging on people to keep her dream alive as long as possible , no matter what the cost to Obama
Hillary also said she was happy about the choice of Joe Biden because he added `` intensity '' to the ticket
She added insult to injury by coming out Tuesday night looking great in a blazing orange pantsuit and teaching the precocious pup Obama something about intensity and message
She thanked her `` sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits , '' and slyly noted that Obama would enact her health care plan rather than his
She offered the electrifying fight that the limpid Obama has not setting off paranoia among some Democrats that they had chosen the wrong nominee or that Obama had chosen the wrong running mate
`` It makes perfect sense that George Bush and John McCain will be together in the Twin Cities because these days they are awfully hard to tell apart , '' she said
Afterward , some of her supporters began crying , as they were interviewed by reporters , saying that her speech had proved that she would make a better president than Obama
And , as one said , she would only give him `` two months '' to prove himself
Ed Rendell , the governor of Pennsylvania , compared Obama to the passive-aggressive Adlai Stevenson and told The Washington Post that Obama gives six-minute answers and `` is not exactly the easiest guy in the world to identify with .
At a meeting of the Democratic women 's caucus Tuesday , 74-year-old Carol Anderson of Vancouver , Wash. , a former Hillary volunteer , stood in the back of the room in a Hillary T-shirt and hat signed by Hillary and `` Nobama '' button and booed every time any of the women speakers mentioned Obama 's name
She 's voting for McCain and had nothing nice to say about the Obamas
What about the kids , I asked
`` Adorable , '' she agreed
Well , I said , Michelle raised them
`` I think her mother does , '' Anderson shot back , adding : `` I wonder if Michelle would give the Queen one of her little knuckle punches ?
Bill 's pals said he was still gnawing at his many grievances against the younger version of himself he has to praise Wednesday night ; the latest one being that the Obama folks , like all winners , wanted control over Bill 's speech , so that he did not give a paean to himself and his economic record , which is what he wanted to do , because he was incensed that Obama said a couple critical things about his administration during a heated campaign
Finally , Obama had to give in on Monday and say he would allow the ex-president to do exactly as he likes , which is what he usually does anyhow
Obama 's pacification of Bill made his supporters depressed and anxious that he was going to be a weaker candidate than they had hoped and fearful that , as in Obama 's favorite movie , `` The Godfather , '' every time Democrats try to get away , the Clintons pull them back in
And Democrats have begun internalizing the criticisms of Hillary and John McCain about Obama 's rock-star prowess , worrying that the Invesco Field extravaganza Thursday , with Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi , will just add to the celebrity cachet that Democrats have somehow been shamed into seeing as a negative
So that added to the weird mood at the convention , with some Democrats nitpicking Obama 's appearance , after Michelle 's knock-out speech and the fabulously cute girls , with a reassuring white family in a town he could n't remember at one point
They wondered why he was n't wearing a tie , fearing he looked too young , and second-guessed Michelle 's green dress , wondering if it clashed with the blue stage , and fretted that there was n't a speaker Monday night attacking McCain and yelling about gas prices
`` I 'm telling you , man , '' said one top Democrat , `` it 's something about our party , the shtetl mentality .
Nora Ephron has been in the city that gave her heartburn twice recently : for a screening of her new movie , `` Julie & Julia , '' at the White House , and for an unveiling of Julia Child 's copper pots and cast-iron pans at the Smithsonian
Over a dinner of steak and banana split Tuesday , I gave Ephron a crazy salad of food questions
She e-scribbled back the answers
Q : Do you consider any food a romantic deal-breaker
A : I respect vegetarians , but I could never fall in love with one
Q : Is there any dish you really hate , the way I hate brussels sprouts
A : Filet mignon
Absolutely hate it
Q : Do couples that cook together stay together
A : No.
I have cooked with men I am no longer married to
Q : You told me that when you and Tom Wolfe were young magazine writers in New York , you had a difference of opinion about eating on the street
A : I remember that about 40 years ago he wrote something vicious about seeing a New York woman on the street with cruller crumbs on her face , and the moment I read it , I knew that that woman was me -LRB- although I have never eaten a cruller to the best of my knowledge -RRB- and that I could never eat on the street again
And I have n't , except for an occasional ice cream cone
By the way and speaking of eating on the street there are far too many people walking around carrying cups of coffee
Q : Is eating while driving more dangerous than tweeting or texting
A : It 's way more dangerous if a knife and fork are involved
Q : Is it bad to eat while you 're on the phone
A : I 'm afraid it is
But sometimes you just ca n't help yourself , especially when it comes to nuts
Q : Is noshing in bed always wrong
A : Not if it 's ice cream
Q : Is there anyplace you should never eat elevator , bathroom , hair salon
A : All of the above
Q : You told Ariel Levy of The New Yorker that your husband , the writer Nick Pileggi , has `` some insane position about not eating standing up .
What 's that about
A : He has nice ties
Q : Aside from your own films , what 's your favorite eating scene in movies
A : The dinner in `` Big Night '' where the timballo was served
Q : You brought some red thing in a bottle to a restaurant where we ate once
When should you bring your own refreshments to restaurants
A : I do n't drink that red thing anymore and I 've managed to forget its name
Now I take Coke Zero to restaurants
Q : What 's your favorite cooking tool
A : I love the microwave oven
It 's great , for example , for melting chocolate , and because you do it in a Pyrex dish , there 's no horrible pot to clean
Q : Carol Smith of Elle says she does n't hire anyone without taking them out to a meal first because it 's `` like a little microcosm of life
How they order , what they order
How are they going to give instructions to a waiter
Are they sending back the meal eight times ?
A : When I was trying desperately to get a studio to let me direct my first movie , I went to lunch at the Russian Tea Room with Joe Roth , who was running 20th Century Fox at the time
I told him exactly what to order -LRB- the cabbage borscht , which was delicious -RRB- , and he always says that 's why he let me make the movie
Q : How about the case of the South Carolina mother who got arrested for criminal neglect because her 14-year-old son weighed 555 pounds
A : There is far too much arresting of people going on
Not just Skip Gates a couple of weeks ago , some poor woman in Montauk was arrested in her bathing suit , marched off the beach and charged with a felony for forging a beach parking sticker
Q : What do you think of the current generation of celebrity chefs
A : I love cooking shows like Ina Garten 's and Nigella Lawson 's , but the restaurant chefs on television are so unconnected to home cooking that even people like me , who are competent cooks , feel daunted by them
What Julia Child did was to make people think that if she could cook , they could , too
These chefs do the exact opposite
And all this stacking up of food what is this about
I do n't want my string beans leaking into my chicken , much less sitting underneath it
Q : Who is the next Julia Child
A : There will never be anyone like Julia Child
Q : The New Yorker described you as someone who eats `` slowly '' in `` small , tidy bites .
What should we infer from that
A : That I want my meals to last forever
Q : What would your last meal be , if you got executed for killing a moody actor
A : A hot dog from Nate 'n Al 's delicatessen in Beverly Hills
The guilty pleasure I miss most when I 'm out slogging on the campaign trail is the chance to sprawl on the chaise and watch a vacuously spunky and generically sassy chick flick
So imagine my delight , my absolute astonishment , when the hokey chick flick came out on the trail , a Cinderella story so preposterous it 's hard to believe it 's not premiering on Lifetime
Instead of going home and watching `` Miss Congeniality '' with Sandra Bullock , I get to stay here and watch `` Miss Congeniality '' with Sarah Palin
Sheer heaven
It 's easy to see where this movie is going
It begins , of course , with a cute , cool unknown from Alaska who has never even been on `` Meet the Press '' triumphing over a cute , cool unknowable from Hawaii who has been on `` Meet the Press '' a lot
Americans , suspicious that the Obamas have benefited from affirmative action without being properly grateful , and skeptical that Michelle really likes `` The Brady Bunch '' and `` The Dick Van Dyke Show , '' reject the 47-year-old black contender as too uppity and untested
Instead , they embrace 72-year-old John McCain and 44-year-old Sarah Palin , whose average age is 58 , a mere two years older than the average age of the Obama-Biden ticket
Enthusiastic Republicans do n't see the choice of Palin as affirmative action , despite her thin r sum and gaping absence of foreign policy knowledge , because they expect Republicans to put an underqualified `` babe , '' as Rush Limbaugh calls her , on the ticket
They have a tradition of nominating fun , bantamweight cheerleaders from the West , like the previous Miss Congeniality types Dan Quayle and W. , and then letting them learn on the job
So they crash into the globe a few times while they 're learning to drive , what 's the big deal
Obama may have been president of The Harvard Law Review , but Palin graduated from the University of Idaho with a minor in poli-sci and worked briefly as a TV sports reporter
And she was tougher on the basketball court than the ethereal Obama , earning the nickname `` Sarah Barracuda .
The legacy of Geraldine Ferraro was supposed to be that no one would ever go on a blind date with history again
But that crazy maverick and gambler McCain does it , and conservatives and evangelicals rally around him in admiration of his refreshingly cynical choice of Sarah , an evangelical Protestant and anti-abortion crusader who became a hero when she decided to have her baby , who has Down syndrome , and when she urged schools to debate creationism as well as that stuffy old evolution thing
Palinistas , as they are called , love Sarah 's spunky , relentlessly quirky `` Northern Exposure '' story from being a Miss Alaska runner-up , and winning Miss Congeniality , to being mayor and hockey mom in Wasilla , a rural Alaskan town of 6,715 , to being governor for two years to being the first woman ever to run on a national Republican ticket
#NAME?
It 's a little insulting .
Sarah is a zealot , but she 's a fun zealot
She has a beehive and sexy shoes , and the day she 's named she goes shopping with McCain in Ohio for a cheerleader outfit for her daughter
As she once told Vogue , she 's learned the hard way to deal with press comments about her looks
`` I wish they 'd stick with the issues instead of discussing my black go-go boots , '' she said
`` A reporter once asked me about it during the campaign , and I assured him I was trying to be as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses .
This chick flick , naturally , features a wild stroke of fate , when the two-year governor of an oversized igloo becomes commander in chief after the president-elect chokes on a pretzel on day one
The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair , taking off her glasses , slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure , and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait
Putting away her breast pump , she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it 's close to Alaska
`` Back off , Commie dude , '' she says
`` I 'm a much better shot than Cheney .
Then she takes off in her seaplane and lands on the White House lawn , near the new ice fishing hole and hockey rink
The `` First Dude , '' as she calls the hunky Eskimo in the East Wing , waits on his snowmobile with the kids Track -LRB- named after high school track meets -RRB- , Bristol -LRB- after Bristol Bay where they did commercial fishing -RRB- , Willow -LRB- after a community in Alaska -RRB- , Piper -LRB- just a cool name -RRB- and Trig -LRB- Norse for `` strength . ''
`` The P.T.A. is great preparation for dealing with the K.G.B. , '' President Palin murmurs to Todd , as they kiss in the final scene while she changes Trig 's diaper
`` Now that Georgia 's safe , how ` bout I cook you up some caribou hot dogs and moose stew for dinner , babe ?
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Barack Obama must continue to grovel to Hillary Clinton 's dead-enders , some of whom mutter darkly that they will not only not vote for him , they will never vote for a man again
Obama met for an hour Tuesday with three dozen top Hillaryites at a hotel here , seeking their endorsement and beguiling their begrudging
He opened the session by saying that he knew there had been frustration about what they saw as sexism during the primary
The Los Angeles Times reported that Hillary die-hards want to enshrine a whine in the Democratic platform about how the primaries `` exposed pervasive gender bias in the media '' and call on party leaders to take `` immediate and public steps '' to denounce any perceived bias in the future
That is one nutty idea
Perhaps it is because feminists are still so busy cataloging past slights to Hillary that they have failed to mount a vivid defense of Michelle Obama , who has taken over from Hillary as the one conservatives like to paint as a harridan
Before the Obama campaign even had a chance to denounce Ludacris , one of the rappers on the senator 's iPod , Hillary Inc. started to mobilize
Susie Tompkins Buell , a former Clinton bundler , told The New York Observer that Obama had to distance himself , given Ludacris 's new song rooting for Obama to `` paint the White House black '' and calling Hillary the b-word
Despite Obama 's wooing , some women are n't warming
As Carol Marin wrote in The Chicago Sun-Times , The Lanky One is like an Alice Waters organic chicken `` sleek , elegant , beautifully prepared
Too cool '' when what many working-class women are craving is mac and cheese
In The Wall Street Journal , Amy Chozick wrote that Hillary supporters who loved their heroine 's admission that she was on Weight Watchers were put off by Obama 's svelte , zero-body-fat figure
`` He needs to put some meat on his bones , '' said Diana Koenig , a 42-year-old Texas housewife
Another Clinton voter sniffed on a Yahoo message board : `` I wo n't vote for any beanpole guy .
The odd thing is that Obama bears a distinct resemblance to the most cherished hero in chick-lit history
The senator is a modern incarnation of the clever , haughty , reserved and fastidious Mr. Darcy
Like the leading man of Jane Austen and Bridget Jones , Obama can , as Austen wrote , draw `` the attention of the room by his fine , tall person , handsome features , noble mien
... he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening , till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity ; for he was discovered to be proud , to be above his company , and above being pleased .
The master of Pemberley `` had yet to learn to be laught at , '' and this sometimes caused `` a deeper shade of hauteur '' to `` overspread his features .
The New Hampshire debate incident in which Obama condescendingly said , `` You 're likable enough , Hillary , '' was reminiscent of that early scene in `` Pride and Prejudice '' when Darcy coldly refuses to dance with Elizabeth Bennet , noting , `` She is tolerable ; but not handsome enough to tempt me .
Indeed , when Obama left a prayer to the Lord at the Western Wall in Jerusalem , a note that was snatched out and published , part of his plea was to `` help me guard against pride .
If Obama is Mr. Darcy , with `` his pride , his abominable pride , '' then America is Elizabeth Bennet , spirited , playful , democratic , financially strained , and caught up in certain prejudices
-LRB- McCain must be cast as Wickham , the rival for Elizabeth 's affections , the engaging military scamp who casts false aspersions on Darcy 's character .
In this political version of `` Pride and Prejudice , '' the prejudice is racial , with only 31 percent of white voters telling The New York Times in a survey that they had a favorable opinion of Obama , compared with 83 percent of blacks
And the prejudice is visceral : many Americans , especially blue collar , still feel uneasy about the Senate 's exotic shooting star , and he is surrounded by a miasma of ill-founded and mistaken premises
So the novelistic tension of the 2008 race is this : Can Obama overcome his pride and Hyde Park hauteur and win America over
Can America overcome its prejudice to elect the first black president
And can it move past its biases to figure out if Obama 's supposed conceit is really just the protective shield and defense mechanism of someone who grew up half white and half black , a perpetual outsider whose father deserted him and whose mother , while loving , sometimes did so as well
Can Miss Bennet teach Mr. Darcy to let down his guard , be more sportive , and laugh at himself
Frank Rich is off today
I got an e-mail from Sam Wasson , the 28-year-old author of `` Fifth Avenue , 5 A.M. , '' the best seller about the making of `` Breakfast at Tiffany 's , '' thanking me for mentioning the book
I 've never met Wasson , a film student turned film writer hailed by The New Yorker as `` a fabulous social historian .
But within seconds , after I told him that I loved the bit in his book about the on-screen\/off-screen chemistry of Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney in the incandescent `` Two for the Road , '' we were madly e-mailing back and forth on a subject of mutual obsession and depression : Why romantic comedies now reek
Here 's our exchange : Me : `` How did we get from ` Two for the Road ' to ` The Bounty Hunter ' and ` He 's Just Not That Into You ? '
Sam : `` This is the question I ask myself every morning and keep asking all day , and annoy all my friends and lovers with
Every time I see Jennifer Aniston 's or Jennifer Garner 's face I wince
Basically , every time I see someone named Jennifer
They say the problem is teenage boys and girls , that they drive the marketplace
But I say they only drive the marketplace because there 's nothing out there for grown-ups to see
Apropos , I ca n't remember the last time I saw two people really falling in love in a movie
Now all we get is the meet cute , a montage , a kiss , then acoustic song into fade out
Nothing experiential , only movies manufactured from movies
Apparently , there was once a time when Jill Clayburgh danced around in her underwear
She laughed , she cried , she hurt , but it seems like a legend that never happened
Now we have ` The Bounty Hunter ' and I do n't know what to do on Friday nights
Are you sorry you asked ?
Me : `` Why ca n't studios and stars find witty writers to go beyond bridesmaid dress movies ?
Sam : `` I am not joking when I say that because there is nothing to see -LRB- especially , and tragically , in romantic comedy -RRB- my girlfriend and I have had to stay home and in some cases fight
If there were better movies out there , I am sure so many relationship disasters may have been averted
Also , romantic comedies , the good ones , taught me how to love , or at least instructed me on how to try
If I were falling in love now for the first time and going to see this garbage thinking this was real , I would be in deep -LRB- expletive -RRB-
It was only after I saw ` Annie Hall ' as a wee Jew that I realized what it was to be a person in love
It has been a touchstone ever since
Back in the days of one-foot-on-the-floor , wit was the best -LRB- and only -RRB- way to talk about sex
Wit was - this is incredible - commercial
Even something as ridiculous as ` Pillow Talk ' winks at you
If people only realized that Paramount in the '30s and '40s was the golden age of American wit
Algonquin Round Table , eat your black hearts out
The question is , will there be a backlash
A renaissance
I do n't think people realize how dire the situation is
I mean culturally , emotionally , the whole idea of romance is gone , gone , gone
... And I do n't care how good the novelist , I 've never read anything that touches Kate Hepburn and Cary Grant in ` Bringing Up Baby .
Is it too early to drink ?
Me : `` Where are new Sturgeses and Lubitsches ?
Sam : `` When ` Up in the Air ' -LRB- which I actually liked -RRB- came out last year , people were calling Jason Reitman the new Preston Sturges
What they meant was Reitman respects language
He is interested in the vernacular , like Sturges was
The major difference is that Sturges invented a dialect all his own , one that really sang with American pluck
But that the comparison was ever made goes to show you how desperate -LRB- certain -RRB- people are for real romantic comedy
If the bar were any lower , they 'd be calling James Cameron the next Sturges
As for Lubitsch , there will never , ever , ever be another
A guy like that comes around once in a universe
Proof is that even Billy Wilder , whose motto was ` What would Lubitsch do
, ' tried but never came close .
Me : `` With so many women running studios , you 'd think they 'd focus on making better rom-coms .
Sam : `` Even the studios that are run by women are n't run by women
They 're run by corporations , which are run by franchises
Unfortunately for us , Jennifer Aniston is a franchise
So is Katherine Heigl and Gerard Whatever-His-Name-Is , and even when their movies bomb , their franchise potential is n't compromised because overseas markets , DVD sales and cable earn all the studio 's money back
I 'm told that ` Knight and Day , ' that awful Cruise\/Diaz movie , has already been good for Fox for exactly this reason
The worst part of it is , from Hollywood 's point of view , it ai n't broke
I never thought I 'd say this , but thank God for TV
O.K. , now I am drinking .
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction : Correction : August 4 , 2010 A previous version of this column misstated the title of a recent movie
It is `` The Bounty Hunter , '' not `` The Bounty .
Leon Wieseltier , the literary editor of The New Republic , was having dinner with Wilder years ago when the subject of Swifty Lazar , the very famous and very short agent , came up
Putting down his knife and fork , Wilder announced : `` That man should go hang himself from a bonsai tree .
The diminutive North Korean leader has been known to use lifts in his shoes
This time , he demanded some special stature in the form of a diplomatic cameo by our top diplomat 's husband
There were no bonsais in view , unfortunately
But the two leaders posed , stiff as tree trunks , in front of a mural of waves
Kim Jong-il 's bright smiles were not returned by Bill Clinton
It was strange to see the reclusive Kim so eager and the raffish Clinton so disciplined
Yet the grinning North Korean and stony-faced American were no doubt both savoring their moment of mutual relevance
The price set by Kim for releasing the two captured American journalists , Laura Ling and Euna Lee , was a few hours basking in the presence of the ex-president who most wanted to visit North Korea
Bill Clinton was willing to bow but not scrape
Hillary sparked an international spat when she said that , as a mother , she understood that the North Koreans were simply unpopular and unruly children misbehaving to get attention
Now , less than two weeks later , those bad-seed children had managed to command the full attention of her husband
Maybe it was some clever North Korean revenge plot , giving the limelight to Daddy to punish Mommy
Just as Hillary muscled her way back into the spotlight , moving past her broken elbow and grabbing the focus from her bevy of peacock envoys , she was blown off the radar screen again by an even more powerful envoy : the one she lives with
It was a moment unique in the annals of diplomacy
Bill was being hailed as a dazzling statesman who might have changed the stormy weather between the U.S. and North Korea , just as Hillary was beginning an 11-day trip to Africa designed to highlight the subjects she most cares about : do-gooder development and women 's issues
The one in charge of world affairs disappeared from the news all day on Tuesday
The one out of office dominated the news
His plane is rolling down the runway in Pyongyang with the two pardoned women on board
Bill had the additional schadenfreude spritz of knowing that he had usurped three men he 'd had fraught relationships with Bill Richardson , Jimmy Carter and Al Gore -LRB- whose media company the women were working for -RRB- by getting the high-profile assignment to rescue the damsels in distress
Richardson , labeled `` Judas '' by James Carville after he endorsed Barack Obama in the campaign , was reduced to the supporting role of CNN commentator , giving Bill props on protocol : `` The fact that he saw Kim Jong-il is huge
He only sees big shots and heads of state .
It 's fun to speculate whether Bill and Kim discussed the exchange of insults with Hillary
-LRB- North Korea issued a jibe back that Hillary was `` a funny lady '' and that `` sometimes she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping . ''
You can picture a charming Bill putting matters in perspective : `` Pay no mind to that , Kimmie
She 's an amazin ' woman , but she just goes off sometimes
You should hear what she calls me when she gets riled up
An unruly teenager and then some .
Conservatives were screeching , naturally , that the Clinton trip would provide propaganda cover to the North Koreans to continue their nuclear shell game
`` Despite decades of bipartisan U.S. rhetoric about not negotiating with terrorists for the release of hostages , '' John Bolton wrote for The Washington Post 's Web site , `` it seems that the Obama administration not only chose to negotiate , but to send a former president to do so .
But the former Bush bullies have no credibility on diplomacy
They spent eight years wrecking it , and the score for them on North Korea is 0-6 ; zero meetings with Kim and enough plutonium for six nuclear bombs
Bill Clinton will bring back valuable information about Kim 's mental and physical health
If we 'd had that sort of information about the snubbed Saddam , we would have known that he was in his own spiral of doom , trying to bluff his neighbors , with no need for our shock and awe
Hillary and President Obama look bigger when they share the stage with other talented players
And Barack and Bill may have finally started to put South Carolina behind them without the need for a beer summit photo-op
Not since Iago and Othello obsessed on the comely Cassio , not since Richard of Gloucester killed his two nephews , not since Nixon and Johnson glowered at the glittering J.F.K. , has there been such an unseemly outpouring of boy envy
Bill Clinton , Jesse Jackson and John Edwards have all been crazed with envy over the ascendance of the new `` It '' guy , Barack Obama
Unlike his wife , Bill Clinton the master of fake sincerity still continues to openly begrudge his party 's betrothed
Asked by Kate Snow of ABC News in Africa whether Obama was ready to be president , Clinton gave a classic Clintonian answer : `` You could argue that no one 's ever ready to be president .
As always , the Big Dog was more concerned with himself asserting that he 's not a racist than his party
Bill Clinton is not a racist
We can posit that
But he did play subtle racial politics in the primary
It 's way past time for him to accept the fact that there 's a new wunderkind in town
Just as Bill Clinton looks at Obama and sees his own oblivion , so does Jesse Jackson
As Shelby Steele wrote in The Wall Street Journal , Jackson and his generation of civil rights leaders `` made keeping whites ` on the hook ' the most sacred article of the post - '60s black identity , '' equality pursued by manipulating white guilt
Now John McCain is pea-green with envy
That 's the only explanation for why a man who prides himself on honor , a man who vowed not to take the low road in the campaign , having been mugged by W. and Rove in South Carolina in 2000 , is engaging in a festival of juvenilia
The Arizona senator who built his reputation on being a brave proponent of big solutions is running a schoolyard campaign about tire gauges and Paris Hilton , childishly accusing his opponent of being too serious , too popular and not patriotic enough
Even his own mother , the magical 96-year-old Roberta McCain , let slip that she thought the Paris Hilton-Britney Spears ad was `` kinda stupid .
McCain 's 2000 strategist , John Weaver , was equally blunt with Newsweek 's Jonathan Alter : `` It 's hard to imagine America responding to ` small ball ' when we have all these problems .
Some of McCain 's old pals in the Senate are cringing at what they see as his soulless transformation into what he once scorned
`` John 's eaten up with envy , '' said one
`` His image of himself was always the handsome , celebrity flyboy
`` Now somebody else is the celebrity , '' the colleague continued , while John looks in the mirror and sees his face marred by skin cancer and looks at the TV and sees his dashing self-image replaced by visions of William Frawley , with Letterman jokes about his membership in the ham radio club and adventures with wagon trains
For McCain , being cool meant being a rogue , not a policy wonk ; but Obama manages to be a cool College Bowl type , which must irk McCain , who liked to play up his bad-boy cool
Now the guy in the back of the class is shooting spitballs at the class pet and is coming off as more juvenile than daring
Around the McCain campaign , they grouse that Obama `` has n't bled .
He has n't bled literally , in military service , just like W. , the last holder of an E-ZPass who sped past McCain
And he has n't paid his dues in the Senate , since he basically just stopped by for directions to the Oval Office
As a new senator , Obama was not only precocious enough to pounce on turf that McCain had invested years in , such as campaign finance lobbying , ethics reform and earmarks
When Obama did reach across the aisle for a mentor , it was to the staid Richard Lugar of Indiana , not to the salty Republican of choice for Democrats , McCain
When the Illinois freshman took back a private promise to join McCain 's campaign finance reform effort , McCain told his aide Mark Salter to `` brush him back .
Salter sent an over-the-top vituperative letter to Obama
`` I guess I beaned him instead , '' Salter told Newsweek 's Howard Fineman
McCain could dismiss W. as a lightweight , but he knows Obama 's smart
Obama wrote his own books , while McCain 's were written by Salter
McCain knows he 's the affirmative action scion of admirals who might not have gotten through Annapolis without being a legacy
Obama did n't even tell Harvard Law School that he was black on his application
McCain upbraids Obama for being a poppet , while he 's becoming a puppet
His mouth is moving but the words coming out belong to his new hard-boiled strategist , Steve Schmidt , a Rove prot g , nicknamed `` The Bullet '' for his bald pate
Schmidt has turned Mr. Straight Talk into Mr. Desperate Straits
It 's not a good trade
During the campaign , she was caricatured on the cover of The New Yorker as a fist-bumping , gun-toting Black Panther
Now she 's mocked by a New York Daily News blogger as a jet-setting , free-spending Marie Antoinette
-LRB- On Spain 's Costa del Sol with Sasha on her husband 's 49th birthday , she did , in effect , say let him eat cake - alone .
Michelle Obama is the most popular figure in the administration , but last week she had her first brush with getting brushed back in the press
Some of the women anchoring news shows on MSNBC debated whether the first lady was being `` mean '' to her husband by deserting him on his birthday for a girls ' getaway to Spain , and whether it was sort of sad , as one put it , that the president , drowning in troubles , had to go to Chicago to find friends -LRB- including Oprah -RRB- to celebrate with
Andrea Tantaros , a Fox contributor and former Republican operative , wrote a harsh Daily News blog post calling the first lady a `` material girl '' for going on a glitzy vacation at a luxury resort in Marbella with a cavalcade of Secret Service agents , friends , children and staff , even as `` most of the country is pinching pennies and downsizing summer sojourns - or forgoing them altogether .
In politics and pop culture , optics are all
And Michelle 's optics sent a message that likely made some in the White House and the Democratic Party wince
She seemed to be gigging her husband a bit : I 'm going to do what I want to do
I ca n't worry about whether it gives the Tea Partiers ammo or makes Democrats -LRB- including you -RRB- campaigning against the excesses of the rich look hypocritical
Even if the country is sliding into a double-dip recession , I 'm going abroad to a five-star hotel on Air Force Two and give a boost to another country 's economy
To defray possible criticism of their upcoming 10-day trip to Martha 's Vineyard , Michelle belatedly agreed to a weekend family vacation on Florida 's gulf coast
On Friday , Spanish police closed a public beach for the American entourage
If Michelle had wanted a closed beach , she could have headed to our gulf sooner
There are plenty of multi-star hotels there , and she and the girls could have cleaned a few pelicans
Certainly , as Obama adviser David Axelrod says , `` not everything is political theater .
The Obamas should n't have to poll , as the Clintons did , to figure out where to go on vacation
`` Folks in the public eye are also human beings , '' Axelrod told me
`` If you have the ability to show your kid a part of the world and you can do that together before they get to the age where they do n't want to do anything with you , I do n't think it 's right that you have to defer it because of the politics .
But as Michelle and friends frolicked in the land of flamenco , the birthday boy got few gifts from the news
More Democratic candidates shied away from appearing with him
The latest disappointing jobs report prompted evening news reports about Americans ' fears of falling into what one called `` the abyss .
And a CNN poll showed that a quarter of Americans still doubt the president was even born here
The job of first lady , tightly constrained by convention , is hard for modern women
Michelle is a gutsy Harvard Law School grad who started as her husband 's mentor
Any coloring outside the lines can cause problems , as Nancy Reagan and Hillary Clinton learned when lampooned as Marie Antoinettes
Michelle has done such a good job that she silenced her vituperative conservative critics for a year and a half
But perhaps the strain of debunking that `` angry black woman '' stereotype by playing the smiling , conventional first lady , talking to Ladies ' Home Journal about vegetable cleanses and portion sizes , made her want to assert her independence in the one place she could : her schedule
The inimitable columnist Mary McGrory once said that if a first lady simply made her husband toast , that was enough , given how hard his job was
And because his predecessor mucked things up so royally , President Obama 's job is ridiculously hard
But at moments when you think Michelle might make her husband toast , or better yet a martini , she 's often off on a girls ' trip
When health care passed after a difficult year and the president celebrated with his staff on the Truman Balcony , the first lady was with her daughters on Broadway to see `` Memphis .
When the BP oil spill stained the White House , making the president seem so impotent that he had to make his first national address from the Oval Office , the first lady was playing with her mother and daughters in Los Angeles , staying at the Beverly Wilshire
She was taking in a Lakers game the night of his address
During the campaign , Michelle tried to offset her husband 's existential detachment with familial warmth
Now that he holds the world 's loneliest office , he needs that more than ever
During the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas hearings , I used to wake up in the middle of the night , trying to separate truth from lies
The same thing happened during the imbroglio between Sgt. James Crowley and Henry Louis Gates Jr.
In the days before the beer summit -LRB- `` Beer makes me bloat , '' Gates told me -RRB- I woke up in the middle of the night , puzzling over how the policeman and the professor could have such irreconcilable stories
The Cambridge officer wrote in his report that Gates had yelled at him , `` Ya , I 'll speak with your mama outside .
The Harvard professor denied it
Crowley seems like a good guy , not the type to falsify a police report
And Gates , a man well-satisfied with the salons of Harvard , PBS and Martha 's Vineyard , does not seem like the type to resort to trash-talking from the ` hood
So how to reconcile it
At 4 a.m. , it suddenly hit me
Gates had just gotten back from researching Yo-Yo Ma 's genealogy in China
Maybe he had said something like , `` I was outside the country exploring Yo-Yo Ma 's roots , '' or even `` Yo-Yo Ma 's mama 's roots , '' and the policeman misheard him
Later that morning , I ran it past Gates
`` That 's funny , '' he replied
`` But no , no.
I did n't mention China to Sgt. Crowley
However , Yo-Yo Ma is a friend , and we do call him ` Yo Mama ' around Cambridge .
We never do get to the bottom of some stories
Of course , more often , it works the other way around
We drive the people we write about crazy
I was reminded of this reading the new chronicle of the vertiginous 2008 campaign written by The Washington Post 's Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson
Once more , we are mesmerized , even horrified , as Bill Clinton does his dinner-theater version of `` King Lear , '' howling at the South Carolina sky as he realizes he no longer has enough juice with African-American voters to derail Barack Obama and make his wife president
Bill could not bear to see the press transfer the crown to Obama as the best politician of our age
He thought he 'd retain the title at least for his lifetime
It drove him temporarily mad
It was Bill who changed the strategy for the primary in South Carolina , where the Clintons had originally planned to campaign minimally and lose , but not so badly that it would scuttle Hillary 's campaign
`` Bill Clinton decided , by God , we were going to do better with African-Americans , '' a senior Clinton adviser told the authors
Ego can be dangerous
Bill `` believed that Obama had gotten a free ride from the media , and he wanted to force a conversation about that , '' Balz and Johnson wrote in their book , `` The Battle for America 2008 .
They added , `` His once certain political touch and instincts eluded him .
It 's also interesting to read the chapter on `` Palinmania '' and remember how serene Sarah Palin was before she became unhinged by fame and her fixation with her reviews , especially from conspiratorial and gossipy bloggers
The same McCain advisers who later turned against Palin were impressed with her at first , when she earned adjectives like unruffled , self-confident , tough-minded and self-assured
From Bill Ayers to Reverend Wright , `` Sarahcuda '' was ready to bite , telling rallies , `` The heels are on , the gloves are off .
But by the end , after Tina Fey , Katie Couric and the shopping spree , Palin had lost confidence
She became erratic
`` During a campaign trip in October to New Hampshire , she balked at sharing the stage with former congressman Jeb Bradley because they differed on abortion and drilling in the Arctic wilderness , '' the authors wrote
`` That same day , she was reluctant to join Bradley and Senator John Sununu for conversation aboard her campaign bus and had to be coaxed out of the back of the bus to talk to them , according to a McCain adviser .
Palin is still obsessed with the blogosphere , which recently lit up with a rumor started by a fellow mavericky Alaskan , who also no longer has his job that she and Todd were Splitsville
She sarcastically told Mike Allen of Politico that she loved finding out `` what 's goin ' on in my life from the news .
She deserted her post as governor to write her book about the `` pioneering spirit , '' as she told Allen
The contradiction seems lost on her
And , as Talking Points Memo reported on Friday , she put up a demented , fact-free Facebook rant trashing the president 's health care plan : `` The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama 's ` death panel ' so his bureaucrats can decide , based on a subjective judgment of their ` level of productivity in society ' whether they are worthy of health care
Such a system is downright evil .
Do we sometimes drive 'em downright crazy
You betcha
Doug Feith , the former Rummy gofer who drove the neocon plan to get us into Iraq , and then dawdled without a plan as Iraq crashed into chaos , was the headliner at a reunion meeting of the wooly-headed hawks Monday night at the American Enterprise Institute
The room was packed as the former No. 3 at the Pentagon , previewing his upcoming book , `` War and Decision , '' conceded that the case could be made that `` mistakes were made .
His former boss , Paul Wolfowitz , and the former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle sat supportively in the front row
But he was n't self-flagellating
He was simply trying to put an egghead gloss on his Humpty Dumpty mishegoss
`` At the end of the day , here we are , and as of now there 's a reasonable chance that the country is going to remain united , '' he said
Not quite the original boast of democracy cascading through the Middle East
Feith also inanely noted that his personal view was that his de-Baathification policy which created a huge , angry pool of unemployed men that fueled the insurgency `` was not basically a big error
It 's been criticized very severely
I think there actually was a lot of good thought that went into the de-Baathification policy .
It just spiralled out of hand , he said
Mistakes were made
He thinks everything would have been fine if America had not lingered so long in Iraq
If only Paul Bremer and the generals had just turned Iraq over to the slippery con man Feith wanted to put in charge , Ahmad Chalabi
Asked about getting tough with Iran and Syria , Feith offered this incandescent insight : `` As we all know , the president said he 's The Decider
That actually is quite a profound point
The president is The Decider and the main thing he decides about is risk .
He noted that in battles through American history , `` the military fights better over time .
This from a guy who sent our military into Iraq without the right armor , the right force numbers or the right counterinsurgency training
`` A strategic alliance of the ousted Baathists and foreign jihadists was something that our intelligence community did not anticipate , '' he said , continuing to spread the blame
But the intelligence community did n't miss it
The neocons tried to scrub out that sort of analysis , knowing it would make the war harder to sell
Classified reports prepared for President Bush in January 2003 by the National Intelligence Council warned that rogue elements of Saddam 's government could hook up with existing terrorist groups to wage guerrilla warfare
In `` Fiasco , '' Tom Ricks wrote that Feith 's Pentagon office was dubbed the `` black hole '' of policy by generals watching him drop the ball
`` People working for Feith complained that he would spend hours tweaking their memos , carefully mulling minor points of grammar , '' Ricks wrote
`` A Joint Staff officer recalled angrily that at one point troops sat on a runway for hours , waiting to leave the United States on a mission , while he quibbled about commas in the deployment order .
Jay Garner , America 's first viceroy in Iraq , deemed him `` incredibly dangerous '' and said his `` electrons are n't connected .
Feith 's disdain for diplomacy and his credo that weakness invites aggression were shaped , Ricks reported , by personal history : `` Like Wolfowitz , Feith came from a family devastated by the Holocaust
His father lost both parents , three brothers , and four sisters to the Nazis .
Feith told Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker that `` My family got wiped out by Hitler , and ... all this stuff about working things out well , talking to Hitler to resolve the problem did n't make any sense to me
The kind of people who put bumper stickers on their car that declare that ` War is not the answer , ' are they making a serious comment
What 's the answer to Pearl Harbor
What 's the answer to the Holocaust ?
What 's the answer to bin Laden
According to Feith , it was an attack on an unrelated dictator
He oversaw the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group , whose mission was to amp up links between Saddam and Al Qaeda
It defies reason , but there are still some who think the chuckleheads who orchestrated the Iraq misadventure have wisdom to impart
The Pentagon neocons dumped Condi Rice out of the loop
Yet , according to Newsweek 's Mike Isikoff , Condi has now offered Wolfie a job
It was n't enough that he trashed Iraq and the World Bank
-LRB- He 's still larking around town with Shaha , the sweetheart he gave the sweetheart deal to .
Condi wants Wolfie to advise her on nuclear proliferation and W.M.D. as part of a State Department panel that has access to highly classified intelligence
Once you 've helped distort W.M.D. intelligence to trick the country into war , should n't you be banned for life from ever having another top-level government post concerning W.M.D.
Or maybe a trillion dollars does n't buy the same felicitous level of obsequiousness it once did
Visiting Afghanistan and Iraq in an attempt to shore up our wobbly wards , Bob Gates could not seem to get the respect due the man running the world 's best military , a force that has been protecting and propping up our two occupied territories for most of this decade
At a joint press conference Tuesday at the presidential palace in Kabul , Hamid Karzai surprised the usually unflappable Gates when he knocked down President Obama 's attempt to get out of Dodge
Needling his American sugar daddy , the Afghan peacock observed : `` For another 15 to 20 years , Afghanistan will not be able to sustain a force of that nature and capability with its own resources .
Gates and Obama may have wanted to `` light a fire , '' as Gates put it , under the corrupt Afghan president and warn that the A.T.M. is closing , but Karzai called their bluff
He knows , as do the leaders in Iraq and Pakistan , that America is stuck bailing them out with billions every year , even when they dawdle , disappoint and deceive
Gates and his generals in Afghanistan talked a lot last week about `` partnering '' with and `` mentoring '' the Afghan Army and police
But given the Flintstones nature of the country , it 's more basic
Americans have to teach the vast majority of Afghan recruits to read and write before they can get to security training
It 's hard to arrest people if you ca n't read them their rights and take names
It seems late to realize this , but Gates told reporters he had only recently learned the `` eye-opener '' that the Taliban were able to attract so many fighters because they paid more
Generals in Afghanistan said the Taliban dole out $ 250 to $ 300 a month , while the Afghan Army paid about $ 120
So Gates has made sure that recruits get a raise to $ 240
The American solution is always to throw more money at a problem ; now we 're in a bidding war with the Taliban , which does n't bode well for the democracy manqu
Gates promised that America would not leave until the Afghan and Iraqi forces stand up even when he gets stood up , as he did by Nuri Kamal al-Maliki Thursday night
The Iraqi prime minister blew off a planned meeting with Gates because he was in a scorching closed-door six-hour meeting with Iraqi lawmakers , being taken to task for his failure to stop five bombings that ripped into government buildings Tuesday , killing 127 people and wounding hundreds more
The defense secretary 's aides tried to spin the snub , noting that their guy was merely an appointed official while Maliki was an elected leader
When the prime minister finally agreed to reschedule the meeting for 7:50 a.m. Friday , Gates 's aides gleefully noted that , given Maliki 's preference for sleeping late , it was a diplomatic triumph , even if the Iraqi had on pajamas under his suit
After four days of preaching a message of love Gates said it was `` a myth '' that America likes war and called it the first time in military history that an occupying force was in Afghanistan `` on behalf of the Afghans rather than to conquer '' he finally got some back
`` You look very young you look much older on TV , '' Maj. Gen. Turhan Abdul Rahman , the leather-clad Kirkuk provincial director of police , told the manicured Gates
If Rummy had been dissed by our inglorious glove puppets , he would have blown his top
But the disciplined , analytical , pragmatic , introverted Gates is no Rummy -LRB- nor does he call his predecessor -RRB-
His form of ego is not to show ego
When a much-anticipated trip to see an Army Stryker brigade in Kandahar was canceled because of fog , he dryly told us : `` As Clint Eastwood said , ' A man 's got to know his limitations . '
The Cold Warrior who helped persuade the Reluctant Warrior to do the Afghan surge has sometimes been on the wrong side of history with the Soviet Union , the Iran-contra scandal and the 1989 desertion of Afghanistan
But unlike Rummy , Cheney and Wolfie , he does n't seem driven to make up for past disappointments by manipulating present history
`` Where I do think I bring something unusual is , I think I have uncommon common sense , whether it 's growing up in Kansas or just my life experience , '' he told me , sitting in The Silver Bullet , a secure Airstream trailer on his C-17 that looks like a big toaster oven
Asked about the Democratic lawmakers who felt the president had been rolled by the generals , Gates snapped : `` That 's ridiculous .
So how does Gates make a decision that will determine his reputation and that of the young president he serves
`` Anybody who reads history has to approach these things with some humility because you ca n't know , '' he said
`` Nobody knows what the last chapter ever looks like .
Usurper in Chief
Lt. Col. Terry Lakin of the Army had a motley crew of frustrated Birthers at his court-martial here on Tuesday
The decorated Pentagon doctor from Colorado became the movement 's hero when he went on YouTube in March to brazenly urge President Obama to show `` honesty and integrity '' by releasing his `` original signed birth certificate , if you have one .
He vowed to disobey what he called `` illegal orders '' to deploy to Afghanistan because he did not regard Obama as a legitimate commander in chief
Originally , Colonel Lakin and his frenzied supporters had wanted to reveal the Ultimate Truth , what they consider the biggest hoax ever perpetrated - that a foreigner , a `` Usurper in Chief , '' had seized control of the Oval Office
But then the military judge , Col. Denise Lind , denied a request for President Obama to testify and for his birth certificate to be entered into evidence
So now the Birthers consider the court-martial part of the dastardly conspiracy
`` This whole trial looks like a sham , '' said Orly Taitz , a tall blonde California dentist , lawyer and leader in the Birther movement
`` I was raised in the Soviet Union
This was worse than what I 've seen in the Soviet Union .
If Lakin ever envisioned his court-martial as the slingshot that could bring down a presidency and prove that the Birthers are heroes rather than loonies , he had given up that dream by the time he entered a guilty plea and backed up a not guilty plea with a technicality
The balding , gray colonel may not have truly changed his beliefs
But he looked small and shaken as he admitted to disobeying orders from his boss , Gordon Roberts , a Medal of Honor recipient
He murmured `` Yes , ma'am '' over and over in a low voice as the precise Judge Lind pressed him on whether he understood that `` the dictates of conscience do not justify disobeying a lawful order .
Sobered by the prospect of a dishonorable dismissal , losing his pension and serving hard time , as well as facing a panel of military superiors in dress uniforms , Colonel Lakin said the winter had been `` a confusing time , a very emotional time for me .
His shoulders slumped , he offered excuses about how he had gotten conflicting advice from lawyers - his defense was underwritten by Birthers
`` I understand that it was my decision , and I made the wrong choice , '' he told the judge
His civilian lawyer , Neal Puckett , said Lakin is innocent of the charge of `` missing a movement .
Simply because he missed U.S. Airways Flight 1123 on April 12 , which was supposed to be the start of his journey to Fort Campbell , Ky. , to join his unit , the lawyer argued , does not mean he could n't have gotten another flight or driven
This was an attempt to get him off on a technicality because Lakin had stated back then that he had no intention of joining the unit at all
In the voir dire , Puckett asked some colonels who were prospective panelists if they considered the Birther movement to be racist
While disappointed there was n't a more full-throated trial of Obama 's provenance - unlike Lakin , the president is considered by Birthers to be guilty until he proves himself innocent - the Birthers , who had come from all over the country to the trial , stood by their man
Literally , in the case of Kate Vandemoer , a 55-year-old blogger and hydrologist from North Dakota , who rose with Lakin when he offered his plea
`` I feel very close to him , '' said Vandemoer
`` This is a very serious national security matter .
Some argued that whether Obama was born in Hawaii is not really the point ; the point is , he 's not `` a natural-born citizen .
`` You must be born in the U.S. with two parents who are U.S. citizens , '' they explained
Obama , they argued , has `` a dual allegiance '' that makes Americans `` sitting ducks .
`` His father was a British Subject , '' said a pamphlet passed out by Vandemoer
`` He believes he is a Citizen of the world .
Eldon Bell , a 76-year-old retired Air Force officer and doctor from Rapid City , S.D. , said he `` drove three days through a damn blizzard just to get here .
Comparing the president to Hitler , another `` usurper , '' he said `` if he is not legitimate , our soldiers serving under him can be tried and hanged like the Nazis at Nuremberg .
James Haven , a black preacher from New York , dismissed Obama as `` the long-legged Mack Daddy , the president of all pimps .
With the last three presidents , there has been an attempt to go beyond criticism to delegitimization , to paint them as not just wrong , but charlatans who have no right to the job
With Obama , the craziness is infused with biases about race and religion
But , in the end , the court-martial offers one big truth : President Obama does n't have to show Terry Lakin anything
The colonel should have followed orders
With the Iowa campaign in wild flux and in the case of Hillary , acid reflux The Des Moines Register decides to hold a tie-breaking debate with the two Democratic front-runners
Carolyn Washburn , the phlegmatic editor of the paper , once more moderates
WASHBURN : Senator Clinton , I 'd like you to start us off by explaining why your campaign has been getting down and dirty with someone so clean and articulate
CLINTON : I apologized to Senator Obama
I absolutely did not authorize or condone the remarks made by one of my co-chairs in New Hampshire about my distinguished colleague 's youthful indiscretions
If primary voters do n't care that he did `` a little blow , '' then my goodness , why should I
Even if he had packed a straw full of the white rabbit and had a snow bunny blow it in his ear , who would care , for Pete 's sake
I only wish I knew all that colorful chasing-the-dragon lingo
Senator Obama certainly has a lot of street cred , even if it is n't Main Street
We owe it to the good people of Iowa to stick to critical issues like the economy , and how to get a fiscally responsible budget like we had in the '90s , the '90s , the '90s WASHBURN : Snap out of it
CLINTON : Sorry
Anyway , even if Senator Obama were still riding the snow train , I would not allow any revelations about it to sully this campaign
I 'm not sure who that young man in a hoodie was that Barack was talking to outside tonight , before the debate
I 'd seen the young man earlier , standing around in the shadows outside
But that 's neither here nor there
Even if I had been able to see whether any money was exchanged , or who was selling to whom , I would not allow anyone in my campaign , even that scamp Mark Penn , to use the word cocaine , cocaine , cocaine WASHBURN : Senator
CLINTON : Continuing in this vein , I just want to conclude by saying , both in terms of experience and illegal substances , I am vetted
I am tested
WASHBURN : Senator Obama , what would your priorities be as president
OBAMA : I will pass a health care bill because I am not a polarizing person whose negatives are completely off the charts , and I 'm certainly not threatening to drag down the whole party at a time when we should be killing the Republicans
WASHBURN : Are you referring to Senator Clinton
OBAMA : Most certainly not
I want to bring a new kind of politics to Washington that can reverse the polarizing atmosphere of the '90s , the '90s , the '90s
CLINTON : Do n't bogart the time , Barack
I 'd like a hit
Carolyn , should n't there be some timing device to let my young friend know when he 's going over , something that would go `` BONG !
OBAMA : I know what you 're doing , Hillary
I was n't born yesterday
She wants Americans to think I 'm so young and green that I can only run for White House intern
It would be a stain on me to sink as low as her
CLINTON : I do n't appreciate that crack
If you 're going to needle me , Senator OBAMA : In turn , I would like to reply that what this country really needs is change CLINTON : Change is mine now , Senator Belushi
Bill and I stole it weeks ago
Some people believe you get change by hoping for it
Some believe you get change by snorting it
I believe you get it by working hard
WASHBURN : Can you both please describe the key features of what you consider to be the best education system in the world
CLINTON : Well , I know that some of my supporters have been spreading gossip that Senator Obama loves the madrassa system for pre-K through terrorist training camp
But there is not a gram of truth in those accusations
We should n't inject intolerance into this race
WASHBURN : I would like to talk about the Peru free trade deal that was signed on Friday
You both missed the vote
CLINTON : Oh , Barack should take that one
His views on Peruvian are positively flaky
OBAMA : You 're the flaky one , Hillary , backing up the president when he wanted to rush into Iraq and wage this trillion-dollar war
CLINTON : It 's no wonder you did n't want to go into Iraq , Barack
There are no free bases there
WASHBURN : All right , you two
We 're out of time
Have a Merry Christmas and CLINTON : And I am sure that Senator Obama is dreaming of his usual White Christmas
Hitch up the reindeer
WASHBURN : As I was saying , a Happy New Year
CLINTON : He gets no kick from Champagne
In a bit of unpoetic justice , Bob Gates helped create the mess in Afghanistan decades ago and now has to try to clean it up
At the C.I.A. in the '80s , Gates conspired with Charlie Wilson and the Saudis to help the insurgents in Afghanistan turn back the occupation of a superpower
Now he 's guiding the attempt of the occupying superpower to turn back the insurgents , some of whom are the same ones he armed to defeat the Soviet Union
Trying to do a good thing that also seemed like a strategically brilliant thing help the Afghan Davids repel the raw aggression of the Soviet Goliaths we created the monsters that have come back to haunt us , and we learned how little control we have over history
We trained a whole generation of jihadists and armed them
We paved the way for the Taliban takeover and the rise of Osama bin Laden
We created the Islamist power in the northwest frontier of Pakistan , swelled by millions of Afghan refugees
We enabled the conditions for bin Laden 's safe haven
We contributed to the instability of Pakistan
On a rainy day in Kabul last week , I watched Gates climb into the cockpit of a Soviet-era helicopter that Americans use to teach Afghans how to fly
The defense secretary was in one of the same style Mi-17s that he once provided Stinger missiles to shoot down
The absurdity was not lost on Gates , an avid history reader who feels our foreign policy has too often been `` an exercise in misread history .
Gates promised that America would not repeat its disappearing act of 1989
Flying from Kabul to Iraq , I asked him if , like Paul Wolfowitz with the Iraqi Shiites , he was driven to war because of guilt at abandoning people we had promised to stand by
`` I do n't feel guilt about it , but we made a strategic mistake , '' he said
`` And it was n't just the Afghans
At almost the same time , we basically cut off our relationship with the Pakistanis
And the mistrust that exists today is a reflection of that action on our part .
I asked what he learned in the exhaustive White House review
He said Gen. Stanley McChrystal , the top American commander in Afghanistan , convinced him that `` it was less the size of the force footprint than what the forces did on the ground .
The Soviets , he added , `` invaded a country .
Well , so did we
But the Soviets , he said , killed a million Afghans and tried to impose `` an alien culture .
But Gates knows messy conflicts get messier
When we were in Kabul , a senior NATO commander conceded that civilians may have been killed during a joint military operation with Afghan forces
There is a brief window of opportunity when a benign occupying power can accomplish some good before it is regarded with resentment and resistance
I showed Gates an article in the newspaper Stars and Stripes reporting that U.S. trainers considered Afghan soldiers and police a long way from ready , and that some Afghans in a new unit in Baghlan Province cower in ditches , steal U.S. fuel and weapons and are suspected of collaborating with the Taliban
Capt. Jason Douthwaite , a logistics officer in Baghlan , told the military paper that he felt more like an investigating officer than a mentor : `` It 's not , ` Let me teach you your job .
It 's more like , ` How much did you steal from the American government today ? '
Given the warping effect of ego in Washington , I asked the defense secretary how he ensures that he does n't turn into Robert McNamara
`` I 've never believed that I was the smartest guy in the room , '' he said
`` I want people around me to tell me if they think I 'm headed in the wrong direction
And I read a lot .
Gates laughs at being called an Eeyore , but he believes `` too often there is a desire for certitude where it 's not possible .
Harking back to Cold Warriors who thought there could be a limited nuclear war , he demurred , `` once things start , how you get control of it or keep control of it struck me as just inherently a problem .
W. said invading Iraq could help break the cycle of supporting corrupt dictators
But watching the Karzais acting like a mob family going to the mattresses , how do we know we 're not simply creating and propping up another corrupt dictator
`` You have to be realistic about the fact that developments of the kind we want to see take time , '' Gates replied
`` If we can re-empower the traditional local centers of authority , the tribal shuras and elders and things like that and put an overlay of human rights on that , is n't that a step in the right direction
`` I 'm leery of trying to change history in dramatic , short strokes
I think it 's very risky .
`` It 's evolutionary , '' he said
`` As we wear out our wives , who are running around taking care of the kids , we know we 're going to have to get another younger wife , so we stay good-looking .
He was kidding
-LRB- I think .
We were discussing Hillary 's latest hurdle : the Old Hag routine
When men want to put down a powerful woman in a sexist way , they will say she 's a hag or a nag or a witch or angry or hysterical
First , the Republicans tried to paint Hillary as angry , but that did n't work because she has shown a steady composure and laughed a lot -LRB- even if the laughter is n't always connected to people saying anything funny -RRB-
She has kept her sense of humor which has a tart side mostly under wraps , so she wo n't be accused of being witchy
But some conservative pundits who disagree with a woman on matters of policy jump straight into an attack on the woman 's looks or personal life
And so the inevitable came to pass this week when Rush Limbaugh began riffing about an unflattering picture of Hillary in New Hampshire that Matt Drudge put up on his Web site with the caption , `` The Toll of a Campaign .
`` So the question is this , '' the radio personality said
`` Will this country want to actually watch a woman get older before their eyes on a daily basis ?
Observing that Hillary is stuck with a looks-obsessed culture and that the presidency ages its occupants , including W. , Limbaugh observed that `` men aging makes them look more authoritative , accomplished , distinguished
Sadly , it 's not that way for women , and they will tell you .
And Hillary , he noted , `` is not going to want to look like she 's getting older , because it will impact poll numbers , it will impact perceptions .
So , he added , `` there will have to be steps taken to avoid the appearance of aging .
He said that voters lean toward attractive men , too , and that since TV , it 's less likely that a bloated `` fat-guy '' president would get elected recalling that some were gauging whether Al Gore would run by checking his weight
Limbaugh finished up with this : `` Let me give you a picture , just to think about
... The campaign is Mitt Romney vs. Hillary Clinton in our quest in this country for visual perfection , hmm ?
Paul Costello , who was an aide to Rosalynn Carter and Kitty Dukakis , calls this `` the snake belly of the campaign , '' and notes drily : `` We 've been staring at aging white men from the beginning of the democracy .
Yet it 's true that looks matter in politics , even though Abe Lincoln still ranks as our favorite president
J.F.K. 's tan and Nixon 's 5-o'clock shadow helped turn that 1960 debate in Kennedy 's favor , just as Gore 's waxy orange makeup and condescending mien hurt him in a debate with W. It is also true that perfecting the outer shell has become an obsession in this country
We 're a nation of Frankensteins and the monster is us
Jennifer Love Hewitt was on the cover of People last week and ended up defending her less svelte pictures with her new fianc in Hawaii , writing on her Web site : `` A size 2 is not fat !
Women are still scrutinized more critically on their looks , which seem to fluctuate more on camera , depending on lighting , bloating and wardrobe
Mitt Romney , Barack Obama and John Edwards almost always look good , and pretty much the same , in dark suits or casual wear
Fred Thompson always looks crepuscular and droopy
Often Hillary looks great , and sometimes she looks tired , heavier or puffier
Jim Cole , The Associated Press photographer who took the offending shot , said that there were several other pictures that day where she looked `` radiant .
An older Iowa man , who saw her this week in Le Mars , was impressed
`` Hillary is much more handsome or beautiful live , '' he told The Times 's Jeff Zeleny
`` She does n't photograph very well .
Since this is the first time we 've had a woman who was a serious contender for president , it 's been an adjustment to watch her more changeable looks , and to see the lengths she goes to get the right lighting and to make the right wardrobe choices
She has a much more consistent look than she did as first lady , when she made a dizzying and disconcerting array of changes in her hair and style
Hillary does n't have to worry about her face
She has to worry about her mask
Back in the '92 race , Clinton pollsters devised strategies to humanize her and make her seem more warm and maternal
Fifteen years later , her campaign is devising strategies to humanize her and make her seem more warm and maternal
The public still has no idea of what part of her is stage-managed and focus-grouped , and what part is legit
It 's pretty pathetic , at this stage of her career , that she has to wage a major offensive , by helicopter and Web testimonials , to make herself appear warm-blooded
A Gay Commander in Chief - Ready or Not
`` I would say that the answer is yes , '' he said
`` I do n't know about the next election , but I think in the near future .
The news that Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer will smooch in an upcoming movie about J. Edgar Hoover and his aide Clyde Tolson - buried near each other in the Congressional Cemetery on Capitol Hill - is a reminder of an `` Advise and Consent '' Washington where being a closeted gay official made you vulnerable to blackmail
Others feel we 're not ready for a gay president , citing the fear and loathing unleashed by the election of the first black president
`` Can you imagine how much a gay president would have to overcompensate to please the macho ninnies who control our national debate ?
Bill Maher told me
`` Women like Hillary have to do it , Obama had to do it because he 's black and liberal , but a gay president
He 'd have to nuke something the first week .
I called Barney Frank , assuming the gay pioneer would be optimistic
He was n't
`` It 's one thing to have a gay person in the abstract , '' he said
`` It 's another to see that person as part of a living , breathing couple
How would a gay presidential candidate have a celebratory kiss with his partner after winning the New Hampshire primary
The sight of two women kissing has not been as distressful to people as the sight of two men kissing .
Because of the Defense of Marriage Act , he added , `` it 's not clear that a gay president could use federal funds to buy his husband dinner
Would his partner have to pay rent in the White House
There would be no Secret Service protection for the paramor .
Frank noted that we 've `` clearly had one gay president already , James Buchanan
If I had to pick one , it would n't be him .
-LRB- The Atlantic blogger Andrew Sullivan aims higher , citing Abe Lincoln , who sometimes bundled with his military bodyguard in bed when his wife was away .
Frank said that although most Republicans now acknowledge that sexual orientation is not a choice , they still ca n't handle their pols ' coming out
`` There are Republicans here who are gay , '' he said of Congress , `` but as long as they do n't acknowledge it , it 's O.K. Republicans only tolerate you being gay as long as you do n't seem proud of it
You 've got to be apologetic .
Sam Adams , the mayor of Portland , Ore. , hopes that the repeal of `` do n't ask , do n't tell '' will help persuade `` the collective conscience of the United States that gay people are just the same as anybody else
We should n't have to die in the closet
The irony is , as mayor , I marry people , but I ca n't marry Peter , my longtime partner .
There are no openly gay senators , governors , cabinet members or Supreme Court justices
There are four openly gay Democratic House members , once David Cicilline of Rhode Island gets sworn in
Representative Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin recalled that during a race for State Assembly , a voter she thought was `` trouble '' swaggered up to her
But she need not have braced herself
`` If you can be honest about that , '' he told her , `` you 'll be honest about everything .
She said she took her former girlfriend , Lauren , to White House parties to meet three presidents , interactions that she thinks `` really helps change minds and advance the cause .
Representative Jared Polis of Colorado said he took his boyfriend , Marlon Reis , to a White House Christmas party this year
He said Marlon is `` very popular - some of his best friends are Republican spouses .
Fred Sainz of the Human Rights Campaign fretted to his husband that a gay president would be anticlimactic
`` People expect this bizarro and outlandish behavior , '' he told me
`` We 're always the funny neighbor wearing colorful , avant-garde clothing
We would let down people with our boringness and banality when they learn that we go to grocery stores Saturday afternoon , take our kids to school plays and go see movies .
After studying polling data for a decade , Sainz thinks a lesbian would have a better shot at the presidency than a gay man
`` People are more comfortable with women than they are with men because of stereotypes with gay men about hypersexuality , '' he said
Andr Leon Talley , the Vogue visionary , pictures a lesbian president who looks like Julie Andrews and dresses to meet heads of state in `` ankle-length skirts , grazing the Manolo Blahnik kitten heels .
She would save her `` butch trouser suit for weekends at Camp David and vacation hikes in Yellowstone
No plaid lumberjack shirts at any time .
Flying over the waves of snow-covered mountains that make Afghanistan a natural fortress and a sinkhole for empires , it 's impossible not to think of Osama 's escaping from Tora Bora as one of the greatest bungled opportunities in history
Unlike the Bushies , who tried to play down Osama 's importance the longer he was on the lam , Gen. Stanley McChrystal acknowledged in recent Congressional hearings that `` he is an iconic figure .
`` It would not defeat Al Qaeda to have him captured or killed , '' he said , `` but I do n't think that we can finally defeat Al Qaeda until he is captured or killed .
I asked Bob Gates , as we flew over the notorious terrain , if he had any insights into why such a bellicose team as W. , Cheney and Rummy flinched at the very moment they could have captured our mortal enemy
Gates , who said there has n't been any good intelligence on Osama 's whereabouts in years , said `` it 's just hard to find somebody who has a sympathetic network and local support .
-LRB- It seems hard to believe the C.I.A. ca n't infiltrate terrorist networks , given all the Americans who keep popping up as wannabe jihadis .
During the climactic showdown at Tora Bora , Rummy distracted Gen. Tommy Franks by demanding that he freshen up an Iraq invasion plan
The insufficient number of troops at Tora Bora was a harbinger of things to come in Afghanistan , as the Bush administration heedlessly moved on to Iraq
`` Afghanistan was a vastly underresourced operation because , as some of the generals say in the Pentagon , we were just out of Schlitz , '' Gates said
`` We did n't have any more troops to send .
Noting that the dad of Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , was a Hollywood publicist whose clients included Julie Andrews , Bob Hope , Jimmy Stewart , Phyllis Diller , Carol Burnett and Anthony Quinn , and his mom was an assistant for a time to Jimmy Durante , I said that if this were a movie , an elite Rambo team would have gone into the Pakistan border area long ago to fulfill W. 's empty threat to get Osama `` dead or alive .
I wondered why Bush and Obama officials went along with the mythological geological alibi of `` impassable '' mountains
Health care has often seemed impassable
Lots of things are difficult
But in America , given all our resources , we pride ourselves on achieving the difficult
Gates told U.S. soldiers in Kirkuk that , in essence , we went to war twice in Afghanistan : a brief one in 2001 that America won , and one that started at the end of 2005 when the Taliban regenerated
`` What we did n't realize , '' he said , `` was that , particularly beginning toward the end of 2005 , the deals that the Pakistanis cut with the tribes to back off and leave them alone created the space in which the Taliban were able to come back .
The Bush administration may not have realized that , but common sense told you the deal was lousy , giving those who hated us a sanctuary in which to rejuvenate
In a compelling cover story in the current New Republic called `` The Battle for Tora Bora , '' Peter Bergen , a terrorism expert , reconstructs the debacle , calling it `` one of the greatest military blunders in recent U.S. history .
He reports that Tommy Franks rebuffed the C.I.A. request for 800 Army Rangers from nearby bases to assault the complex of caves where Osama was hiding and block his escape
In the end , Bergen notes , there were more journalists there than Western soldiers
General Franks told the C.I.A. he wanted to keep a light-footprint approach
-LRB- Curiously , Gates who is known in the Obama administration as `` the man who leaves no footprints '' decided to support the heavy-footprint surge after McChrystal made the argument that it 's not the size of the footprint , but how hard the foot com
Franks and Rummy were risk averse about American troop casualties at the very moment they could have decapitated Al Qaeda
Instead , Osama 's myth grew with his escape as a 15,000-pound Daisy Cutter bomb and a series of 500-pound bombs rained down on the caves
Bergen writes that bin Laden 's son , Omar , said `` bin Laden would routinely hike from Tora Bora into neighboring Pakistan on walks that could take anywhere between seven and 14 hours
` My brothers and I all loathed these grueling treks that seemed the most pleasant of outings to our father , ' Omar bin Laden later recalled
Bin Laden told his sons they had to memorize every rock on the routes to Pakistan
` We never know when war will strike , ' he instructed them
` We must know our way out of the mountains . '
Eight years after Tora Bora , the failure there poses the question at the heart , or Achilles ' heel , of President Obama 's strategy : What if victory over Al Qaeda and other terrorists lies in Pakistan , not Afghanistan
Are we going to go get them in Pakistan or not
Osama 's evading us and ending up in Pakistan is the perfect humiliating symbol of our failure to deal with that question
My Magi - Crab , Crocodile and Sea Horse I learned that my brother Kevin collects cr ches
They were all over his house , crammed onto every mantle , table , counter , lawn and closet - 17 in all , including the modest plastic stable our mom put over the fireplace when we were little
I was perturbed
I knew Kevin , a salesman , was a fanatical guardian of the word Christmas , as opposed to the pagan , generic `` holiday , '' but I had no idea that he had such a monomaniacal hobby
Maybe I was scarred by reading `` The Glass Menagerie '' as a teenager
But books and records aside , collections always struck me as vaguely creepy
I had shuddered for years as my sister accumulated clowns and Don Quixote objets
And the porcelain baby collection of an older cousin actually made me feel queasy
I wondered why Kevin was so obsessive about cr ches
Was it a way to stay close to our late mother
An homage to our old church , Nativity
As a child , he treated St. Joseph , the shepherds and three kings as action figures , staging smack-downs
`` The shepherd had an advantage because he was holding the lamb , and he could use it as a weapon , '' Kevin recalled fondly
I also remembered that he got very upset one year when St. Joseph was stolen from the outdoor Nativity scene at Nativity , and he fretted over why Christ 's stepfather disappeared from the New Testament so abruptly
Could that make him hoard a houseful of St. Josephs - and send his three sons to a college named St. Joseph 's
I was curious enough about the manger mania that when he told me he 'd been invited to the Friends of the Creche annual convention in New Haven one weekend in November , I asked if I could go , too
Touring the cr che display at the Knights of Columbus hall , we met collectors who had 300 , 500 , even 600 cr ches , the kind who might put an addition on the house just to display their stables
Kevin began to feel inadequate with a mere 15
-LRB- He gave two to his oldest son .
Bonnie Psanenstiel , a heavy-set 52-year-old nurse from Owensboro , Ky. , told me that she has more than 500 sets packed into her `` Nativity meditation room , '' even though `` I 'm not really into religion .
She got her first , which was hand-carved out of olive wood , on a high school trip to Morocco and spent four years baby-sitting and cleaning houses to pay it off
She 's most attached to the set given to her by a woman she helped when she was a rape-incest counseling volunteer
`` We used to sit by the Mississippi River and just talk , '' Bonnie said as she started to cry
`` She would slowly gather up some of this Delta clay , and she made me a set .
She believes Nativities represent `` renewal .
The Rev. Tim Goldrick , the gregarious pastor of St. Nicholas Church in Fall River , Mass. , said his grandfather told him it was a Portuguese-Azorian tradition that the man of the house set up the cr che
He begged to put up their Woolworth 's set
For years , the priest kept hundreds of cr ches in milk crates in his guest room , which precluded actual guests
`` There was no room in the inn , '' he said wryly
When he transferred from his last parish , he called a mover and explained that he owned no furniture but did have a lot of Christmas decorations
`` It took three men two days to box them up and ship them , '' he said
Mike Whalen , 61 , of Clinton Township , Mich. , the president of the cr che society and proud owner of 400 , said he does n't know of cr che fixations causing any marital battles
`` There 's a lady from California whose husband is Jewish , and he 's very involved , '' Mike said
`` He came up with an Excel system to organize things .
Rita Bocher of Wynnewood , Pa. , does the society 's newsletter
In the '80s , doing market research for the Franklin Mint , she had to research cr ches
`` I thought nobody collects Nativities , '' she said
`` Turned out , I was totally wrong .
Now she has 700 subscribers around the world
She saw her favorite in a German museum
It was a prequel , showing the Magi getting ready to go on their trip , ordering around servants , gathering gold , frankincense and myrrh
Father Tim explained to Kevin that Joseph might have disappeared so abruptly all those years ago because of the belief that if you bury a St. Joseph statue in the yard , you can sell your house quicker
-LRB- A tradition that has revived with the recession , according to The Wall Street Journal .
I could n't fight the fanatics , so I joined them
I bought a Cape Cod cr che at the convention made by Nathaniel Wordell of South Chatham , Mass.
Mary 's a mermaid
The baby Jesus is covered with a striped beach towel
The Wise Men are crab , crocodile and sea horse
The `` livestock '' are frog , turtle and starfish
Joseph has a trident
Sadly , it did not draw my brother and me closer
`` That is sacrilegious , '' Kevin said , staring in horror
`` The Virgin Mary does not have a tail .
Our ubiquitous ex-president is playing his favorite uxorious game , and it goes like this : Let 's create chaos and then get out of it together
You ride to my rescue or I ride to yours
We come within an inch of dying and then recapture the day by the skin of our teeth
While we 're killing ourselves , we blame everyone else
We 'll be heroes
It worked for Bill and Hillary in '92 and ' 96
It did n't work in the health care debacle
Will it work in Iowa and New Hampshire
Just when I thought I was out , the Clintons pull me back into their conjugal psychodrama
Inside the Bill gang and the Hillary gang , there is panic and perplexity
Is Bill a loyal spouse or a subconscious saboteur
Should Hillaryland muzzle him
Give him a minder
Is he rusty
Or is he freelancing because he relishes his role as head of the party his wife is trying to take over
`` For the first time since the Marc Rich pardon , '' said a friend of the Clintons , `` Bill is seriously diminishing his personal standing with the people closest to him .
Certainly Bill wants to repay Hill for those traumatic times when he had to hide behind her skirt
And certainly he feels that his legacy is tied to her
He suggests to Matt Bai in today 's Times Magazine that she can be F.D.R. to his Teddy Roosevelt , getting through the ideas that fell flat the first time
Is Bill torn between resentment of being second fiddle and gratification that Hillary can be first banana only with his help
Their relationship has always been a co-dependence between his charm and her discipline
But what if , as some of her advisers suggest , she turned out to be a tougher leader , quicker to grasp foreign policy , less skittish about using military power and more inspirational abroad
What if she were to use his mistakes as a reverse blueprint , like W. did with his dad
When Bill gets slit-eyed , red-faced and finger-wagging in defense of her , is he really defending himself , ego in full bloom , against aspersions that Obama and Edwards cast on Clintonian politics
Maybe the Boy Who Ca n't Help Himself is simply engaging in his usual patterns of humiliating Hillary and lighting an exploding cigar when things are going well
`` They 're not Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald , who had jealousy as the lifeblood of their marriage , '' said one writer who has studied the pair
`` The lifeblood of their marriage is crisis , coming to each other 's rescue .
Bill is staying up late strategizing and recasting her message and speeches
But he 's off his game on the trail , making clumsy mistakes like his remark bound to be shot down by Poppy Bush that Hillary would send 41 and 42 around the world to restore prestige lost by 43
Hillary advisers noted that when Bill was asked by a supporter in South Carolina what his wife 's No. 1 priority would be , he replied : C ` est moi
`` The first thing she intends to do is to send me ... '' he began
He got so agitated with Charlie Rose ranting that reporters were `` stenographers '' for Obama that his aides tried to stop the interview
He also got in the way of her message with stretchers about opposing the Iraq war from the start , and in a slap at Obama deciding not to run in '88 because he lacked experience
Truth is , he did n't run for fear of bimbo eruptions
While making a speech in Iowa , The Associated Press 's Ron Fournier reported , Bill used the word `` I '' 94 times in 10 minutes , while mentioning `` Hillary '' just seven times
At a London fund-raiser , one Hillaryite said , it took him nearly half an hour to mention her
As the Arkansas journalist Max Brantley told the Billary biographer Sally Bedell Smith , `` He 's always evangelizing for the church of Bill .
It 's hard to feel sorry for Hillary because the very logic of her campaign leads right to Bill
When she speaks of her `` experience , '' she is referring not to the Senate but to the White House , thereby making her campaign a plebiscite on the '90s
Running this way , she is essentially asking people to like her if they liked him
Whether she knows it or not , this is a coattails strategy
It 's almost as if she 's offering herself to Clinton supporters as the solution to the problem of the 22nd Amendment
Bill is a narcissist , but he 's also within his rights to think that she has invited him onstage
If she is his legacy , why should he muzzle himself
After all , you ca n't ask Elvis to behave like Colonel Parker
If voting for Obama is a roll of the dice , as Bill suggests , voting for Billary is a sure bet : an endless soap opera
John McCain is no longer the media 's delight and his party 's burr , bucking convention with infectious relish
The man used to be such a constructive independent that some of his Republican Senate colleagues called him a traitor
Now he 's such a predictable obstructionist that he 's in the just-say-no vanguard with the same conservatives who used to despise him
On Tuesday afternoon on the floor , Senator Mitch McConnell , who contemptuously fought McCain 's campaign finance reform bill all the way to the Supreme Court , oozed admiration toward his Arizona colleague , as McCain did yet another grandstanding fandango on the health care bill
Watching him , one can only wonder : Is McCain betraying his best self
Who is the real McCain
Even some of McCain 's former aides are disturbed by the 73-year-old 's hostile , vindictive , sarcastic persona a far cry from The Honorable Man portrait so lovingly pumped up in books by his former aide and co-writer Mark Salter
After he lost to W. in a nasty primary battle in 2000 , McCain delighted in poking at the new Republican president
But he was a trenchant critic of W. 's budget-busting tax cuts and other policies because his objections were consistent and honestly felt
-LRB- Or so we thought .
Now he delights in attacking another man he ran against and lost to : a new Democratic president who had once hoped , based on McCain 's past positions , that his former Republican rival might be of help in such areas as the economy , national security , immigration and climate change
With President Obama , McCain 's objections seem motivated more by vendetta than principle
He angrily turned on his former base , the news media , during his campaign when his lame performance on the economy and his irresponsible choice of Sarah Palin got panned
In 2000 , McCain would devilishly point out Tom Brokaw or a Times journalist to town hall audiences as `` one of the last Trotskyites , left-wing , Communist , pinkos of the American media .
In 2008 , he snarled to political aides about journalists whom he had once admired , like Brokaw and Charlie Gibson , and he cut off The Times completely
He talks about the media betrayal with the same outsize scorn that he once reserved for his Viet Cong captors
The famous twinkle is gone , replaced by an infamous bitterness
After his 2008 race against Obama a campaign that too often took the low road in toadying to the right and painting Obama as a socialist and terrorist fellow-traveler the capital eagerly waited to see which McCain would return to the Capitol
Would McCain be the new lion of the Senate , putting `` Country First '' for a historic final chapter to his long career
Or would he morph into the sort of knee-jerk Congressional partisan he had once loathed
Sadly , despite the scary trellis of problems America faces , the unorthodox , brave and cheeky McCain failed to show up
Part of his sharp turn to the right may be motivated by his primary challenge for a fifth term from J.D. Hayworth , a conservative , anti-immigration talk-show host and former Republican House member -LRB- who has also been anti-Times at times -RRB-
But he has said himself that it 's more about philosophical differences with President Obama
Unlike his pal Lindsey Graham , who voted to confirm Sonia Sotomayor , McCain seemed motivated by revenge when he voted against Obama 's first Supreme Court nominee
`` An excellent r sum and an inspiring life story are not enough to qualify one for a lifetime of service on the Supreme Court , '' McCain sniffed
McCain , who once led the fight in the Senate with his pal Joe Lieberman on enacting a global warming bill , shocked many when he flipped on the issue , attacking climate legislation supported by Lieberman , Graham and John Kerry
McCain has also descended into demagoguery on Medicare
Although he has been in favor of Medicare reductions to cut the deficit over years , he 's now adopted a rigid hands-off Medicare stance
He rejected the idea of being a point man on immigration in the Senate , apparently preferring to stew
A couple of times , during floor speeches on health care this month , the Arizona senator noted `` that a fight not joined is a fight not enjoyed .
It seemed to be an inadvertent recognition that he was fighting for the sake of it , not to help the country get past some of the hideous problems left by the man McCain failed to stop in 2000
Maybe an excellent r sum and an inspiring life story are not enough to qualify one as a real statesman
`` Now the melancholy days have come , '' Groucho Marx wrote to pal and fellow comic Fred Allen on Dec. 23 , 1953
`` The department stores call it Christmas
Other than for children and elderly shut-ins , the thing has developed to such ridiculous proportions well , I wo n't go into it
This is not an original nor novel observation , and I am sure everyone in my position has similar emotions
Some of the recipients are so ungrateful
`` For example , yesterday I gave the man who cleans my swimming pool $ 5
This morning I found two dead fish floating in the drink
Last year I gave the mailman $ 5
I heard later he took the five bucks , bought two quarts of rotgut and went on a three-week bender
I did n't get any mail from Dec. 24th to Jan. 15th
... For Christmas , I bought the cook a cookbook
She promptly fried it , and we had it for dinner last night
It was the first decent meal we had in three weeks
From now on I am going to buy all my food at the bookstore .
I found Groucho 's grouchy letter in Caroline Kennedy 's `` A Family Christmas , '' a selection of songs , poetry , prose , letters and a list of the questions most frequently asked of Macy 's Santa
-LRB- `` Q : Are you lactose intolerant
A : No , Santa likes all kinds of milk , except buttermilk , although he will use buttermilk in cakes and pancakes . ''
The book includes the solemn and sardonic , including this verse from Calvin Trillin , yearning to escape the shopping zoo and endless loop of Der Bingle crooning and `` Jingle Bells '' jingling : `` I 'd like to spend next Christmas in Qatar
Or someplace else that Santa wo n't find handy
Qatar will do , although , Lord knows , it 's sandy .
As a little girl , Caroline had the advantage of being able to ask the bloodhounds on the White House switchboard to get Santa on the line
`` The fact that he had the same soft Southern accent common to many White House workers of the day escaped me completely , '' she writes dryly
She includes a letter her father , as president , sent to Michelle Rochon , a little girl in Michigan
`` I was glad to get your letter about trying to stop the Russians from bombing the North Pole and risking the life of Santa Claus , '' J.F.K. wrote , noting that he shared her concern with Soviet atmospheric testing
`` You must not worry about Santa Claus
I talked with him yesterday , and he is fine .
Ms. Kennedy writes that she continues the literary tradition of her mother
Jackie wrote Christmas poems for her mother , and Caroline and John wrote poems for Jackie
As I read her book , it struck me that everyone must have a holiday tale they could write up and paste into the back of `` A Family Christmas .
Mine would be about Trigger
When I was little , I got one of those wooden horses that bounced on springs for Christmas
I loved him and rode him every day
One morning , I came down to the porch and the horse was gone
My mom explained that a poor woman and her son had walked by , and the little boy had stopped and stared longingly at the horse
My mom 's world was turned upside down when she lost the father she adored at 12 , so she had a soft spot for children who hurt
On a police widow 's pension , she was always mailing a few dollars off to St. Jude 's or to children she had read about who were hungry or needed an operation
When she told me that she had given my horse to another child a stranger I was crushed
Whenever we fought for the next 16 years , I reminded her of her perfidy
On my 21st birthday , I came home to find a bouncing horse with a handwritten sign in its mouth
`` Hi
I 'm back !
It was signed : `` Trigger .
I brought the horse of a different era to live with me , as a rebuke about how long it took me to appreciate one of my mom 's favorite sayings : `` Do n't cry over things that ca n't cry over you .
Her lesson was lovely : that materialism and narcissism can only smother life and Christmas if you let them
In a piece reprinted in the Kennedy anthology , Henry van Dyke writes : `` Are you willing ... to own , that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life , but what you are going to give to life ; to close your book of complaints against the management of the universe and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness ... to make a grave for your ugly thoughts and a garden for your kindly feelings ...
Then you can keep Christmas .
Because the Night Belongs to Her She was wearing a black sequined jacket , white ruffly shirt and black pants , a glam version of the `` gothic crow , '' as Salvador Dali once described her
Her salt-and-chocolate mane was hanging in an untamed pony tail
She seemed shy and modest but fun and self-possessed , ever the cool chick
In an era when many women resist aging , preferring to frantically pursue scary , puffy replicas of their 25-year-old selves , and at a time when women still struggle to balance sexuality and power , the 63-year-old Smith radiated magic
My cultural lacunae included the iconic New York punk rock singer , poet and artist who dropped out for a decade to raise two kids with guitarist Fred `` Sonic '' Smith in Detroit
I had never seen her perform and did n't know she was a jumble of quirky contradictions , passionate about Arthur Rimbaud and `` Law & Order : SVU , '' William Blake and Jimi Hendrix , grand opera and cheap talismans , listening to Glenn Gould and writing detective novels
Beyond the jangly ruckuses about explicit photos of naked men , I did n't know much about Robert Mapplethorpe either
So I was startled to pick up Smith 's memoirs , which won a National Book Award last month , and delve into a spellbinding love story
For anyone who has had a relationship where the puzzle pieces seem perfect but do n't fit - so , all of us - `` Just Kids '' is achingly beautiful
It 's `` La Boh me '' at the Chelsea Hotel ; a mix , she writes , of `` Funny Face '' and `` Faust , '' two hungry artists figuring out whom to love , how to make art and when to part
It unfolds in that romantic time before we were swallowed by Facebook , flat screens , texts , tweets and Starbucks ; when people still talked all night and listened to jukeboxes and LPs and read actual books and drank black coffee
Smith describes the wondrous odyssey of taking the bus from South Jersey and meeting a curly-haired soul mate who wanted to help her soar , even as the pair painfully grappled over the years with Mapplethorpe 's sexuality and his work 's brutality
`` Robert took areas of dark human consent and made them into art , '' Smith writes about the former altar boy from Floral Park , Queens , who was bedeviled by Catholic concepts of good and evil
`` Robert sought to elevate aspects of male experience , to imbue homosexuality with mysticism .
When he began exploring his own desires in San Francisco , she said it was an education for her too
`` I had thought a man turned homosexual when there was not the right woman to save him , a misconception I had developed from the tragic union of Rimbaud and the poet Paul Verlaine , '' she writes , adding that she mistakenly considered homosexuality `` a poetic curse '' that `` irrevocably meshed with affectation and flamboyance .
As they redefined their love , she writes , `` I learned from him that often contradiction is the clearest way to truth .
When the penniless Smith first gets to New York she sleeps in Central Park and graveyards
Once she meets Robert , they shoplift occasionally and scrape by
They are too poor to go to museums together ; one goes in and describes it afterward to the other waiting outside
They share Coney Island hot dogs
Robert works as a hustler for money
She encourages the reluctant Mapplethorpe to take photographs ; he shoots the covers for her poetry book and mythic first album , `` Horses .
He teases her when she becomes famous faster
Smith vividly recalls a psychedelic bohemia in downtown New York in the volcanic late '60s and '70s when you could feel `` a sense of hastening .
She transports you back to the Coney Island freak shows and the Chelsea Hotel , `` a doll 's house in the Twilight Zone , '' as she calls the refuge for artists from Dylan Thomas to Bob Dylan
Glittery cameos include former lover Sam Shepard , Gregory Corso , Salvador Dali , Viva , William Burroughs , Grace Slick , Janis Joplin , Allen Ginsberg , Andy Warhol and her idol , Hendrix
The more commercial and society-minded Robert dreamed of breaking into Warhol 's circle , but Patti was suspicious
`` I hated the soup and felt little for the can , '' she writes
`` I preferred an artist who transformed his time , not mirrored it .
When Robert was ravaged by AIDS , a distraught Patti drove and flew back and forth from Detroit to New York to hold and soothe him
She wrote him a letter , recalling that he once said that art was like `` holding hands with God .
Urging him to grip that hand hard , she concluded : `` Of all your work , you are still your most beautiful .
The March morning in 1989 that he died , at 42 , she woke up to hear an opera playing on an arts channel on a TV that had been left on
It was Tosca declaring her passion for the painter Cavaradossi , singing `` I have lived for love , I have lived for Art .
It was her goodbye
As my brother Kevin headed off to Christmas Eve Mass in the Maryland suburbs , I asked him how he thought the first year of Barack Obama had gone
He did n't have to pray long over that one .
Fine , '' he replied , '' if you like unmitigated disasters like the Hindenburg and the Redskins season .
If it 's Christmas , it must be time for my conservative brother to take over my column and turn it a blazing shade of red
So without further ado , here is Kevin unplugged , offering a perspective from '' the real America , '' as one of his favorite Republican philosophers , Sarah Palin , likes to put it : Who could have guessed on Nov. 4 , 2008 , that the mood this Christmas would be so festive
Yet a feeling of optimism pervades as we watch the old Christmas movies and marvel at the winter wonderland on the Mall illuminated by our national Christmas tree
-LRB- No offense to that ardent Catholic Nancy Pelosi , who would prefer '' holiday tree . ''
The Republicans , of course , got exactly what they deserved in 2006 and 2008 mainly because they acted like Democrats
Deficit spending and sex scandals are not a good recipe for success
But by forcing through a government takeover of health care , the auto industry and the banks , the president and his Congressional henchmen have brought us in a time machine to Russia 1917
These massive changes have been done in secret and along bullying , straight party-line votes
It is stunning to watch rich lawmakers driving their own expensive cars off the cliff and signing on to such a socialist agenda
In dismissing the tea parties and pushing through plans the American people obviously do n't want , they have made the fatal disconnect between the representatives and the represented
President Obama continues life in the H.O.V. lane , fawned over by the press and the crowned heads of Europe
In between apologies , the president should have reminded those pompous blowhards that without our interference , they would all be speaking German
My dad was a D.C. policeman , and I would like to apologize -LRB- not '' recalibrate '' -RRB- to the Cambridge police for the president 's assumption that they '' acted stupidly .
You would think that Mr. Obama would have afforded the police the same consideration he gave to the mass-murdering Muslim Army major when he said : '' I would caution against jumping to conclusions .
The Fort Hood massacre was a direct result of Army policy too concerned with political correctness and '' celebrating diversity .
It was a terrorist attack by any definition and the government still can not say it
President Obama should remember that Icarus tried to fly to the sun because , as he said , '' it is the only thing in the universe that can match my brilliance .
How did that work out
Here are some reflections for 2009 : To President Obama : Thank you for saving the Republican Party and for teaching all of us that too much of anything is a bad thing
To Bill Clinton : You did too much work on Northern Ireland for the Nobel committee
Next time , do nothing
To Harry and Nancy : '' The Twilight Zone '' once had an episode where the town got the exact opposite of what it wanted
Farewell , Harry
To John McCain : Thank you for your chivalry in banning Palin attack dogs -- including my sister -- from the campaign plane
To Sarah Palin : Keep up the good work
Anyone who annoys Keith Olbermann that much is a friend to all of us
To Glenn Beck : Thanks for being the only journalist interested in stories that used to win Pulitzer Prizes
To Al Franken : So , 250 years of Senate tradition trashed
Stuart Smalley would have done better
To Desir e Rogers : Get back to the gate
Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson ca n't get in
To the Salahis : Thank you for showing us that shame has no bottom
To Valerie Jarrett : So much for the Olympic Village in Chicago
To Chris Dodd : The only thing lower than your polls is your mortgage interest rate
To Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen : The military should be more interested in the men and women who serve than in celebrating diversity
To the Democratic senators : Go last next time ; the bribes are much bigger
To Sheldon Whitehouse : You , senator , are an idiot
To Dick Cheney : You , sir , are a patriot
Thanks for firing back
To President Bush : Thank you for your dignity
Did you really start the plague in the 14th century
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
To Hillary : Who knew how much you would be missed
To Al Gore : A global warming conference in the middle of a Copenhagen blizzard is not a good visual
To Max Baucus , Eliot Spitzer and John Edwards : Party on , dudes
To John Ensign , Mark Sanford and David Vitter : Do n't party on , dudes
Customarily in presidential races , Americans seek a patriarchal figure , a strong parent to protect the house from invaders and financial turbulence
He seems more like a child prodigy
Those enraptured with his gifts urge him on , like anxious parents , trying to pull that sustained , dazzling performance out of him that they believe he s capable of ; they are willing to put up with the prodigy s occasional listlessness and crabbiness , his flights of self-regard and self-righteousness
Despite his uneven efforts and distaste for the claws of competition , they can see he is a golden child , one who moves , speaks , smiles and thinks with amazing grace
His advisers and fund-raisers have pressed him to go fortissimo
Many voters with great expectations are hovering , hoping for a crescendo
Except for panicked Clintonistas , everyone seems eager to see if the young pol can live up to his potential
Responding to his more combative style , the press has relaunched him , giving him a second chance to shine , on this week s cover of Time , in the pages of The New Yorker , in the up arrow of Newsweek , which now declares him poised to be the comeback kid , and at The Times , where young female assistants lined the halls on Wednesday to watch him glide into a second meeting with editorial board writers and editors
In The Atlantic , Andrew Sullivan lays out what he sees as Obama s indispensable capacity to move the country past baby-boom feuds and the world past sectarian and racial divides
It s November 2008 , he imagines
A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man Barack Hussein Obama is the new face of America
In one simple image , America s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch , but a logarithm
In Time , Shelby Steele agrees that a President Obama could show that race is but a negligible human difference
But he notes that Obama s abandonment by his African father at the age of 2 marked him
Much of the excitement that surrounds him comes from the perception that he is only lightly tethered to race , Steele writes
Yet the very arc of his life from Hawaii to the South Side of Chicago has been shaped by an often conscious resolve to belong irrefutably to the black identity
-LRB- Obama wrote that he dropped a white girlfriend partly because of her race .
Jesse Jackson has chastised Obama for not focusing enough on black voters or fussing more about the Jena Six
But Obama wrote that he grew up knowing how to disarm whites worried about angry black men
The senator says that not all blacks have to support him any more than all women have to support Hillary
But so far Hillary has the advantage with women and blacks
Obama came to the Apollo Theater in Harlem Thursday night down the block from Bill Clinton s office to try to wrest some support back from the first black president and his wife
Some young Obama fans wore yellow tees reading , Who decided Hillary is best for the black community
Charlie Rangel ; John Lewis ; Quincy Jones ; Essence Communications chairman , Edward Lewis ; and other celebrated Hillary supporters were not there
But Obama did get to sup at Sylvia s soul-food restaurant the place where Bill O Reilly was shocked to find such genteel black folk with the still-up-for-grabs Al Sharpton
The only endorsement Sharpton offered afterward was : A man that likes chicken and corn bread can t be that bad
Obama got an introduction from Chris Rock , who warned the audience that you d be real embarrassed if he won and you wasn t down with it
You d say , Aw , man , I can t call him now
I had that white lady
What was I thinking
And he got a benediction from Cornel West , the Princeton professor who took Obama to task earlier this year for not attending a national gathering of black scholars and civil rights leaders
West tried to help Obama in his uneasy quest to claim his place in the black community , calling him my brother , an eloquent brother , a good brother and a decent brother
He urged the audience to put Obama in a historical continuum with the spirituals on the plantation and Apollo stars like James Brown and Billie Holiday
Black , he said , has variations
We don t expect Alicia Keys to be Aretha , he said
Obama threw in some lines meant to show his black fire , even if it s a cool fire
I m in this race because I m tired of reading about Jena , he said
I m tired of reading about nooses
I m tired of hearing about a Justice Department that doesn t understand justice
... I don t want to wake up four years from now and discover that we still have more young black men in prison than in college
He said he s running because of what Martin Luther King Jr. called the fierce urgency of now
Now can the prodigy muster that fierce urgency
It is , after all , an invitation to Thursday 's Congressional hearing into their Night of Living Dangerously , the notorious White House party-crashing incident
The Salahis discovered the secret to sneaking through a mythical gate , and that has now taken on the import of one of Dan Brown 's ancient portals ; the breached White House wall serves as a prism to examine our society , our president and our values
We live in an age obsessed with `` reality '' and overrun by fakers
The mock has run amok
This decade will be remembered for the collapse of the Twin Towers , the economy and any standard of accomplishment for societal prestige
TV and the Internet wallow in the lowest common denominator
Warhol looks like Whistler
But if Congress investigates social climbing and party crashing in Washington , it wo n't have time for anything else
Because even the outrage over the fakers is fake
The capital has turned up its nose at the tacky trompe l'oeil Virginia horse-country socialites : a faux Redskins cheerleader and a faux successful businessman auditioning for a `` reality '' show by feigning a White House invitation
Yet Washington has always been a town full of poseurs , arrivistes , fame-seekers , cheaters and camera hogs
Lots of people here are trying to crash the party , wangle an invite to the right thing , work the angles and milk their connections to better insinuate their way into the inner circle
Barack Obama is the ultimate party crasher
He crashed Hillary 's high-hat party in 2008 and he crashed the snooty age-old Washington party of privileged white guys with a monopoly on power
Sneaking past the White House gates with the slippery Salahis , we catch a rare glimpse of a Secret Service , a social office and a Pentagon with glaring and chilling vulnerabilities and liabilities
The Washington Post reported the Secret Service guard waved in the Salahis , breaking the rules , because he `` was persuaded by the couple 's manner and insistence as well as the pressure of keeping lines moving on a rainy evening .
Because Barack Obama has broken historic barriers and excites strong passions , he requires a heightened level of Secret Service protection
Now , he is n't getting the minimum required
Vetting guests does not involve emotion or leeway
Famous lawmakers like Pat Schroeder have been turned away after showing up without IDs
Whatever Michele Jones , the Pentagon-based liaison to the White House , e-mailed the Salahis to enhance their delusion of having a shot at a dinner , she was mindlessly enabling fabulists
Desir e Rogers , who has also been asked to testify Thursday , has been cruising for a bruising since telling The Wall Street Journal in April : `` We have the best brand on Earth : the Obama brand
Our possibilities are endless .
She wanted to pose for The Journal in an Oscar de la Renta gown in the first lady 's garden , but the press secretary , Robert Gibbs , vetoed that
The statuesque social secretary brandishing a Harvard M.B.A. and animal-print designer shoes is not any mere party planner
The old friend of the first couple from Chicago has the exalted and uncommon title of social secretary and special assistant to the president
Instead of standing outside with a clipboard , eyeballing guests as Anne Hathaway did in `` The Devil Wears Prada , '' Desir e was a guest at the dinner , the center of her own table of guests , just like the president and first lady
As Michael Isikoff wrote in Newsweek , Rogers sidelined Cathy Hargraves , the East Wing staffer whose job it was to go to the East Gate portico and check off the names of each guest from a printout
Rogers told Hargraves that the Obama team felt no need for those services because , given the recession , there would n't be many lavish dinners
But even if it 's just two state dinners a year , as the first lady plans , one big mistake is too many
Also , the rejection of the Bush appointee has unseemly echoes of Hillary Clinton sacking the White House travel office staff , unnecessarily politicizing an office that required old pros
Rogers also conjured up a White House closing ranks on itself , allowing far too many West Wing staffers , mid-level political aides , press flacks and speechwriters to attend the prestigious premiere state dinner , rather than people more relevant to the Indian guests of honor
The Obama team always talks of making the White House `` the People 's House , '' so why let it look like the White House Mess
Even before the Salahis swept in preening , the Obama staffers were there preening , standing around celebrating themselves
And of course , savoring the wonder of the Obama brand
The pendulum is hovering above a chart , pointing to sources of negative energy in my house that need to be cleared
The pendulum quivers and swings and slows and finally settles above the word `` Curses .
`` That sounds scary , '' I say
Faith yes , that 's her real name explains that there are two common forms of curses
If you send out something negative , you also hold on to it
It 's like a cosmic fax machine
`` So , '' she says , `` it has a definite negative impact on the soul .
`` I hope that does n't include writing critical columns , '' I mumble
The second kind is when someone curses you
I think back
There was that time John Sununu , Poppy Bush 's raging-bull chief of staff , blew up at the White House after reading one of my stories about his arrogant behavior
`` I will destroy her , '' he growled
`` If it takes me the rest of my life , I will destroy her
I do n't know where or when , but I 'll get her .
Could Sununu 's curse be hanging around my house , like gooey green smoke
Faith , who says she is a `` clairaudio , '' as opposed to a clairvoyant , is talking to the pendulum , instructing the High Self Committee which seems to be the spirit equivalent of the Co-op Board to throw out all curses
I 'm having my house and body `` cleared '' for 2008 , whatever that means
I 'm more of a believer in mystery than mysticism
But I know for sure that New Year 's resolutions require too much discipline
An exorcism seems much easier
Ashley Parker , a young woman who works with me , had been warning me that I was in grave karmic danger
Her mother , too , works with crystals and healing and says she was told she was a handmaiden in ancient Egypt in a past life
She instructed Ashley never to wear vintage clothes which I often do because bad vibes from previous owners could rub off
I did n't want to shed all of my risky clothes and accessories especially that karmically dangerous , fragrant black purse someone gave me that once belonged to Marilyn Monroe
And did I need to worry about who had owned my '65 Mustang , and what they did in it
Simpler to do a spiritual detox
Faith Green , a pretty , curvy 31-year-old green-eyed blonde , says she has studied tribal shamanism , rolfing , Pilates , tango , movement and stretching
She calls herself a `` kinetic therapist .
Her crystal pendulum also identified some `` discordant energy '' in my house from angels who were meant to protect me but who had fallen prey to bad energy themselves , and from disconsolate spirits who may have been in a religious order
`` Was I a nun in a past life ?
I ask , conjuring up a glamorous image of myself as Audrey Hepburn in `` The Nun 's Story '' rather than Rosalind Russell in `` The Trouble With Angels .
No , Faith explains , these bummed-out trapped souls are lurking from the past
She suggests they may just be unhappy with their vows of poverty , chastity , celibacy and obedience
You do n't need a Ouija board to know that
`` We 'll ask the High Self to clear them , '' she says
`` They 're blocking cheerfulness .
She explains that , just as some people begin to sound and look like people they live with , so you can take on the grotty energy of spirits sharing your space
She does a `` final mop-up '' and puts a triple shield of protection for 10 miles around my house
#NAME?
Will W. be getting my psychic protection ?
After scrutinizing my body language , Faith breaks the bad news : my intimacy chakra is blocked
Something about the way I stand
She says we need to sweep out the `` sludge '' so that our bodies do n't become cages trapping us and crimping our chi
`` The second chakra is intimacy , meaning ' I love myself so much that I would marry myself , ' '' she says
`` My sister wants to marry herself , '' I say
Faith puts stones under my back and tells me she can feel my heart opening like a flower blooming
I do n't really feel the blockages or the bloomings
But it 's a lot nicer lying on a table and listening to floaty , flute-y New Age music than it is sitting at a table and making a long list of insincere resolutions
Instead of falling in love , Faith observes , we should all be rising in love
`` We 're either in love or we 're in fear , '' she says
She calls `` The Secret '' the self-help mega-seller that advises people to visualize the body and income they want and the universe will respond by making them thin and rich somewhat `` hokey .
`` A lot of healing is about raising the vibrations , '' she says
`` It 's not airy-fairy or voodoo
It 's really about smiling and laughing and getting the blood flowing in the body .
That does n't sound so hard , as long as John Sununu stays away from my house
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I was walking through a deserted downtown on Christmas Eve with a friend , past the lonely , gray Treasury Building , past the snowy White House with no president inside
`` I hope the terrorists do n't think this is a good time to attack , '' I said , looking protectively at the White House , which always looks smaller and more vulnerable and beautiful than you expect , no matter how often you see it up close
I thought our guard might be down because of the holiday ; now I realize our guard is down every day
One thrilling thing about moving from W. to Barack Obama was that Obama seemed like an avatar of modernity
W. , Dick Cheney and Rummy kept ceaselessly dragging us back into the past
America seemed to have lost her ingenuity , her quickness , her man-on-the-moon bravura , her Bugs Bunny panache
Were we clever and inventive enough to protect ourselves from the new breed of Flintstones-hardy yet Facebook-savvy terrorists
W. 's favorite word was `` resolute , '' but despite gazillions spent and Cheney 's bluster , our efforts to shield ourselves seemed flaccid
President Obama 's favorite word is `` unprecedented , '' as Carol Lee of Politico pointed out
Yet he often seems mired in the past as well , letting his hallmark legislation get loaded up with old-school bribes and pork ; surrounding himself with Clintonites ; continuing the Bushies ' penchant for secrecy and expansive executive privilege ; doubling down in Afghanistan while acting as though he 's getting out ; and failing to capitalize on snazzy new technology while agencies thumb through printouts and continue their old turf battles
Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines jet headed to Detroit , travelers could see we had made no progress toward a technologically wondrous Philip K. Dick universe
We seemed to still be behind the curve and reactive , patting down grannies and 5-year-olds , confiscating snow globes and lip glosses
Instead of modernity , we have airports where security is so retro that taking away pillows and blankies and bathroom breaks counts as a great leap forward
If we ca n't catch a Nigerian with a powerful explosive powder in his oddly feminine-looking underpants and a syringe full of acid , a man whose own father had alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria , a traveler whose ticket was paid for in cash and who did n't check bags , whose visa renewal had been denied by the British , who had studied Arabic in Al Qaeda sanctuary Yemen , whose name was on a counterterrorism watch list , who can we catch
We are headed toward the moment when screeners will watch watch-listers sashay through while we have to come to the airport in hospital gowns , flapping open in the back
In a rare bipartisan success , House members tried to prevent the Transportation Security Administration from implementing full-body imaging as a screening tool at airports
Just because Republicans helped lead the ban on better technology and opposed airport security spending does n't mean they 'll stop Cheneying the Democrats for subverting national security
Congressman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan was weaselly enough to whack the president and `` weak-kneed liberals '' in his gubernatorial fund-raising letter
Before he left for vacation , Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs
But in his usual inspiring\/listless cycle , he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253 , issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links
At least you have to seem concerned
On Tuesday , Obama stepped up to the microphone to admit what Janet Napolitano -LRB- who learned nothing from an earlier Janet named Reno -RRB- had first tried to deny : that there had been `` a systemic failure '' and a `` catastrophic breach of security .
But in a mystifying moment that was not technically or emotionally reassuring , there was no live video and it looked as though the Obama operation was flying by the seat of its pants
Given that every utterance of the president is usually televised , it was a throwback to radio days just at the moment we sought reassurance that our security has finally caught up to `` Total Recall .
All that TV viewers heard , broadcast from a Marine base in Kaneohe Bay , was the president 's disembodied voice , talking about `` deficiencies .
Citing the attempt of the Nigerian 's father to warn U.S. authorities six months ago , the president intoned : `` It now appears that weeks ago this information was passed to a component of our intelligence community but was not effectively distributed so as to get the suspect 's name on a no-fly list .
In his detached way , Spock was letting us know that our besieged starship was not speeding into a safer new future , and that we still have to be scared
Heck of a job , Barry
W. did look like a kid who d just had his toys taken away
But he acted humorously exasperated , as he always does when the talk turns introspective
This is like , all of a sudden , it s like Psychology 101 , you know
he said , as reporters laughed
The reporters pressed on about whether the president was troubled about a possible credibility gap with the American people , given that the facts had failed him on Iraq and Iran and that Harry Reid had charged that the president is not leveling with the American people on war spending
Even though Norman Podhoretz is conjuring up a Seven Days in December spy thriller scenario in which the intelligence agencies colluded to sabotage the president and prevent him from the noble mission of air strikes on Iran , W. insisted he felt pretty good about life
He said that the breathtaking and embarrassing reversal in the National Intelligence Estimate about Iran s nuclear capability from high confidence in 2005 that the mullahs were developing a nuke to high confidence that they stopped the program in 2003 somehow made it clear that he was right
If W. can shape the intelligence to match his faith-based beliefs , as with Iraq , then he will believe the intelligence no matter how incredible it is
If he can t shape it to match his beliefs , as with Iran , then he will disregard the intelligence no matter how credible it is
Even though Sy Hersh claims that the top echelon of the White House has long known of the conclusion that Iran had stopped its nuke program , and that Dick Cheney has kept his foot on the neck of that report , the president says he was briefed on it only last week
Others conspiratorially speculate that the president had to have green-lighted the report to take the air out of the hawks Iran push
Just because the facts on which he based his white-hot rhetoric about Iran possibly sparking World War III have been debunked , W. said with his usual twisted logic , why should his policy change
Indeed , John Bolton , who must have been paying attention in his Psych 101 class , argued to Wolf Blitzer that the intelligence analysts got Iraq wrong and they re overcompensating by understating the potential threat from Iran
George Tenet helped hawks like Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bolton overstate the case on Iraq W.M.D. Then , when things went wrong , W. , Cheney and Condi made Mr. Tenet the fall guy
After getting Iraq wrong and Iran wrong in 2005 and almost every other big thing wrong since the nation began spending billions every year on intelligence , the burned spooks may not have wanted to play the patsy again while W. , Cheney and the neocons beat the drums for an Iran invasion
Now the apple-polishing George Tenet is gone
The man who oversaw the new estimate is Tom Fingar , a former State Department intelligence officer who was smart and brave enough to object to the cooked-up intelligence on Iraqi W.M.D. The way they used to do business was to write estimates in a way that couched things so they said , We may not always be right , but we re never wrong , said Tim Weiner , the reporter for The Times who wrote the award-winning history of the C.I.A. , Legacy of Ashes
This is a slam-dunk reversal , admitting error
Now , when they play poker , they show their hands to each other , so they don t get another Curveball
The president , who has shut out reality for seven years , justified continuing in his world of ideological illusion by saying that he would not be blinded to the realities of the world
You can t get more Orwellian than that
And so , W. concluded triumphantly , and nonsensically , kind of Psychology 101 ain t working
W. loves to act as though psychology is voodoo even though his whole misbegotten foreign policy has been conducted from his gut , by checking the body language of his inner circle and looking into the hearts and souls of dictatorial leaders
If I were looking at the latest fiasco from a Psych 101 point of view , I d say it was another daddy issue for W. Poppy Bush , who was once C.I.A. director , loved the agency and liked to sign notes : Head Spook
The C.I.A. headquarters bear his name
W. , by contrast , has voiced contempt for the intelligence community
In 2004 , he dismissed a pessimistic National Intelligence Estimate that didn t match his sunny vision of the Iraq occupation , saying that the analysts were just guessing as to what the conditions might be like
When W. s history is written , he will be seen as the rebellious teenager crashing the family station wagon into his father s three most cherished spots diplomacy , intelligence and the Gulf
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Listen to McCain -LRB- Mrs. -RRB- Not with Sousa or the theme from `` Patton .
The band - drawn from the 101st Airborne Division and called Nuts after General McAuliffe 's rebuttal to a German surrender ultimatum - jammed to a more resonant tune
The young female soldier who is the lead singer belted out `` I Kissed A Girl '' - Katy Perry 's ode to Sapphic smooching
The lyrics about `` the taste of her cherry Chapstick '' and `` just human nature '' offered a cheeky counterpoint to the weighty debate going on half-a-world away as the Senate Armed Services Committee hashed over questions of human nature and sexual tension
In two days of `` do n't ask , do n't tell '' hearings , senators discussed the knotty issue of whether gays and straights in the military could shower together without losing battles
Once again , the Democrats waited too long to close the deal , the president showed no leadership , and a campaign promise that was seen as a fait accompli now seems a casualty
Even after a Pentagon report showing that most troops and their families think that allowing gays and lesbians to be themselves would not be a big deal , even after the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged the Senate to repeal the law that demands dishonesty , Democrats were still fending off a snarling John McCain and a few unreconstructed Southerners
Senator Carl Levin , chairman of the committee , was eager to show that a gay soldier could be just as lethal as a straight one
He read a quote from the Pentagon report : `` As one Special Operations force warfighter told us , ` We have a gay guy -LRB- in the unit -RRB-
He 's big , he 's mean , and he kills lots of bad guys
No one cared that he was gay . '
Levin read the quote to Gen. James Amos , the commandant of the Marines , who are the most resistant to gays serving openly
`` I do n't doubt , '' the general replied , `` that at any given base or combat outpost that we 'll find men and women that are out there just exactly like that Special Operations soldier , Marine , sailor , whoever he was .
Yet General Amos said that because of `` the very tough fight in Afghanistan , the almost singular focus of our combat forces as they train up and deploy into theater , the necessary tightly woven culture of those combat forces , '' he would recommend against the repeal right now
McCain stressed that we should not make this sort of change while we 're in a bad economy and two long-running wars
So gay Americans who risk their lives get endlessly oppressed because chest-beating straight guys in the Bush era continued deregulation and careened into endless combat missions - and not even in the country hosting Osama bin Laden
Some Republicans complained about what Senator Scott Brown called `` implementing social change in the middle of two battles .
But those battles were designed to implement social change in Islamic countries on an epic scale
In yet another ludicrous bit of goal-post shifting , McCain said it was n't enough that the top two leaders of the military , and many of the troops , favored repeal
Now he wants to hold 13 hearings and solicit the views of senior enlisted personnel around the world , even though , as the Army chief , Gen. George Casey Jr. , dryly informed the panel , the military is not a democracy
The five service chiefs agreed that , if asked , they could successfully carry out the changes
It 's unclear why McCain is being so stubborn and stalling , particularly when those closest to him - his wife , his daughter and his cloakroom buddy Joe Lieberman - have all boldly spoken out on behalf of gays in the military
It seems a sore point at home : Meghan McCain said the topic would be off-limits at Thanksgiving
And Lieberman , following an indignant McCain on the panel Thursday , asserted , `` It 's just wrong and un-American to discriminate against people based on their sexual orientation .
Senator Brown , a lieutenant colonel and a J.A.G. lawyer in the Army National Guard , recalled a visit to Walter Reed , where he `` saw a soldier who lost both his legs , lost an arm and lost most of another arm , doing crunches , you know , to try to get his torso strengthened enough so he could still have a viable , you know , and fulfilling life .
He said he did not care if that man , or the other heroes and fallen fighters , were gay or straight
`` I just wanted to know if they gave their limb or their life , you know , with pride and with honor for our country , '' he said
Later , he put out a statement saying he supports the repeal
Tale of two Republicans : In his own fuzzy way , the Massachusetts newcomer was eloquent and inclusive
And in his own grumpy way , the Arizona old-timer was erratic and intolerant
Gays are n't risking dying because they 're dying to do makeovers and make-outs in the barracks
They 're going to adapt and fit in
They 're good at that because they 've had to be
They were both elegant and entitled swans , insulated in guarded enclaves , obsessed with protecting and promoting the Brand
Then trouble trespassed into their privileged worlds and both responded the same foolish way
They presumptuously put themselves beyond authority and , despite all the public relations support on earth , broke the first rule of scandal : Do n't stonewall
Admit your mistake before others piece together the embarrassing facts
Reflexive clampdowns do n't work in an era when privacy is pass and when some media outlets are out there giving cash incentives for true confessions and fake reality
Some in the press still care about free speech ; others are willing to pay for it
Tiger Woods and Desiree Rogers are perfectionist high-achievers brought low
They both ran into that ubiquitous modern buzz saw of glossy celebrity wannabes Vegas parasites and Washington parvenus
Tiger , titan of the tees , drove into a hazard when he refused to talk to the Florida police and come cleaner , earlier
Desiree , queen of social networking , did n't properly R.S.V.P. to the House Homeland Security Committee investigating the gate-crasher incident
Even if Desiree thought Congress was grandstanding , it was goofy of her to use the Constitution to get out of a Congressional summons
The Obama White House is morphing into the Bush White House with frightening speed
Its transparency is already fogged up
The smart thing would have been for Desiree to sail up to Congress , wearing designer sackcloth and pearls of remorse , apologize for the oversight at her first state dinner and promise it would n't happen again
It just made her look weaker that she could n't simply accept some blame publicly for what happened at a dinner she was in charge of , and draw the heat away from the First Family she serves
She 's no G. Gordon Liddy
Congress being Congress , they would have lapped it up and let her off the hook
Instead , she let the Secret Service director , Mark Sullivan , go up alone and take the rap
As a Republican congressman , Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania , tartly noted : `` We always expect the Secret Service to take a bullet for the president ; we do n't expect the Secret Service to take a bullet for the president 's staff .
Both the golf diva and the social diva mistakenly think the rules need not apply to them
Never mind the White House 's absurdly asserting executive privilege to dismiss a faux pas
It was the assertion of personal privilege by Tiger and Desiree that was so off-putting
After the baseball steroid scandal and the disappointing news that Tiger 's a cheetah , as the New York Post headline put it , it 's time to accept that athletes are not role models
They 're just models for everything from sports drinks to running shoes to razor blades to credit cards to peanut butter to Buicks to Wheaties
Tiger may have been the greatest pro golfer but he was an amateur adulterer
His puffed-up ego led him to leave an electronic trail with a string of buffed and puffed babes
Like so many politicians before him , Tiger ignored the obvious rule : Never get involved with women who have 8-by-10 glossies
His voice mail message asking a girlfriend to take her name off her phone in case his wife called her will have fans snickering for a long time , just as the White House failure to stop the Salahis from Salahing their way past security checkpoints will leave people smirking for a while
Both Tiger and Desiree hid and stayed silent because they mistakenly thought they were protecting the Brand
But despite their marketing savvy , these two controlling players spiraled out of control
They made the same colossal error in opposite ways
She mistook herself for the principal , sashaying around and posing in magazines as though she were the first lady , rather than a staffer whose job is to stay behind the scenes and make her bosses look good
-LRB- Even if Barack Obama is a brand , Desiree should n't talk like the First Marketer or call him a brand and she definitely should n't refer to it in a proprietary way as `` we . ''
He is the principal
But he forgot that he 's no longer a solo brand
He has been marketing himself since he turned pro and 21 in 1996 , becoming a billionaire with endorsement deals with Nike , American Express , Titleist and the two Generals , Mills and Motors
But once he served up the fairy tale wedding with the Swedish beauty and had two kids , his value was in family and his projection of family values
Now all we have left to look up to is Derek Jeter
Pass the Caribou Stew The female caribou could easily have escaped , since it took the Wasilla huntress six shots , two rifles and some help from her dad to bag her prey
-LRB- Giving credence to Levi Johnston 's contention that she is n't all that proficient with guns .
But , inexplicably , the caribou just waited to get gunned down by Sarah Palin , who came across less like a pioneer woman than Private Benjamin with her camo , her French manicured nails , her cap that says -LRB- in pink -RRB- Girls And Guns , her 72-year-old father and her TLC reality show crew
Sarah checked her freezer at home before she flew 600 miles to the Arctic , trying to justify her contention that she needs to hunt to eat
Was n't it already stocked with those halibuts she clubbed and gutted in an earlier show
`` My dad has taught me that if you want to have wild , organic , healthy food , '' she pontificated , `` you 're gonna go out there and hunt yourself and fish yourself and you 're gonna fill up your freezer .
Does Palin really think the average housewife in Ohio who ca n't pay her bills is going to load up on ammo , board two different planes , camp out for two nights with a film crew and shoot a caribou so she can feed her family organic food
It 's amazing that Palin patronized Neiman Marcus during the campaign
Could n't she have spun cloth to sew her own clothes
Hunting seems more sporting with birds - at least they have a better chance to get away
Unless the hunter is Dick Cheney , who would shoot pheasants that were pen-raised and released from a net to make slaughtering them easier
The poor caribou in the Arctic Circle , a cousin to Santa 's reindeer , had to die so Palin could show off her toughness to voters and try to boost ratings on her show that have slipped since its premiere
-LRB- Next Sunday , she 's dragging up nine Gosselins to go shooting and camping .
Sarah 's view of America is primitive
You 're either a pointy-headed graduate of Harvard Law School or you 're eviscerating animals for fun , which she presents as somehow more authentic
In movies with animals , they often have a line in the credits assuring that no animals were harmed
In `` Sarah Palin 's Alaska , '' they should have a line at the end assuring that `` almost every living creature involved in this show was harmed .
The caribou that waited too pliantly in the cross hairs is doomed to become stew for Palin and an allegory for politics
The elegant animal standing above the fray , dithering rather than charging at his foes or outmaneuvering them , is Obambi
Even with a rifle aimed at him , he 's trying to be the most reasonable mammal in the scene , mammalian bipartisan , and rise above what he sees as empty distinctions between the species so that we can all unite at a higher level of being
Palin 's father advises her to warm up her trigger finger
And trigger-happy Sarah represents the Republicans , who have spent two years taking shots at the president , including potshots , and tormenting him in an effort to bring him down
The Republicans think they have hurt their quarry on the tax-cut deal , making him look weak and at odds with his party
There 's an argument to be made for what the president did , but he does n't look good doing it
When all the Democrats are complaining and all the Republicans are happy , it just ca n't be a good deal for Democrats
Obama gave up on a big principle , and Democrats showed - again - they ca n't win the message war
Republicans proved that , while they do n't have the House -LRB- for now -RRB- , the Senate or the White House , they 're still running things
Obama used to play poker in the Illinois Legislature , but it 's hard to believe
First , he cried uncle to Republicans standing in the corner , holding their breath and turning blue
Then , in his White House press conference , he was defensive , a martyr for the middle class
He said he must compromise at times as he follows `` a North Star .
It was odd , given that Palin uses North Star as a code name , her own `` city on the hill '' reference , and an allusion to God
The president said he could n't stick to his guns , even though most Americans agreed with him , because Republicans feel that this is their holy grail : `` the single most important thing that they have to fight for as a party .
But is n't helping those in need rather than gilding the rich a holy grail for Democrats
Does he think for a second that the Republicans will relent and be more reasonable in two years
If he believes he can go out in 2012 and attack the Republicans when the political stakes are much higher , why could n't he do it now
It 's not that hard to explain to Americans in distress that the protection of vast fortunes should not be the priority of government
When I was a kid , we used to drive on the Beltway past the big Mormon temple outside Washington
The spires rose up like a white Oz , and some wag had spray-painted the message on a bridge beneath : '' Surrender Dorothy !
It did seem like an alien world , an impression that was enhanced when we took a tour of the temple and saw all the women wearing white outfits and light pink lipstick
Of course , it was no more scary than scowling nuns with long rulers preaching about the virgin birth , the Holy Ghost and the hideous fates that would befall girls who wore too much makeup or French-kissed
You 'd think Catholics , who watched with trepidation as J.F.K. battled prejudice , would be sympathetic to Mitt Romney
But even for those of us in religions that were once considered cults by other religions -- my mom and another Catholic girlfriend actually had Southern Protestants ask them to lift up their hair so they could see the mark of the devil or the horns -- Mormonism is opaque
Now in addition to asking candidates about boxers or briefs , we have reporters asking Mitt Romney if he wears The Garment , the sacred one-piece , knee-length underwear with Mormon markings and strict disposal rules .
I 'll just say those sorts of things I 'll keep private , '' he told The Atlantic
One of my Republican brothers told me he wished he could vote for '' a Protestant Mitt Romney .
The founder of Mormonism , Joseph Smith , who ran for president the year before he died , was a lusty , charismatic Prospero
In '' Under the Banner of Heaven , '' a best seller about the Mormon faith , Jon Krakauer wrote that Smith was so full of charm , enthusiasm and imagination that '' he could sell a muzzle to a dog .
Not wanting to be a debt-ridden farmer like his dad , young Joseph came of age in Palmyra , in western New York
He was , Mr. Krakauer wrote , '' attempting to divine the location of buried treasure by means of black magic and crystal gazing .
When he was 17 , Joseph said , an angel named Moroni came to his bedroom to tell him about some gold tablets that had been buried 1,400 years earlier under a nearby rock
Joseph said he translated hieroglyphics on the tablets using special glasses provided by Moroni , and this became the Book of Mormon
After marrying a passel of women , some as young as 14 , he had a divine revelation about polygamy that steamed his original wife , Emma .
Emma harangued Joseph so relentlessly about his philandering , '' Mr. Krakauer wrote , '' that the original intent of the revelation canonized as Section 132 seems to have been simply to persuade Emma to shut up and accept his plural wives -- while at the same time compelling her to refrain from indulging in any extracurricular sex herself .
I called Mr. Krakauer -- who also wrote the best sellers '' Into Thin Air '' and '' Into the Wild '' -- to get his opinion of Mitt 's religion speech
Mormons see themselves as the one true religion , and do n't buy all of the New Testament , he said , '' which makes it curious why Mitt thinks evangelical Christians are his allies .
Asked Thursday by Diane Sawyer on '' Good Morning America '' if he thought Mormons were Christians , Richard Land , an official of the Southern Baptist Convention , replied , '' No , I do not .
Mr. Krakauer can envision a Mormon making an '' excellent president . ''
The Mormon approach to family life is amazing , and there are a lot of good things about the faith , '' he said
But he worries that '' the Mormon Church , while more welcoming , is still not a place that grants women and blacks equal status , and it 's a terrible place to be gay
The leadership is authoritarian , male , white and absolutely intolerant of dissent .
The problem with Mitt is not his religion ; it is his overeager policy shape-shifting
He did not give a brave speech , but a pandering one
Disguised as a courageous , Kennedyesque statement of principle , the talk was really just an attempt to compete with the evolution-disdaining , religion-baiting Huckabee and get Baptists to concede that Mormons are Christians .
J.F.K. 's speech was to reassure Americans that he was n't a religious fanatic , '' Mr. Krakauer agreed .
Mitt 's was to tell evangelical Christians , ` I 'm a religious fanatic just like you . ''
The backdrop , he said , is '' the wickedly fierce competition between Mormons and Southern evangelicals to convert people .
The world is globalizing , nuclear weapons are proliferating , the Middle East is seething , but Republicans are still arguing the Scopes trial
Mitt was right when he said that '' Americans do not respect believers of convenience .
Now if he would only admit he 's describing himself
`` Apparently you ca n't have numbers in your name in the U.K. , so I had to do Roman numerals , '' the DreamWorks global stereoscopic supervisor told me
`` My dad was n't impressed
Parents are very possessive of the names they give you .
Captain 3-D , a 42-year-old Northern Ireland native , is also known as the resident `` hurl-o-meter '' at DreamWorks , the guy who goes through every frame to adjust the amount of depth , dial the intensity up or down , and fix the right-eye\/left-eye camera settings so that moviegoers can enjoy dragons skydiving past them without having to turn their popcorn bags into motion-sickness bags
`` I am certain that it is not good to be in a business in which the result of what you do is to make people hurl , '' says Jeffrey Katzenberg , the C.E.O. of DreamWorks Animation
Because 3-D gels in the brain , the Captain spends his time seeking an equipoise where objects can fly around without making you dizzy a synchronicity that has a technical name that sounds like a spy thriller : `` the zero parallax setting .
As we realized watching James Cameron 's `` Avatar '' explode into the highest-grossing film of all time , 3-D technology has come a long way since it was the butt of jokes on `` I Love Lucy '' and a gimmick with polarized glasses in the '50s horror classics `` House of Wax '' and `` Creature From the Black Lagoon .
`` I 've always referred to it as my father 's 3-D , '' Katzenberg says with a grin , `` where we used to wear those goofy red-and-blue glasses that you did n't want to actually turn and have somebody that you know , care about , or lust after look at you because you would be deeply humiliated , right ?
I had coffee with Katzenberg in Los Angeles recently because ever since he was `` blown away '' by seeing `` The Polar Express '' in an Imax theater , he has emerged as one of his industry 's biggest 3-D boosters , even when it meant rooting for Cameron 's blockbuster for another studio
He knows that a 3-D revolution would be great for his business by spurring people to desert their home entertainment centers and actually go into theaters
It 's rare in this economy , he notes , for people to opt for `` the more expensive , higher-end experience first .
Echoing the King of the World , Captain 3-D observes that `` the struggle of movies has always been to transport viewers to a virtual world .
Directors simply have to get past their denial
`` They 've spent their whole lives eliminating 3-D to make theatrical 2-D , '' he said , `` and now they 've got to go from real-life 3-D into theatrical 3-D .
Katzenberg says that `` if you look at the history of film , there have now been three great revolutions
The first was silent to talkies
The second was black-and-white to color , 70 years ago
And this is the third great revolution , a quantum leap
We 're at the top of the waterfall with 3-D
And this is going to cascade down into virtually every facet of our lives where we are encountering video imagery or even photography .
The 3-D market is popping
Studios are fighting over 3-D theater space and are well aware that the handful of new 3-D movies made in the last year represented a disproportionate chunk of the box office
Burberry is planning to live-stream a catwalk from London in 3-D
ESPN and Discovery Channel both plan on beaming 3-D into homes , and the porn industry is nuzzling the new technology
Tinto Brass , the 76-year-old Italian director of `` Caligula , '' said he wants to overhaul his original and make the first 3-D porn feature
-LRB- What 's next
A chain of adult movie theaters called Cl-Imax ?
Katzenberg envisions a world where you can process so many pixels into space that we 'll all be watching 3-D TVs -LRB- without glasses in 10 to 20 years -RRB- and seeing every big-scale movie not to mention every poster or painting you walk by on a wall in 3-D
Even Sandra Bullock comedies or dramas like `` The Godfather ''
`` Absolutely , '' he replied
But both Katzenberg and the Captain concede that some movies may be too action-packed or intense yes , they 're talking about you , Michael Bay and Martin Scorsese to be experienced in 3-D because , as McNally says , `` carrying that much data into the brain is not an enjoyable situation .
Like his boss , the Captain thinks we are on the cusp of being immersed in a virtual world akin to lucid dreaming or the Star Trek holodeck , `` where you start with a blank room and you are transported to a whole world of all the senses .
Just as we had to be dragged into acknowledging that sound and color made movies more realistic , now we must get accustomed to films where , with apologies to a colleague , the world is not flat
Tim Geithner , the learned and laconic civil servant and financial engineer , did not sweep in and infuse our shaky psyches with confidence
For starters , the 47-year-old 's voice kept cracking
Escorting us over the rickety , foggy bridge from TARP to Son of TARP by way of TALF do n't ask Geithner did not , as the president said when he drew on the wisdom of Fred Astaire , inspire us to pick ourselves up , dust ourselves off and start all over again
The Obama crowd is hung up on the same issues that the Bush crew was hung up on last September : Which of the potentially $ 2 or $ 3 trillion in toxic assets will the taxpayers buy and what will we pay for them
Despite the touting , the Treasury chief unveiled a plan short on illumination , recrimination , fine points and foreclosure closure
The Dow collapsed on its fainting couch as Sports Illustrated swimsuit models rang the closing bell
It was n't only that Geithner 's own tax history and his time as head of the New York Fed when all the bad stuff was happening on Wall Street , and when he left with nearly a half-million in severance makes him a dubious messenger for the president 's pledge to keep the haves from further betraying the have-nots
It was n't only that Americans ' already threadbare trust has been ripped by Hank Paulson 's mumbo-jumbo and the Democrats ' bad judgment in accessorizing the stimulus bill with Grammy-level `` bling , bling , '' as the R.N.C. chairman , Michael Steele , called it
The problem is that the `` lost faith '' that Geithner talked about in his announcement Tuesday can not be restored as long as the taxpayers who are funding these wayward banks do n't have more control
Geithner is not even requiring the banks to lend in return for the $ 2 trillion his program will try to marshal , mostly by having the Fed print money out of thin air , thereby diluting our money , or borrowing more from China
-LRB- When , exactly , can China foreclose on us and start sending us toxic toys again ?
There 's a weaselly feel to the plan , a sense that tough decisions were postponed even as President Obama warns about our `` perfect storm of financial problems .
The outrage is going only one way , as we pony up trillion after trillion
Geithner is coddling the banks , setting it up so that either we 'll have to pay the banks inflated prices for poison assets or subsidize investors to pay the banks for poison assets
As Steve Labaton and Ed Andrews wrote in The Times on Tuesday , Geithner won an internal battle with David Axelrod and other Obama aides who wanted to impose pay caps on every employee at institutions taking the bailout and set stricter guidelines on how federal money is spent
Geithner prevailed over those who wanted to kick out negligent bank executives and wipe out shareholders at institutions receiving aid
In a move that would have made his mentor , Robert Rubin , proud , Geithner beat back the populists and protected the economic royalists
The new plan offers insufficient meddling with Wall Street , even though Wall Street shows no sign that the hardscrabble economy has pierced its Herm s-swathed world
Wells Fargo , for instance , which has leeched $ 25 billion in bailout money , bought an inadvertently hilarious full-page ad in The Times to whinge about the junkets to Las Vegas and elsewhere it was forced to cancel because of public outrage
-LRB- The ad in The Times on Sunday could have cost up to $ 200,000 , which may count as a bailout for our industry .
`` Okay , time out
Something does n't feel right , '' John Stumpf , the president and chief executive of Wells Fargo wrote in an open letter defending their two decades of four-day employee recognition `` events .
Calling them junkets or boondoggles is `` nonsense , '' he protested , adding about his employees : `` This recognition energizes them .
In this economy , simply having a job should energize them
Geithner is wrong
The pay of all the employees in bailed-out banks , not just top executives , should be capped
And these impervious , imperial suits who squander taxpayers ' money after dragging the country over the cliff should all be fired preferably when they come to D.C. on Wednesday in a phony show of populism on Amtrak and the shuttle to testify before Barney Frank
Wall Street can not be trusted to change its culture
Just look at the full-page ads that Bank of America -LRB- which got $ 45 billion -RRB- and Citigroup -LRB- which got $ 50 billion -RRB- are plastering in newspapers , lavishing taxpayer money on preening prose
We do n't want our money spent , as Citigroup did , to pat itself on the back `` as we navigate the complexities together .
Bank of America can not get back our trust by spending more of our cash to assure us that it 's `` getting to work '' on getting back our trust
Just get back to work and start repaying us
Elaine Sirkis , 77 , an Obama supporter , confided that she just is n't sure she 's ready for a woman president
Betty Conway , 83 , a Hillary supporter , confided that she just is n't sure she 's ready for a black president
As Conway walked away , Sirkis smiled sheepishly
`` I 'm sorry , '' she told Berman sweetly about her friend
`` She 's a bigot .
We 're not just in the most vertiginous election of our lives
We 're in another national seminar on gender and race that is teaching us about who we are as we figure out what we want America to be
It 's not yet clear which prejudice will infect the presidential contest more misogyny or racism
Many women I talk to , even those who are n't particularly fond of Hillary , feel empathy for her , knowing that any woman in a world dominated by men has to walk a tightrope between femininity and masculinity , strength and vulnerability
They see double standards they hate when male reporters described Hillary 's laugh as `` a cackle '' or her voice as `` grating , '' when Rush Limbaugh goes off on her wrinkles or when male pundits seem gleeful to write her political obituary
Several women I know , who argue with their husbands about Hillary , refer with a shudder to the `` Kill the Witch '' syndrome
In a webcast , prestidigitator Penn Jillette talks about a joke he has begun telling in his show
He thinks the thunderous reaction it gets from audiences shows that Hillary no longer has a shot
The joke goes : `` Obama is just creaming Hillary
You know , all these primaries , you know
And Hillary says it 's not fair , because they 're being held in February , and February is Black History Month
And unfortunately for Hillary , there 's no White Bitch Month .
Of course , jokes like that even Jillette admits it 's offensive are exactly what may give Hillary a shot
When the usually invulnerable Hillary seems vulnerable , many women , even ones who do n't want her to win , cringe at the idea of seeing her publicly humiliated again
And since women and some men tend to be more protective when she is down , it is impossible to rule out a rally , especially if voters start to see Obama , after his eight-contest rout , as that maddening archetypal figure : the glib golden boy who slides through on charm and a smile
Those close to Hillary say she 's feeling blue
It 's an unbearable twist of fate to spend all those years in the shadow of one Secretariat , only to have another gallop past while you 're plodding toward the finish line
I know that the attacks against powerful women can be harsh and personal and unfair , enough to make anyone cry
But Hillary is not the best test case for women
We 'll never know how much of the backlash is because she 's a woman or because she 's this woman or because of the ick factor of returning to the old Clinton dysfunction
While Obama aims to transcend race , Hillary often aims to use gender to her advantage , or to excuse mistakes
In 1994 , after her intransigence and secrecy-doomed health care plan , she told The Wall Street Journal that she was `` a gender Rorschach test .
`` If somebody has a female boss for the first time , and they 've never experienced that , '' she said , `` well , maybe they ca n't take out their hostility against her so they turn it on me .
As a possible first Madame President , Hillary is a flawed science experiment because you ca n't take Bill out of the equation
Her story is wrapped up in her marriage , and her marriage is wrapped up in a series of unappetizing compromises , arrangements and dependencies
Instead of carving out a separate identity for herself , she has become more entwined with Bill
She is running bolstered by his record and his muscle
She touts her experience as first lady , even though her judgment during those years on issue after issue was poor
She says she 's learned from her mistakes , but that 's not a compelling pitch
As a senator , she was not a leading voice on important issues , and her Iraq vote was about her political viability
She told New York magazine 's John Heilemann that before Iowa taught her that she had to show her soft side , `` I really believed I had to prove in this race from the very beginning that a woman could be president and a woman could be commander in chief
I thought that was my primary mission .
If Hillary fails , it will be her failure , not ours
Simply the Worst At least McNamara felt sorry at the end for all those lives and limbs lost because of his colossal misjudgments and cretinous refusal to admit mistakes
`` We do not have the God-given right to shape every nation in our image or as we choose , '' a penitent McNamara said
By contrast , when Diane Sawyer asked Rumsfeld last week if he ever revisited decisions that cost lives , he blandly replied , `` Well , you know , in a war , many things cost lives .
Goodness , gracious , stuff happens
As a Republican congressman in the Johnson era and a Nixon White House official , Rummy had a front-row seat to the ego-driven bungling on Vietnam
But unlike McNamara , who said that the U.S. repeated Vietnam 's moral , political , economic and cultural mistakes in Iraq , Rumsfeld is still blinded by ego
As part of his `` Je ne regret rien pas '' book tour , the 78-year-old former defense secretary stopped by the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday , where he got the group 's annual `` Defender of the Constitution '' award
Only another person with such an ironic spin on the phrase `` Defender of the Constitution '' could present the award , of course , so Dick Cheney popped by to give it to his old pal
Cheney 's entrance music was Tina Turner 's `` Simply the Best , '' also favored by Ricky Gervais for motivational speeches in the British version of `` The Office .
When supporters of Ron and Rand Paul heckled the crusty pair - yelling `` draft dodger '' at Cheney , `` Where 's bin Laden ?
at Rumsfeld , and `` war criminal '' at both - Cheney blithely ordered them to `` Sit down and shut up .
Noting that his friend was both the youngest and oldest defense secretary , Cheney said , `` Maybe if we give him a third term he 'll get it right .
Rummy was still full of vinegar as he taunted President Obama for the conservatives
Looking at the administration 's many `` reversals of their announced policies on national security issues - Guant namo Bay , military commissions , indefinite detention , CIA drone strikes , '' he said , it makes me wonder if Dick has had more influence on President Obama than the people that got him elected .
He is still oblivious about how wrong it was to shunt aside Afghanistan and goose up reasons to go careering into Iraq , which he felt had easier-to-hit targets and easier-to-find villains
He does n't agree with the `` If you break it , you own it '' theory
He thinks you can break it and just leave and not get bogged down in trying to build democratic dream countries
Rummy 's memoir , `` Known and Unknown , '' is an unnerving reminder of how the Iraq hawks took crazy conditionals and turned them into urgent imperatives to justify what the defense chief termed `` anticipatory self-defense .
At `` Rumsfeld.com , '' the author has put up an archive of records and memos
One , marked `` SECRET '' and declassified last month at his request , is dated Sept. 9 , 2002
That was after his P.R. roll-out to the March 2003 Iraq invasion was under way
The subject line reads `` WMD .
Secretary Rumsfeld is sending a secret report that he received a few days earlier to Gen. Richard Myers , chairman of the Joint Chiefs , asking : `` Please take a look at this material as to what we do n't know about WMD
It is big .
The attachment is from Major Gen. Glen Shaffer , then the director for intelligence for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense , responding to Rummy 's request to know the `` unknowns '' about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction
`` We range from 0 % to about 75 % knowledge on various aspects of their program , '' Shaffer wrote
Unfortunately , the 0 % had to do with actual weapons
`` Our assessments rely heavily on analytic assumptions and judgment rather than hard evidence , '' the report said
`` The evidentiary base is particularly sparse for Iraqi nuclear programs .
It added : `` We do n't know with any precision how much we do n't know .
And continued : `` We do not know if they have purchased , or attempted to purchase , a nuclear weapon
We do not know with confidence the location of any nuclear weapon-related facilities
Our knowledge of the Iraqi nuclear weapons program is based largely - perhaps 90 % - on analysis of imprecise intelligence .
On biological weapons : `` We can not confirm the identity of any Iraqi facilities that produce , test , fill , or store biological weapons , '' the report said , adding : `` We believe Iraq has 7 mobile BW agent production plants but can not locate them ... our knowledge of how and where they are produced is probably up to 90 % incomplete .
On chemical weapons : `` We can not confirm the identity of any Iraqi sites that produce final chemical agent .
And on ballistic missile programs they had `` little missile-specific data .
Somehow that was twisted into `` a slam-dunk .
You go to war with the army you have , but the facts you want
But when he saw that Cheney was going on ABC 's Sunday morning show with Jonathan Karl , he braved the ultimate lion 's den
He took Jonathan Alter 's advice in Newsweek and called the former vice president to set up a private meeting in the Oval Office , hoping to use any combination of diplomacy and tongue-lashing that would make Cheney quit calling him weak
Obama invited Bob Gates to the Saturday summit
Gates , after all , had originally been brought in as defense secretary by W. to be a common-sense counterbalance to the batty Cheney
The president prides himself on winning over hostile audiences , but this challenge would give a peacock pause
The three men sat before the fire in the Oval
OBAMA : Look , Dick , you 've called me out on various particulars
And I have no problem with that
That 's politics
You thought Khalid Shaikh Mohammed should not be tried in New York City , and that 's fine
And we both know that any blowhard can call me weak
But you 're not just any blowhard , Dick
You were the architect of America 's defense against terrorism
And when those folks sitting in a cave in Waziristan hear you chest-thumping , saying our guard is down , they think , `` Hey , this might be a good time to attack .
You believe in the unitary executive
You believe that if the president says something is in the national security interest of the U.S. , then it is
So I am the president now , and I 'm telling you that you need to put a sock in it
CHENEY : What are you going to do about it , Hussein
Mirandize me
GATES : Dick , the president 's right
When a former vice president calls a new president weak , it emboldens terrorists
CHENEY -LRB- contemptuously looking at Gates with his one-sided smile -RRB- : If you take the king 's coin , you sing the king 's song
OBAMA : You keep saying there were no terror attacks after 9\/11 , Dick
That 's like saying that blimps were safe after the Hindenburg
I would n't have been caught flat-footed reading `` The Pet Goat '' to second graders
CHENEY : No , you 'd have been teaching a graduate seminar on `` The Pet Goat .
Do n't you Muslims eat pet goats
OBAMA -LRB- shaking head in disgust -RRB- : You have the audacity to say I 'm `` pretending '' we 're not at war
You let the Taliban regroup
I sent 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan
I 've quadrupled the number of drone attacks in Pakistan
The prisoners who returned to terrorism after being released from Gitmo did so under your watch
You released one of the terrorists behind the foiled Christmas Day plot into an art therapy program in Saudi Arabia
Nice work , Dr. Phil
CHENEY : You 're such a Nervous Nellie you ca n't even use the words `` war , '' `` win , '' `` terrorism , '' `` enemy combatant , '' `` Bomb Iran , '' `` Fire Eric Holder '' or `` Fire John Brennan .
OBAMA : You and W. liked Brennan well enough to put him in charge of the National Counterterrorism Center
And I did n't want an attorney general who was a rubber stamp on torture
CHENEY : The tea partiers agree with me about torture , and that 's why you 're already over , Mr. Charisma
First you lost Teddy Kennedy 's seat
Now you 've lost his kid
Scott Brown will wipe the floor with you in Pennsylvania and Ohio
GATES : Speaking of Scott , the new 41 , why ca n't you be classy in retirement like the original 41 , Dick
CHENEY : Scott 's an All-American winner Sarah Palin with better legs and less sarcasm
And the hair extensions make her seem even more phony
OBAMA : Consensus , at last
CHENEY : You , on the other hand , have about as much hair on your chest as a hairless Chihuahua
Michelle has the biceps in this family
OBAMA : Michelle is campaigning against obesity
You might listen up on that , Dick
At least the women in my family are n't Mini-Me 's trash-talking about the commander in chief
CHENEY -LRB- growling -RRB- : Liz and I are right
You 're on the terrorist team
GATES : Calm down , Dick
You do n't want to end up in the hospital like poor Bill Clinton
CHENEY : Joe Biden 's going to end up in the hospital if he brags again that Iraq will `` be one of the greatest achievements '' of your administration
OBAMA : If I do n't get re-elected , it will be because you ruined the country beyond even my ability to rescue it
Remember when you said deficits do n't matter , Dick
CHENEY : Stop whining , Mr. Radical Chic
You wo n't get a second term because you 're letting America fall into second place
Put that in your teleprompter
OBAMA : Why do n't you go help W. with Haiti instead of spewing paranoia
CHENEY -LRB- stomping out -RRB- : Is that your Indonesian birth certificate in the Oval vault
GATES : So , that went well
The new president is so elegant , and so full of comity , even to his foes , that when he is simply a tad ungracious , it jumps out
At his news conference last Monday , Mr. Obama was asked by Fox 's Major Garrett about the vice president 's startling assertion that even if he and the president do `` everything right , '' `` there 's still a 30 percent chance we 're going to get it wrong .
Admittedly , it must be an adjustment for the president , a detached observer who `` travels light , '' as friends put it , to be yoked to such a garrulous social animal
It ca n't be easy for someone with a highly defined superego to be bound to the wacky Biden id , for one so disciplined to be tied to one so undisciplined , for a man so coolly unsentimental to be paired with someone so exuberantly sentimental
And yet , the minute the president began to laugh and answer Garrett , I feared Joe would be the butt
`` I do n't remember exactly what Joe was referring to , '' said Mr. Obama , who could n't resist adding , `` not surprisingly .
It was the `` not surprisingly '' that was surprisingly snarky
The president had already used his `` disappointed parent '' routine with Mr. Biden in public , looking reproachful and tapping Joe on the back when he made a benign joke , as he swore in White House staffers , about his memory not being as good as Chief Justice John Roberts 's
Chastened , he called Justice Roberts afterward to apologize
After the election , when Mr. Obama made a mild joke about Nancy Reagan and s ances , Mr. Biden , who was on stage as well , did not wince at his partner in public or tap him like a strict nun
When Mr. Biden indulges in his rhetorical overkill of repeating the same phrase three times the proud men and women of Scranton , he said at a recent appearance with the president , `` wanted the government to understand their problem , to understand their problem , be cognizant of the problem '' Mr. Obama has an air of suppressed annoyance , like an editor dying to take a red pencil to a long-winded writer
-LRB- It 's an air you never see when the president appears next to more like-minded , self-contained souls like Tim Geithner .
Mr. Biden 's stream of consciousness can be impolitic
Politico 's Glenn Thrush refers to `` the human political polygraph that is Joseph Robinette Biden .
It can also be bracingly honest
Joe is nothing if not loyal
And the president should return that quality , and not leave his lieutenant vulnerable to `` Odd Couple '' parodies
On a recent `` Saturday Night Live '' skit , Jason Sudeikis 's Biden leaned over Fred Armisen 's Obama , to tell Americans : `` Look , I know $ 819 billion sounds like a lot of money
But it 's just a tip of the iceberg .
Armisen 's clenched Obama murmurs : `` Could n't pick Hillary
I just could n't .
`` Uh , Mr. President , Joe Biden said something yesterday about how you two will eventually destroy the world , forever
Care to comment ?
`` Oh , that 's just the vice president
We all know he 's mentally unbalanced , right , guys
Ha ha ha ha
But seriously : He 's nuts , please keep him away from sharp objects .
Obama advisers say that the two men get on well and that the president wants his second 's candid advice
Mr. Biden considers Mr. Obama inclusive
But some aides joke about the care and feeding of Mr. Biden 's ego , and kid about the way the vice president clings to the president 's schedule
Mr. Biden puts out guidance about his schedule a refreshing change from the black hole of Cheney
-LRB- He has also added a sitting area in his office , something the unilateral Cheney never needed , and has turned up the temperature in the vice president 's house from the chilly Cheney-mandated 62 .
Obama aides say the president went out of his way to stroke the vice president who felt he helped interpret the exotic Obama for the hoi polloi during the campaign by putting him in charge of a middle-class working families task force
Still , the president should brush up on his Jane Austen
When Emma Woodhouse belittles Miss Bates , an older and poorer friend , at a picnic , Mr. Knightly pulls her aside to remonstrate
`` How could you be so insolent in your wit ?
he chides , reminding her that it is unfeeling to humble someone less fortunate in front of others who will be guided by the way she behaves
That 's how it works ... not surprisingly
Worth a Bottle of Whiskey I did n't go to Kabul on the secretary of defense 's Doomsday plane this time
I signed up with the Pentagon for time travel , flying through history watching a remarkable seven-hour marathon of a 12-play series called `` The Great Game .
The plays use real and fictional characters , actual transcripts and imagined scenes , to trace the trellis of foreign involvement in Afghanistan from 1842 to the present
`` Afghanistan , '' one character notes , `` has a very complicated relationship with time .
The Shakespeare Theatre donated space , and the British Council and Bob Woodruff Foundation underwrote costs so that the plays could have two performances here last Thursday and Friday
The Pentagon wanted to give the military and their families , including some who had served in Afghanistan and some who may , a chance to learn how that benighted territory earned the nickname `` graveyard of empires .
`` The question is , '' says an American staff officer in the play , `` are we on our ninth year in Afghanistan , or are we on our first year for the ninth time ?
And a Russian commander notes : `` It seems however many battles we win on the ground , we just recruit more fighters for the other side .
With the surge , are we now beating the Taliban , as a U.S. commander in the Helmand Province asserted this week , or will we bargain with the Taliban and then decamp like the bowed British and Russians , confused about how the Stone Age socked modernity
`` I 've been asked ` Why are you doing this
Are n't these plays going to be anti-war ? '
Doug Wilson , the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs , told me at intermission on Thursday
`` I do n't see that at all
If most Americans had seen these , it would help them understand , warts and all , what a hugely complex place this is
It would also answer the question ` Why is n't it going to be finished next week ? '
Nicolas Kent of the Tricycle Theatre in London , co-director of `` The Great Game , '' said the plays are not `` agitprop .
When he commissioned them , he felt that the allies `` absolutely '' should not be in Afghanistan
`` But the more I 've gone into the history and talked to Afghans , '' he said , `` I personally think we should be there .
Derek Blumke , the co-founder of Student Veterans of America who served in Afghanistan , said the play taught him a lot about the thicket of tribes , feuds and foreign invasions
`` I was at the bazaar , haggling with a local about a British bayonet with an 1842 date stamped on it , '' the 30-year-old Air Force vet recalled
`` I thought it was the coolest thing , but I could n't understand why there was a British bayonet in Afghanistan .
Adm. Mike Mullen , the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , has issued a revised military strategy looking beyond Afghanistan and Iraq to more modern fighting fields - outer space , cyberspace and the Asia-Pacific region
Whereas Dick Cheney and the neocons once thought we could become a hyperpower , disdaining anything multilateral and stifling emerging powers , Admiral Mullen sketches a fresh strategy he calls `` multinodal '' for an era of shifting alliances and emerging powers
The series begins in 1842 at the grisly scene where 16,000 British and Indian Army soldiers , wives and servants get killed as they try to retreat through the snowy mountains of Jalalabad
`` Every conflict in the world today has its origin in the imagination of British map drawers , '' a character dryly notes
The action goes from the abdication of the glamorous king and queen in 1929 through the Communist regime when Afghan women were wearing miniskirts in Kabul , through the C.I.A. financing of the mujahedeen to defeat the Soviets , through Taliban rule with the assistance of Pakistan 's intelligence agency , through America 's invasion and occupation
James Lobb , a 36-year-old Marine captain based at Joint Forces Command in Suffolk , Va. , who spent seven months in Afghanistan in 2004 , read about the special performances and tracked down Nicolas Kent to score some tickets
He called it a cautionary tale about taking care before jumping into foreign endeavors
He was struck by the comment of a C.I.A. officer to a mujahedeen in the play
`` I understand the difference between you and me , '' the C.I.A. guy says
`` I know if you lose , I still have a home to go back to .
Lobb said that `` every day these Afghan soldiers and police are fighting for their lives
They know the Taliban knows where their families are and can kill them
I do n't know how we bolster them if every day might not only be their last but the last day of their family .
Lobb sent Kent a bottle of whiskey to thank him for the tickets , and the history lesson
Perhaps when Barack Obama uses that trippy line , he is just giving false Hopi , since the saying , which he picked up from Maria Shriver 's New Age-y L.A. endorsement speech , is credited to Hopi Indians
The passionate palaver about Hillary versus Barry rages on , with each side certain it is right about our fate if we end up with a President Obama or another President Clinton
Hillary says Obama is `` all hat and no cattle .
You 'd think she 'd want to avoid cattle metaphors , so as not to rile up those with a past beef about her sketchy windfall on cattle futures
She could simply say he 's all cage and no bird
But is she right , that he 'd be a callow leader , too trusting of Republicans , dictators and terrorists
Is Bill right , that voters should not be swayed by eloquence and excitement
-LRB- Unless he 's running .
Or is Obama right , that Hillary would ensure that the acrid mood of the last 15 years would continue to paralyze Washington , appall Americans and shrink our standing in the world
Who knows
As a Henry James character said about art : `` We work in the dark
We do what we can
We give what we have .
Gingerly , I would like to inject a note of uncertainty into this season of certainty
Covering seven presidential campaigns has made me realize that when it comes to predicting how presidents will perform , `` nobody knows anything , '' as William Goldman said about Hollywood
You 'd think it would be safe to vote on issues , but politicians often do n't feel the need to honor their campaign promises
I covered Bush Senior saying , `` Read my lips : No new taxes .
I also covered him raising taxes and saying , `` Read my hips .
I covered W. promising a humble foreign policy and no nation-building
I also covered the Iraq fiasco
Voters try to figure out who they trust to have life-and-death power over them , but there 's so much theatricality and artifice in campaigns you can get a false impression of who someone is
And you never know who they will become once they move into the insular , heady womb of the White House or how they will be buffeted by the caprice of history , and the randomness of crises
At the very moment when politicians should be on top of the world , Ma , embraced by the voters , enhanced by the toys and levers of power , their gremlins surface
They inevitably get hit with trouble that they never could have imagined or prepared for , and that can trigger self-doubt and self-destruction and self-pity
Why did n't J. F. K. simply toss out the C.I.A. plan developed under Eisenhower to send 1,200 exiles to overthrow a popular Cuban leader with a force of 200,000
He felt the need to prove himself
Why did L. B. J. ignore his own solid political instincts to listen to Robert McNamara and Dean Rusk about Vietnam falling under their stupid sway because they had been J. F. K. 's advisers
Nixon , driven by the same pathology of envy about Kennedy and other golden boys , conspired in a political crime while coasting to re-election
Why did W. let Cheney and Rummy lead him into hubristic disaster
He , too , needed to prove himself and outdo Daddy
How could the `` compassionate conservative '' bike through Katrina
The self-destructive impulses that consumed Bill Clinton detracted from his policy achievements and distracted him from achieving all he could have
The press tends to swallow campaign narratives of sin and redemption , hard lessons learned
After giving up drinking and becoming Texas governor , W. had supposedly changed from an arrogant , obdurate , Daddy-competing loser to a genial , bipartisan , mature winner
As it turned out , a total makeover is not possible after 40
Hillary 's narrative echoes W. 's : After the scalding partisanship of the '90s , she became a senator and turned the other cheek , working on legislation with Republicans who had pursued the impeachment case against her husband
She has supposedly learned from her White House mistakes on health care , Travelgate and legal issues , from her battles with the right and the press
She knows now that being obstructionist and secretive do n't work
An appealing arc , but is it true
Her campaign shake-up showed that she continues to rank loyalty and secrecy above competence and ingenuity
She is still so guarded that she began answering questions from the press and voters only after she lost Iowa
All of us have known big shots who keep a check on their real feelings and dark tendencies until they get the top job
Then they throw off the restraints and revert to their worst instincts , bullying others and insulating themselves with sycophants
Hillary could be ready on Day 1 to make up her Enemies List and banish Overkill Bill to a cubbyhole in the Old Executive Office Building
But it 's Day 2 that I 'm really worried about
As we lurch through the disasters bequeathed by W. the economy tanking , 17,000 more troops going to Afghanistan , Chrysler pleading for a total of $ 9 billion would audiences still laugh at Ferrell 's lovable fool of a president
I was wrong
The audience for the Sunday matinee of `` You 're Welcome America
A Final Night with George W Bush '' howled in delight
I asked Adam McKay , the former head writer of `` Saturday Night Live '' who directed and co-wrote the show with Ferrell , why people respond this way to one of the worst presidents ever
`` He 's so clearly a neglected 13-year-old that there 's something really kind of heartbreaking about him , '' McKay said , calling him `` a good-time Charlie '' who was `` just used his whole life to front questionable business endeavors , and in a way that 's what his presidency was
`` He does n't have Cheney 's cartoonish need for power and greed that 's so off the charts you do n't even understand how Cheney got that way
W. may have some awareness , deep down inside , sort of like a petulant teenager who just flunked the trig quiz and knows he screwed up
I think Cheney not only knows but is delighted with everything he did , as is Rumsfeld .
In the show , the former president dismisses waterboarding as a spa treatment at Bliss , and reveals that he did walk in on Cheney once in the basement of the White House locked in the amorous arms of a giant goat devil in a room full of pentagrams
`` He looked at me with solid silver glowing orb-like eyes , and his breath had a strong ammonia scent to it , '' Ferrell 's W. said
`` And he told me in a language that I knew in my heart had n't been spoken in a thousand years ` Pariff Go Lanerff !
And I just ran .
One of the great mysteries of the Bush presidency is whether W. ever had an epiphany when he realized that he had been manipulated by Dick Cheney , whether it ever hit him that he had trusted the wrong father figure
There were clues in the last couple of years that W. and Condi were trying to sidle away from Cheney by using the forbidden strategy of diplomacy in dealing with Iran and North Korea , and by cutting loose Rummy
As one official who worked closely with both W. and Cheney told The New York Daily News 's Tom DeFrank the last week of the administration : `` It 's been a long , long time since I 've heard the president say , ` Run that by the vice president 's office .
You used to hear that all the time .
The clearest sign of disaffection we have is Bush 's refusal to pardon Scooter Libby , the man known as `` Cheney 's Cheney , '' despite Vice 's tense and emotional pleading
It was his final , too little , too late `` You are not the boss of me '' spurning of Dick Cheney
It may seem pointless for W. to worry about his legacy at this juncture , but he clearly did not want to add a Marc Rich blot to all the other gigantic blots on the copybook
As DeFrank reported in The Daily News , Cheney conducted a full-bore , last-ditch campaign to persuade W. to pardon Libby , peppering the reluctant president with visits and phone calls , and was furious when W. would not relent
After so many years of getting W. to do so much of what he wanted , by giving the insecure president the illusion of deference and a lack of personal ambition , it must have been infuriating to Cheney to have W. turn a deaf ear
Cheney , uncharacteristically critical of W. , told The Weekly Standard last month : `` I disagree with President Bush 's decision .
Other Libby sympathizers put it more bluntly in the conservative magazine , calling Bush `` dishonorable '' and saying that his action was akin to leaving a soldier on the battlefield
Alan Simpson , the former conservative Wyoming senator who is close to Cheney , told Jo Becker and Jim Rutenberg of The Times that the decision had left the former vice president `` hurt and deeply disappointed , '' but he is not the type to stay bitter
-LRB- With Cheney contemplating writing a book , publishers and historians can only hope otherwise .
By not pardoning Cheney 's alter ego , who plied his dark arts trying to discredit Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson and then lied to protect his boss , W. was clearly saying he thought that Libby , and by extension Cheney , did something wrong
But it 's not clear whether W. is simply pouting because Cheney 's machinations blackened his legacy , or if , at long last , he fathoms the morality of it , that Cheney did hideous things to the Constitution not to mention that goat devil
But Hillary was doing her best to come across as a `` Laverne & Shirley '' factory girl as she headed away from not-a-chance Wisconsin and on to gotta-have Ohio
She was drinking red wine and talking up the virtues of imported Blue Moon beer with a slice of citrus on her plane and putting up an ad in Ohio about how she works the night shift , too , just like the waitresses , hairdressers , hospital workers and other blue-collar constituents that she 's hoping to attract
And she does n't mean that being married to Bill Clinton is what keeps her up all hours
She 's talking about burning the midnight oil in her Senate office
At any minute , she might break out into the `` schlemiel , schlemazel '' `` Laverne & Shirley '' theme : `` Give us any chance , we 'll take it
Give us any rule , we 'll break it
We 're gonna make our dreams come true
Doin ' it our way .
Doin ' it her way , Hillary huffed to reporters on her plane : `` If your whole candidacy is about words , they should be your own words .
I guess that means if your whole candidacy is anti-words , you do n't have to use your own words
The Clintons are known political cat burglars
They pilfered Republican jewels in the '90s , and Hillary has purloined as much as she can stuff in her pantsuit from her husband and Barack Obama
She changed to Change
She co-opted `` It 's time to turn the page '' and `` Fired up and ready to go .
She could n't wait to shoplift the words `` yes '' and `` can '' from Obama 's trademark `` Yes , we can !
-LRB- which he appropriated from Cesar Chavez -RRB- even though she was cagey enough to put them in separate slogans , `` Yes , we will !
and `` Americans still have that can-do spirit .
Bill , master thief , got in on the act , too
After Obama said that his election would tell the world that America is back , Bill said that Hillary 's election would tell the world that America is back
Although the only solid voting bloc in Wisconsin Hillary seemed to get was women over 60 years old , she did seem happy that the press had `` finally , '' as she put it , scrutinized him
America 's pretty boy was getting muddied up
The Clinton camp has spent days trying to undermine Obama 's chief asset , the elegant language that has sparked a generational boom
`` We 're seeing a pattern here , '' Hillary enforcer Howard Wolfson said , in a conference call with reporters Tuesday
Yeah , we are
She 's losing , and looking for anything to bruise Obama
Obama swiped a couple distinctive riffs about words and aspirations his supposed specialty from his pal Deval Patrick , the governor of Massachusetts , thereby violating the new cardinal rule not only of politics but of life : Do n't do anything you do n't want to see on the top favorites of YouTube
He had credited Patrick in the past , and Patrick had channeled Obama when he ran for governor in ' 06 , so basically they 're like two roommates sharing clothes
Or two politicians sharing a strategist
Obama 's chief strategist , David Axelrod , worked for Patrick in the gubernatorial bid
`` You may know that both Deval Patrick and Senator Obama have the same consultant and adviser , '' Hillary told reporters , `` who is apparently putting words in both of their mouths .
It was n't campaign shredding , as when Joe Biden absorbed Neil Kinnock 's Welsh inflection and life experiences in ' 88
But it was sloppy
If you 're going to be hailed as the messiah and sermonize about offering a `` hymn that will heal this nation , '' you should come up with your own lyrics
Obama is basing his campaign on his freshness and integrity and honesty , so he should n't cut corners , as he seems to have done with crediting Patrick and explaining the extent of his relationship with his sleazy former fund-raiser , Tony Rezko
The attribution problem might be small beer compared with Michelle Obama 's comment in Milwaukee on Monday : `` For the first time in my adult lifetime , I am really proud of my country
And not just because Barack has done well , but because I think people are hungry for change .
It 's a discordant note for the stylish , brainy 44-year-old Princeton and Harvard Law School grad
Cindy McCain showed that Republicans would jump right on a line like that , and twist it into something that sounded extremist and unpatriotic
Michelle made another of these aggrieved pronouncements at a rally in Los Angeles before the California primary : `` Things have gotten progressively worse , throughout my lifetime , through Democratic and Republican administrations , it has n't gotten better for regular folks .
Given the way the Clintons unfairly turn the tables , we 're only moments away from Hillary asking Obama : `` Ca n't you control your spouse ?
Stars and Sewers We watch in awe as revolutions somersault through the Middle East
We see instantaneous digital communication as a weapon against oppression and , in the hands of tyrants who tap into its power , as a weapon for oppression
While the cloud spurs some people to reach for the stars , delighting in freedom of expression , it seduces others to sprawl in the gutter , abusing freedom of expression
When CBS 's Lara Logan was dragged off , beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob of Egyptian men in Tahrir Square the giddy night that Hosni Mubarak stepped down , most of us were aghast
But some vile bodies online began beating up on the brave war correspondent
Nir Rosen , a journalist published in The Nation , The New Yorker and The Atlantic who had a fellowship at New York University 's Center on Law and Security , likes to be a provocateur
He has urged America to `` get over '' 9\/11 , called Israel an `` abomination '' to be eliminated , and sympathized with Hezbollah , Hamas and the Taliban
Invited to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2008 about the Iraq surge , he told Joe Biden , the committee chairman then , that he was uncomfortable `` advising an imperialist power about how to be a more efficient imperialist power .
Rosen must now wish Twitter had a 10-second delay
On Tuesday , he merrily tweeted about the sexual assault of Logan : `` Jesus Christ , at a moment when she is going to become a martyr and glorified we should at least remember her role as a major war monger .
He suggested she was trying to `` outdo Anderson '' Cooper -LRB- roughed up in Cairo earlier -RRB- , adding that `` it would have been funny if it happened to Anderson too .
Rosen lost his fellowship
He apologized in a whiny way , explaining that he `` resented '' Logan because she `` defended American imperial adventures , '' and that she got so much attention for the assault because she 's white and famous
He explained in Salon that `` Twitter is no place for nuance , '' as though there 's any nuance in his suggestion that Logan wanted to be sexually assaulted for ratings
He professed to be baffled by the fact that he had 1,000 new Twitter followers , noting : `` It 's a bizarre , voyeuristic Internet culture and everybody in the mob is looking to get in on the next fight .
It 's been Lord of the Flies for a while now , dude , and you 're part of it
The conservative blogger Debbie Schlussel smacked Logan from the right : `` Lara Logan was among the chief cheerleaders of this ` revolution ' by animals
Now she knows what the Islamic revolution is really all about .
On her LA Weekly blog , Simone Wilson dredged up Logan 's romantic exploits and quoted a Feb. 3 snipe from the conservative blog Mofo Politics , after Logan was detained by the Egyptian police : `` OMG if I were her captors and there were no sanctions for doing so , I would totally rape her .
Online anonymity has created what the computer scientist Jaron Lanier calls a `` culture of sadism .
Some Yahoo comments were disgusting
`` She got what she deserved , '' one said
`` This is what happens when dumb sexy female reporters want to make it about them .
Hillbilly Nation chimed in : `` Should have been Katie .
The `` 60 Minutes '' story about Senator Scott Brown 's revelation that a camp counselor sexually abused him as a child drew harsh comments on the show 's Web site , many politically motivated
Acupuncturegirl advised : `` Scott , shut the hell up
You are gross .
Dutra1 noted : `` OK , Scott , you get your free pity pills
Now examine the image you see in the mirror ; is it a man ?
Evgeny Morozov , author of `` The Net Delusion : The Dark Side of Internet Freedom , '' told me Twitter creates a false intimacy and can `` bring out the worst in people
You 're straining after eyeballs , not big thoughts
So you go for the shallow , funny , contrarian or cynical .
Nicholas Carr , author of `` The Shallows : What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains , '' says technology amplifies everything , good instincts and base
While technology is amoral , he said , our brains may be rewired in disturbing ways
`` Researchers say that we need to be quiet and attentive if we want to tap into our deeper emotions , '' he said
`` If we 're constantly interrupted and distracted , we kind of short-circuit our empathy
If you dampen empathy and you encourage the immediate expression of whatever is in your mind , you get a lot of nastiness that would n't have occurred before .
Leon Wieseltier , literary editor of The New Republic , recalled that when he started his online book review he forbade comments , wary of high-tech sociopaths
`` I 'm not interested in having the sewer appear on my site , '' he said
`` Why would I engage with people digitally whom I would never engage with actually
Why does the technology exonerate the kind of foul expression that you would not tolerate anywhere else ?
Why indeed
As the country takes a bullet train to bankruptcy , the last Democratic president urged the current one to `` embody '' that old American spunk
That spirit of as they sing in `` Oklahoma '' `` We know we belong to the land and the land we belong to is grand
A-YIP-I-O-EE-AY !
`` It 's worth reminding the American people that for more than 230 years everyone who bet against America lost money , '' Clinton told Chris Cuomo on `` Good Morning America .
`` I just want him to embody that and to share that .
It 's rich
The Man from Hope whose Missus castigated Candidate Obama for raising `` false hopes '' is now criticizing President Obama for not peddling more gauzy hope
Instead , he implies , the president 's warnings of calamity , designed to gin up support for borrowing and printing trillions to shore up the sagging economy , might actually be dragging down our already sagging self-esteem
Says the ever-helpful Bill : `` I just want the American people to know that he 's confident that we are going to get out of this and he feels good about the long run .
It 's hard to muster moxie with stocks shriveling , Chris Dodd talking nationalization , and Paul Volcker making Chicken Little sound cheery `` I do n't remember any time , maybe even in the Great Depression , '' he said , `` when things went down quite so fast , quite so uniformly around the world .
With this economy , as William Goldman famously said of Hollywood , `` Nobody knows anything .
The only thing to fear is ... everything
We dutifully cut back on Starbucks macchiatos , designer water and even Girl Scout cookies , but we keep hurtling down
While W. and Dick conjured an alternative reality about Iraq , our avaricious bankers created an alternative reality about our financial system
Now our busted trust is not so easily fixed
In an Associated Press article headlined `` Obama Plans Eclipsing New Deal Spending , '' the Rutgers University political science professor Ross Baker notes , `` Not surprisingly , people are wary of some very expensive proposals with no guarantee of success or even a high probability of how well they 'll work .
In The Times , Eric Dash reported that Wall Street is losing confidence in Washington 's vague and shifting plans , sending shares of bank companies plunging to new lows on Friday
President Obama disdains sound bites , and he does not have Bill Clinton 's talent for reducing the abstruse to aper us
We wanted someone smart to gather a bunch of smart people around him to get us out of this fix
But Mr. Obama 's egghead manner has failed to soothe a nation with the jits
Maybe he has been so intent on avoiding the stereotype of the Angry Black Man , as he wrote in his memoir , that it 's hard for him to connect with and articulate public anger about our diminishment
Though he demonstrated in the campaign that he has a rare gift for inspiring the country with new belief in itself , Mr. Obama has not yet captured either the grit the moment requires or the fury it provokes
He has not explained in a compelling way why Americans who followed the rules need to sacrifice more to help those who flouted the rules
That is why the CNBC reporter Rick Santelli struck a populist nerve with his screed about the unfairness of responsible homeowners picking up the tab for irresponsible homeowners following the unfairness of taxpayers who are losing jobs , homes and savings propping up the exact same bankers and carmakers whose greed and myopia caused the economy to crash
He spoke for those who want a pound of flesh
With the Wall Street bailout , Mr. Obama at least gave bankers a bit of the belt , and capped their pay
But homebuyers who wanted more than they could afford seem to be getting a free ride
Yet Obama is oozing empathy compared with his attorney general , who last week called us `` a nation of cowards '' about race
Eric Holder , who showed precious little bravery in standing up to Clinton on a pardon for the scoundrel Marc Rich , is wrong
We have just inaugurated a black president who installed a black attorney general
We need leaders to help us through our crises , not provide us with crude evaluations of our character
And we do n't need sermons from liberal virtuecrats , anymore than from conservative virtuecrats
In the middle of all the Heimlich maneuvers required now for the economy , Iran , Pakistan , Afghanistan , health care , the environment and education we do n't need a Jackson\/Sharpton-style lecture on race
Barack Obama 's election was supposed to get us past that
Besides , the president has other issues that demand his passion
Black Swan Lakeside He was 10 minutes early , as usual , for an 8 a.m. campaign stop at the 95th Street El on the South Side
Commuters streaming through were already calling Emanuel `` Mr. Mayor , '' or simply Rahm , explaining which parking meters on the Lakefront they wanted fixed or what predatory lending on the South Side they needed stopped
`` You can do it !
yelled Lynetta Spears , 38 , a tall , African-American woman
Surrounded by his three adorable - and adoring - children , Emanuel pointed at Spears intensely , Jerry Maguire-style
`` Barack Obama trusts him , '' Spears told me
`` Rahm 's a good guy .
She shrugged off the caricature of the 51-year-old Emanuel as The Enforcer who stabs steak knives into tables swearing vengeance and sends dead fish to those who cross him
`` Everyone has a temper , '' she said breezily
Chicago is a city , as H.L. Mencken wrote , that is `` alive from snout to tail .
Which is a pretty good description of the electrified Emanuel as well ; even his handshake feels hot
His campaign spots allude to that profane Rahmbo style that Andy Samberg parodies on `` Saturday Night Live .
`` He 's not gonna take any guff , '' a blue-collar guy vowed in one ad
The wiry and buff former White House chief of staff , who was known around the West Wing as `` Tiny Dancer , '' was falsely accused of being a carpetbagger for the years he spent in Washington as a Clinton and Obama aide and Illinois congressman
Now he 's such a celebrity here , he goes by only one name - on his yard signs , in his ads and even in his opponent 's attack ad
Rahm sometimes refers to himself as Rahm
`` If their strategy was to get Rahm to explode , '' he said of his motley crew of foes , `` they 've built a strategy based on something I control .
Emanuel ran a disciplined and genial campaign , even showing patience during a ridiculous 12-hour hearing on whether he was really a resident of Chicago and qualified to run for mayor - a dust-up that followed an odd tenant 's refusal to vacate Rahm 's North Side house , which stirred up political trouble
Rahm rebutted that he and his wife , Amy Rule , still had stuff stored at his house , including Amy 's wedding dress
`` I said as a joke that if the hearing went into 13 hours , I was going to put the wedding dress on , '' he said with a grin , as he hopscotched around the city scooping up last-minute votes
When I asked what revenge he is plotting against his scheming tenant , Emanuel looked mischievous but bit his tongue
Of course , as Jon Stewart notes , the only thing scarier than Rahm Emanuel angry `` is Rahm Emanuel smiling through his anger .
Can a city famous for its beefy pols , mobsters and steakhouse politicking handle a Sarah Lawrence College graduate who wore tights , eats organic , swims and does yoga , a lithe spirit who has more facility with Martha Graham 's version of `` Apollo '' than the Bulls ' place in their division
`` I 'll eat grass-fed steaks , '' he smiles
`` Hey , I love steak , though I 've cut down
My grandfather was a truck driver for Scandinavian Meats
I 'm not interested in changing the culture of this city
I 'm interested in changing how we do business .
He knows it took awhile for Chicagoans to warm up to him
`` The members that represented my district before me were Dan Rostenkowski , Roman Pucinski , Frank Annunzio , Mike Flanagan and Rod Blagojevich , '' he said
`` And along comes a guy named Rahm Israel Emanuel
I do n't know if I was loved , but they knew whose side I was on .
He had hoped to become the first Jewish speaker of the House , but now he is destined to become the first Jewish mayor of Chicago
`` For me , as Rahm Emanuel , the grandson of Herman Smulivitz , who came to this city in 1917 from the Russian-Romanian border as a 13-year-old to leave the pogroms , and son of Benjamin Emanuel , who came here in 1959 from Israel to start a medical practice , there 's a personal sense of accomplishment , '' he said , after polishing off a half-corned-beef , half-pastrami sandwich at the legendary Manny 's deli
The other two members of the most competitive sibling trio on earth - his brothers Zeke , the oncologist , and Ari , the Hollywood agent - flew to Chicago to come to their brother 's victory party
David Axelrod , who has moved back here to help organize the president 's re-election run , was also on hand , even though it was his birthday
`` My birthday present , '' Axelrod said , `` will be a nine-and-a-half fingered mayor .
Correction : February 23 , 2011 An earlier version of this column misidentified one of Rahm Emanuel 's campaign stops on the South Side of Chicago
It was the 95th Street El stop , not the 65th Street stop
There is no such stop
The economy is croaking and bankers are still partying at a golf tournament here on our dime
It 's a good argument for nationalization , or better yet , internationalization
Outsource the jobs of these perfidious , oblivious bank executives to Bangalore ; Bollywood bashes have to cost less than Hollywood ones
The entertainment Web site TMZ broke the story Tuesday that Northern Trust of Chicago , which got $ 1.5 billion in bailout money and then laid off 450 workers , flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los Angeles last week and treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms , salmon and filet mignon dinners , music concerts , a PGA golf tournament at the Riviera Country Club with Mercedes shuttle rides and Tiffany swag bags
`` A rep from the PGA told us Northern Trust wrote one big , fat check in order to sponsor the event , '' TMZ reported
Northern No Trust had a lavish dinner at the Ritz Carlton on Wednesday with a concert by Chicago -LRB- at a $ 100,000 fee -RRB- ; rented a private hangar at the Santa Monica Airport on Thursday for another big dinner with a gig by Earth , Wind & Fire , and closed down the House of Blues on Sunset Strip on Saturday -LRB- at a cost of $ 50,000 -RRB- for a dinner and serenade by Sheryl Crow
In the ignoble tradition of rockers who sing for huge sums to sketchy people when we 're not looking , Crow in her stint as a federal employee warbled these lyrics to the oblivious revelers : Northern Untrustworthy even offered junketeers the chance to attend a seminar on the credit crunch where they could no doubt learn that the U.S. government is just the latest way to finance your deals and keep your office swathed in $ 87,000 area rugs
In what is now an established idiotic ritual of rationalization , the bank put out a letter noting that it `` did not seek the government 's investment '' even though it took it , and that it had raised $ 3 million for the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce Charity Foundation and other nonprofits
They riposted that they have a contract to do it every year for five years ; but this is n't every year
The bank cloaks itself in a philanthropic glow while wasting our money , acting like the American Cancer Society when in fact it 's a cancer on American society
It asserted that it earned an operating net income of $ 641 million last year and acted as though it did Americans a favor by taking federal cash
I would ask Northern No Trust : If you 're totally solvent , why are you taking my tax dollars
If you 're not totally solvent , why are you giving my tax dollars to Sheryl Crow
Coming in a moment when skeptical and angry Americans watched A.I.G. , Citigroup , General Motors and Chrysler firms that had already been given a federal steroid injection get back in line for more billions , the golf scandal was just one more sign that the bailed-out rich are different from you and me : their appetites are unquenchable and their culture is uneducable
President Obama served them notice on Tuesday night in his Congressional address , saying : `` This time , C.E.O. 's wo n't be able to use taxpayer money to pad their paychecks or buy fancy drapes or disappear on a private jet
Those days are over .
But will they notice
John `` Antique Commode '' Thain had to be ordered by a judge to tell Andrew Cuomo 's investigators which Merrill Lynch employees got those $ 3.6 billion in bonuses that Thain illicitly shoved through as his firm was failing and being taken over by Bank of America with the help of a $ 45 billion bailout
Kenneth Lewis , the Bank of America C.E.O. , made the absurd assertion to Congress that his bank had `` no authority '' to stop the bonuses , even though he knew about them beforehand
`` They find out they 're $ 7 billion off on the estimate of losses for the fourth quarter and they never think maybe we should go back and adjust these bonuses ?
Cuomo told me , as Thain was finally responding to investigators on Tuesday at the New York attorney general 's office
`` He refused to answer questions on the basis that ` the Bank of America did n't want me to .
You can take the Fifth Amendment or you can answer questions
But there 's no Bank of America privilege
The Bank of America does n't substitute for the Constitution
And who 's the Bank of America , by the way ?
He gets incensed about how ingrained , indoctrinated and insensitive the ex-masters of the universe are
`` They think of themselves as kings and queens , '' he said
And they 're not ready to abdicate
What better way for a desperate Hillary to try and stop her rival from running off with all her women supporters than to have a cozy satellite chat with a famous daytime talk-show host who is n't supporting Obama
`` Will you put a ban on glitter ?
Ellen demanded
Diplomatically , Hillary said that schoolchildren needed it for special projects , but maybe she could ban it for anyone over 12
Certainly , Hillary understands the perils of glitter
The coda of her campaign has been a primal scream against the golden child of Chicago , a clanging and sometimes churlish warning that `` all that glitters is not gold .
David Brody , the Christian Broadcasting Network correspondent whose interview with Hillary aired Tuesday , said the senator seemed `` dumbfounded '' by the Obama sensation
She has been so discombobulated that she has ignored some truisms of politics that her husband understands well : Sunny beats gloomy
Consistency beats flipping
Bedazzling beats begrudging
Confidence beats whining
Experience does not beat excitement , though , or Nixon would have been president the first time around , Poppy Bush would have had a second term and President Gore would have stopped the earth from melting by now
Voters gravitate toward the presidential candidates who seem more comfortable in their skin
J.F.K. and Reagan seemed exceptionally comfortable
So did Bill Clinton and W. , who both showed that comfort can be an illusion of sorts , masking deep insecurities
The fact that Obama is exceptionally easy in his skin has made Hillary almost jump out of hers
She ca n't turn on her own charm and wit because she ca n't get beyond what she sees as the deep injustice of Obama not waiting his turn
Her sunshine-colored jackets on the trail hardly disguise the fact that she 's pea-green with envy
After saying she found her `` voice '' in New Hampshire , she has turned into Sybil
We 've had Experienced Hillary , Soft Hillary , Hard Hillary , Misty Hillary , Sarcastic Hillary , Joined-at-the-Hip-to-Bill Hillary , Her-Own-Person-Who-Just-Happens-to-Be-Married-to-a-Former-President Hillary , It 's - My-Turn Hillary , Cuddly Hillary , Let 's - Get-Down-in-the-Dirt-and-Fight-Like-Dogs Hillary
Just as in the White House , when her cascading images and hairstyles became dizzying and unsettling , suggesting that the first lady woke up every day struggling to create a persona , now she seems to think there is a political solution to her problem
If she can only change this or that about her persona , or tear down this or that about Obama 's
But the whirlwind of changes and charges gets wearing
By threatening to throw the kitchen sink at Obama , the Clinton campaign simply confirmed the fact that they might be going down the drain
Hillary and her aides urged reporters to learn from the `` Saturday Night Live '' skit about journalists having crushes on Obama
`` Maybe we should ask Barack if he 's comfortable and needs another pillow , '' she said tartly in the debate here Tuesday night
She peevishly and pointlessly complained about getting the first question too often , implying that the moderators of MSNBC a channel her campaign has complained has been sexist are giving Obama an easy ride
Beating on the press is the lamest thing you can do
It is only because of the utter open-mindedness of the press that Hillary can lose 11 contests in a row and still be treated as a contender
Hillary and her top aides could not say categorically that her campaign had not been the source on the Drudge Report , as Matt Drudge claimed , for a picture of Obama in African native garb that the mean-spirited hope will conjure up a Muslim Manchurian candidate vibe
At a rally on Sunday , she tried sarcasm about Obama , talking about how `` celestial choirs '' singing and magic wands waving wo n't get everybody together to `` do the right thing .
With David Brody , Hillary evoked the specter of a scary Kool-Aid cult
`` I think that there is a certain phenomenon associated with his candidacy , and I am really struck by that because it is very much about him and his personality and his presentation , '' she said , adding that `` it dangerously oversimplifies the complexity of the problems we face , the challenge of navigating our country through some difficult uncharted waters
We are a nation at war
That seems to be forgotten .
Actually it 's not forgotten
It 's a hard sell for Hillary to say that she is the only one capable of leading this country in a war when she helped in leading the country into that war
Or to paraphrase Obama from the debate here , the one who drives the bus into the ditch ca n't drive it out
Have You Driven a Smartphone Lately
I 'm barreling along a rural Michigan highway at 75 miles per hour in a gray Ford Taurus X when I glance down to check a number on a screen
It ca n't be more than two seconds , but when I look back up , I 'm inches from plowing into a huge green truck
Panicked , I slam on the brakes
Even though I 'm in Virttex , the Ford simulator that uses virtual reality to give you the eerily real sensation that you 're flying down the highway past cars and barns , I still feel shaken
I made the mistake of taking my eyes off the road for more than 1.5 seconds , which is the danger zone , according to technology experts at Ford headquarters
Ford , Chrysler , Chevy and other car companies are betting on the proposition that , as long as your eyes do n't stray from the road for more than a moment , your other senses can enjoy a cornucopia of diversions on your dashboard
I worried in a prior column that Ford cars with the elaborate and popular new `` in-car connectivity '' sounded like death traps
Ford Sync lets you sync up to apps , reading your Twitter feeds to you
MyFord Touch plays your iPod on demand and reads your texts to you - including emoticons - and allows you to choose one of 10 prewritten responses -LRB- `` I 'm on my way , '' `` I 'm outside , '' `` O.K. '' -RRB-
It also has voice-activated 3-D navigation that allows you to merely announce `` I 'm hungry '' or `` Find Chinese restaurant .
Your car can even help you with a bad mood by giving you ambient lighting , vibrating your seat or heating your steering wheel
Ford executives invited me to Detroit to experience their snazzy new technology firsthand
They are on the cusp of a system featuring the futuristic avatar Eva , the vaguely creepy face and voice of a woman on your dashboard who can read you your e-mail , update your schedule , recite articles from newspapers , guide you to the restaurant where you 're having lunch and recommend a selection from your iPod
Ford 's working on a Web browser , which would be locked while driving
Remember when your car used to be a haven of peace from the world
Now it 's just a bigger , noisier and much more dangerously distracting smartphone
Over lunch at Ford , Sue Cischke , a dynamic company executive , argued that even before cellphones and iPods , drivers were in danger of distraction from reaching for a briefcase or shooing away a bee
`` Telling younger people not to use a cellphone is almost like saying , ` Do n't breathe , ' '' she said
Given that Americans are addicted to Web access and tech toys , she said , it will never work to simply ban them
`` So we 've got to figure out how we make people safer , '' she said , `` and the more people can just talk to their car like they 're talking to a passenger , the more useful it would be .
Given that , however , we 're talking about human beings who live in an A.D.D. world , would n't it be safer to try to curb the addiction , rather than indulging it
Nobody thought you could get young people to pay for music after downloading it for free , either , but they do
David Teater , a former market research consultant to auto manufacturers , lost his 12-year-old son in a distracted driving accident in Grand Rapids , Mich. , seven years ago
A 20-year-old nanny driving her charge in her employer 's Hummer was so immersed in a cellphone call that she ran a red light and smashed into Teater 's wife 's Chevy Suburban
Now he works at the National Safety Council
He says he does n't expect car companies - which are trying to make cars more seductive - to be arbiters of safety
`` They were slow to move toward seat belts and airbags until we , the customer , said we want it , '' he said
He sees the overwrought dashboards as trouble
`` We can chew gum and walk , but we ca n't do two cognitively demanding tasks simultaneously .
Ray LaHood , the secretary of transportation , is livid about the dashboard bells and whistles
When he saw a Ford ad with a bubbly young woman named Kelly using the new souped-up system to gab on the phone hands-free and not paying attention to the road , he called Alan Mulally , the president and C.E.O of Ford
`` I said to him , ` That girl looks so distracted , it belies belief that this is what you want in terms of safety , ' '' LaHood told me
`` Putting entertainment centers in automobiles does not contribute to safe driving
When you 're trying to update your Facebook or put out a tweet , it 's a distraction .
He said he would compile his own statistics , meet with car executives and use the bully pulpit
`` We 'll see what the auto companies can do voluntarily and what we need to do otherwise , '' he said
`` I do n't think drivers should be doing any of that .
Bye , Bye Mubarak The ire in Tahrir Square is full of ironies , not the least of which is the American president who inspired such hope in the Middle East with his Cairo speech calling around this week to leaders in the region to stanch the uncontrolled surge of democracy in the Arab world
Egyptians rose up at the greatest irony of all : Cleopatra 's Egypt was modern in ancient times and Mubarak 's was ancient in modern times
The cradle of civilization yearned for some civilization
President George W. Bush meant well when he tried to start a domino effect of democracy in the Middle East and end the awful hypocrisy of America coddling autocratic rulers
But the way he went about it was na ve and wrong
`` In many ways , you can argue that the Iraq war set back the cause of democracy in the Middle East , '' Richard Haass , the president of the Council on Foreign Relations who worked at the State Department during Bush 's first term , told me
`` It 's more legitimate in Arab eyes when it happens from within than when it 's externally driven .
You ca n't push a morally muscular foreign policy by subverting morality
And you ca n't occupy a country only to trade one corrupt regime for another
In his second inaugural , President Bush pledged a goal of `` ending tyranny in our world .
But he only managed to get rid of one tyrant -LRB- a weakened one he had a grudge against -RRB-
He learned that trying to micromanage the future course of the internal politics of another country is very difficult
As Haass wrote at the time in an op-ed piece : `` Immature democracies - those that hold elections but lack many of the checks and balances characteristic of a true democracy - are particularly vulnerable to being hijacked by popular passions .
Just so , Haass now says of Egypt 's political eruption : `` This could go off the rails
The end of Mubarak is like the second inning .
He said that Mubarak 's `` royalist , monarchist pretensions , his plan to install his son Gamal as his successor , truly offended a lot Egyptians , who found it humiliating
Humiliation is a powerful motivator in the Middle East .
In 2005 , Secretary of State Condi Rice chided the Egyptians to be more democratic , but Mubarak continued to stifle his country 's vitality
W. associated his `` freedom agenda '' with war
In another irony , one of the reasons Bush decided he needed to do something about the Arab dictatorships was his belief that they were spawning terrorists
But to try to fulfill his grandiose promise to defeat `` every terrorist group of global reach , '' he needed the cooperation of the same dictators the U.S. had always supported
And he fell back to relying on the help of dictatorships to try to shut down dictatorships
Instead , he shut down the democratization process in 2006 after he and Rice were blindsided by Hamas winning the Palestinian elections
`` We were overly spooked by the victory of Hamas , '' said Robert Kagan , a senior Brookings fellow , neocon and Iraq war advocate who co-founded the prescient Working Group on Egypt , a bipartisan group of Middle East experts who wanted to get the administration to press Mubarak to be more democratic
`` The great fear that people have with Islamist parties is that , if they take part in an election , that will be the last election , '' he continued
`` But we overlearned that lesson and we need to get beyond that panicky response
There 's no way for us to go through the long evolution of history without allowing Islamists to participate in democratic society
`` What are we going to do - support dictators for the rest of eternity because we do n't want Islamists taking their share of some political system in the Middle East
We 've got to put our money where our mouth is
`` Obviously , Islam needs to make its peace with modernity and democracy
But the only way this is going to happen is when people speaking for Islam take part in the system
It 's incumbent on Islamists who are elected democratically to behave democratically .
Members of Kagan 's group met with members of the White House national security team on Monday
He does not think , as some critics do , that President Obama has been too slow to embrace the Egyptian protesters
`` It 's tricky , '' he said
`` Any administration is extremely reluctant to push out a longtime ally .
But he believes that the administration `` really made a mistake not preparing for this a year ago .
He thinks that Mubarak 's health problems emboldened restive Egyptians
And he advises President Obama - who went on TV Tuesday night to assure Egyptians that they will determine their own destiny , but maybe not just yet - not to count on a long goodbye for Mubarak
`` The notion of trying to figure out a Mubarak option , '' he said , of a leisurely transition , `` should be dropped .
Suddenly , everyone was in the mood for love
Would the scream team turn into the dream team
After Thursday 's Democratic debate , CNN 's Carol Costello said there were `` heart palpitations '' and `` ripples of joy '' in the glittery Kodak Theater audience at the idea of a Hillary-Obama or Obama-Hillary ticket , after he was gallant with her and she laughed gaily with him
How could Hollywood not fall in love with Hollywood 's favorite plot
After lots of sparking and sparring , the couple falls into each other 's arms in the last scene
The would-be matchmakers did n't seem to know that in Hollywood , couples who have chemistry on screen often do n't like each other off screen , and ones who are involved off screen often do n't have any chemistry on screen
And so it is with Barack and Hillary
Thursday night was not the beginning of a beautiful friendship
Just a beautiful , dare we say , fairy tale
Hillary is done with playing a supporting role to a political natural
And why would Obama want to follow in the frustrated footsteps of Al Gore , who became Bill Clinton 's vice president only to find that the job was already taken by Hillary
Think about being third banana to Billary
There wo n't be any Dick Cheney-style coup in Hillary 's White House
`` Can you imagine being in that position ?
a member of Team Obama said tartly
`` Well , neither can he
It 's just part of their campaign to marginalize him
I think they 're pushing every freaking button they can right now .
Team Obama refers to the Clinton campaign as `` Jaws '' because `` just when things are quiet , they keep trying to come back and capsize the boat .
A more accurate snapshot of the frosty Clinton-Obama relationship came on a frosty December day in a scorching encounter that is now known simply as `` the tarmac moment .
On Dec. 13 , the two senators were preparing to board their private planes , parked next to each other at Reagan National Airport , to go back to Iowa for a debate
Hillary sent word to Obama that she wanted to talk to him
Obama 's aides figured that she wanted to make a pro forma apology for the comments of Billy Shaheen , the Clinton co-chairman in New Hampshire , who had told The Washington Post that Republicans would pounce on Obama 's confessions of cocaine and marijuana use in his late teens
Shaheen would step down the next day , but Camp Obama did not think the slam was a mere slip of the tongue
In front of her plane , Hillary apologized to her rival about Shaheen
Obama replied that he was concerned at the pattern of insinuations and attacks from her supporters and that a message needed to be sent from the top that sharp attacks were not , as Hillary had put it , `` the fun part .
He brought up another recent example : the Clinton volunteer in Iowa who had been asked to leave after forwarding sleazy e-mail falsely claiming that Obama was a Muslim
Then , according to witnesses from the Obama camp , Hillary got very agitated and was `` flapping her arms .
All her simmering grievances spilled out during the 10-minute talk
She was still furious about David Geffen 's searing interview with me the previous February , charging that she and Bill lie with such ease `` it 's troubling .
While Geffen 's fund-raiser for Obama spurred the column , Obama knew nothing about the interview until it appeared
Hillary was also angry that Obama had called her `` disingenuous , '' telling Newsweek that it was a contradiction for her to claim that her tenure as first lady gave her more experience but then refuse to release her first lady papers from Bill 's library , saying she had no control over them
At some point , an Obama intimate recalled , he `` gently put his hand on her arm to chill her out .
The tall senator often leans down to put a friendly hand on the shoulder of his fellow senators male and female on the Senate floor , and they seem charmed by the gesture
But Senator Clinton and her circle were not
They had been surprised and troubled by what they saw as his attempt to grab her arm and hold her in place while they talked , an unpleasant flashback to Rick Lazio getting in her space
As Queen Bee of the Clinton hive , Hillary has created a regal force field that can be breached only with permission , so something that was n't even a jostle was perceived as a joust
The encounter seemed to have steeled them both
Hillary , to knock back the upstart who had unexpectedly gotten in her way , and Obama , who came away feeling that , for all of Hillary 's outer strength , she was afraid of him in some ways , and for all of her supposed poise , she had a more spiky temperament than he had realized
But on Thursday , when he leaned down to whisper and put his hand on her shoulder , she looked up at him with a glowing smile
They really should have taken home gold statuettes
On Tuesday , the craggy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff showed that a lifetime in the military has not knocked all the showbiz pizazz out of him
`` I can not escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens , '' Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic `` do n't ask , do n't tell '' policy
`` For me personally , it comes down to integrity theirs as individuals and ours as an institution .
In heartfelt testimony to the senators , Mullen said : `` I have served with homosexuals since 1968 .
Acknowledging that they face death daily , he said that `` putting individuals in a position that every single day they wonder whether today 's going to be the day , and devaluing them in that regard , just is inconsistent with us as an institution .
In 1993 , when Bill Clinton tried to do the right thing by allowing gays and lesbians in the military to be themselves , a predecessor of Mullen 's , Colin Powell , directed the embarrassingly public and retrograde rebellion by the generals against it , leading a conga line of heavy brass over to the White House to tell the president not to exercise his authority as commander in chief and order an end to one of the last vestiges of discrimination in the armed forces
Powell helped shape the gutless compromise that those who protect our country must live by a code of honor even while they 're legally bound to be less than honest
Still traumatized by the 1993 pummeling Clinton endured , the Obama White House is inching forward , like soldiers under attack crawling on their bellies through the dirt , trying to avoid friendly fire from gay groups that want the law changed now and hostile fire from conservatives that want the law left alone
Before Admiral Mullen and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates even made their opening statements , John McCain went on the attack against overturning the policy
Noting that gays and lesbians had served `` admirably '' and even given their lives , he said : `` I honor their sacrifice , and I honor them .
Just as long as they deny their identity and pretend to be something they 're not
The conservative senator who has always been known for honor and clarity cited `` vast complexities '' as a reason not to change the hypocritical policy , whatever that means , as well as the fact that `` the Senate vigorously debated it in 1993 .
-LRB- One complexity was our failure to realize that , with two wars in the Middle East , we might need some talented gay translators fluent in Arabic and Farsi .
Yeah , nothing 's changed since 1993
Even Powell now admits that `` we definitely should re-evaluate it .
And Roland Burris , the Illinois senator , reminded his colleagues that it took Harry Truman to integrate the services : `` At one time , my uncles and members of my race could n't even serve in the military , and we moved to this point where they 're some of the best and brightest that we 've had generals and even now the commander in chief is of African-American heritage .
McCain jumped on his even-keeled fellow Republican , Bob Gates , and accused him of usurping Congressional authority by saying the military was pre-emptively preparing for a repeal of the law
I guess the former war hero does n't believe in military readiness
The Arizona senator said the law was `` imperfect but effective , '' even though Admiral Mullen 's military journal , Joint Force Quarterly , called it a `` costly failure '' and denied that the cohesion of the forces would be hurt if gays and lesbians could be open about their sexuality , as they are in Britain and Canada
Three years ago , McCain told a group of college students that he would drop his objections on the issue `` the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says , ` Senator , we ought to change the policy . '
But , on Tuesday , when that day came , McCain ignored the top brass and found his own military emeritus
He waved a letter at Gates and Mullen , saying it was `` signed by over 1,000 former generals and flag officers who have weighed in '' against changing the policy
Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said that if they began to loosen one restriction , others might unravel , leading to a louche atmosphere brimming with `` alcohol use , adultery , fraternization and body art .
Do n't ask , do n't tat
In 1993 , Sam Nunn , the conservative Georgia Democrat who was the leader of the Armed Services Committee , famously gave lawmakers a tour of a submarine and its showers to show what close quarters sailors endured , implying that it would be impossible to separate the men from the men if gays were out
So it was a welcome sign of how things have changed that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , who stepped up to torpedo the hypocrisy , is an admiral
`` We were just tired of being in the White House , '' the two-week-old president , with Michelle at his side , explained to students at a public charter school near the White House
Even as he told the children his favorite superheroes were Batman and Spider-Man , his own dream of being the superhero who swoops in to swiftly save America was going SPLAT
It just ai n't that easy
Unlike W. and Dick Cheney , who heroically resisted acknowledging their historically boneheaded mistakes , President Obama summoned a conga line of Anderson , Katie , Brian , Chris and Charlie to the Oval Office to do penance , over and over
`` I think I messed up
I screwed up , '' he confessed to Couric
He told the anchors that the man who helped make him president , Tom Daschle , had made `` a serious mistake '' by not paying taxes on a car and driver
-LRB- It should have been a harbinger of doom when Daschle began sporting those determined-to-be-hip round red glasses .
Mr. Obama admitted that `` ultimately it 's important for this administration to send a message that there are n't two sets of rules
You know , one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes .
It took Daschle 's resignation to shake the president out of his arrogant attitude that his charmed circle does n't have to abide by the lofty standards he lectured the rest of us about for two years
Before he recanted , his hand forced by a cascade of appointees who `` forgot '' to pay taxes , his reasoning was creeping perilously close to that of the outgoing leaders he denounced in his Inaugural Address : that elitist mentality of `` we know best , '' we know we 're doing the `` right '' thing for the country , so we can twist the rules
Mr. Obama 's errors on the helter-skelter stimulus package were also self-induced
He should put down those Lincoln books and order `` Dave '' from Netflix
When Kevin Kline becomes an accidental president , he summons his personal accountant , Murray Blum , to the White House to cut millions in silly programs out of the federal budget so he can give money to the homeless
`` Who does these books ?
Blum says with disgust , red-penciling an ad campaign to boost consumers ' confidence in cars they 'd already bought
`` If I ran my office this way , I 'd be out of business .
Mr. Obama should have taken a red pencil to the $ 819 billion stimulus bill and slashed all the provisions that looked like caricatures of Democratic drunken-sailor spending
As Senator Kit Bond , a Republican , put it , there were so many good targets that he felt `` like a mosquito in a nudist colony .
He was especially worried about the provision requiring the steel and iron for infrastructure construction to be American-made , and by the time the chastened president talked to Chris Wallace on Fox Tuesday , he agreed that `` we ca n't send a protectionist message .
Mr. Obama protested to Brian Williams that the programs denounced as `` wasteful '' by Republicans `` amount to less than 1 percent of the entire package .
All the more reason to cut them and create a lean , clean bill tailored to creating jobs
The Democratic president has been spending so much time trying and failing to win over Republicans that he may not have noticed the disillusionment in his own ranks
Betrayed by their bankers and leaders , Americans were desperate to trust someone when they made Barack Obama president
His debut has left them skeptical about his willingness to smack down those who would flout his high standards or waste our money
Companies that have gotten bailouts continue to make a mockery of taxpayers
Until it came to light Tuesday , Wells Fargo , which received $ 25 billion in federal funds , was blithely planning a series of `` employee recognition outings '' to Las Vegas luxury hotels this month
As ABC reported , Bank of America took its $ 45 billion in bailout funds and sponsored a five-day carnival outside the Super Bowl stadium , and Morgan Stanley took its $ 10 billion in bailout money and held a three-day conference at the Breakers in Palm Beach
-LRB- Morgan Stanley had also still planned to send top employees to Monte Carlo and the Bahamas , events just canceled .
The New York Post revealed that Sandy Weill , former chief executive of Citigroup , took a company jet to fly his family for a Christmas holiday to a $ 12,000-a-night luxury resort in San Jos del Cabo , Mexico
No matter that the company just got a $ 50 billion federal bailout and laid off 53,000 worldwide
The interior of the 18-seat jet , as described by The Post , is posh , with a full bar , fine-wine selection , $ 13,000 carpets , Baccarat crystal glasses , Cristofle sterling silver flatware and my personal favorite pillows made from Herm s scarves
Aux barricades
I think Hillary truly believes that she and Bill are the only ones tough enough to get to the White House
Jack Nicholson endorsed her as `` the best man for the job , '' and she told David Letterman that `` in my White House , we 'll know who wears the pantsuits .
But her pitch is the color of pitch : Because she has absorbed all the hate and body blows from nasty Republicans over the years , she is the best person to absorb more hate and body blows from nasty Republicans
Darkness seeking darkness
It 's an exhausting specter , and the reason that Tom Daschle , Ted Kennedy , Claire McCaskill and so many other Democrats are dashing for daylight and trying to break away from the pathological Clinton path
`` I think we should never be derisive about somebody who has the ability to inspire , '' Senator McCaskill told David Gregory on MSNBC on Tuesday
`` You know , we 've had some dark days in this democracy over the last seven years , and today the sun is out
It is shining brightly
I watch these kids , these old and young , these black and white , 20,000 of them , pour into our dome in St. Louis Saturday night , and they feel good about being an American right now
And I think that 's something that we have to capture .
Tuesday 's voting showed only that the voters , like moviegoers , do n't want a pat ending
Even though Hillary reasserted her strength , corraling New York , California and Kennedy country Massachusetts , she and Obama will battle on in chiaroscuro
Her argument to the Democratic base has gone from a subtext of `` You owe me , '' or more precisely , `` Bill owes me and you owe him , '' to a subtext of `` Obambi will fold at the first punch from the right .
Hillary 's strategist Mark Penn argued last week that because the voters have `` very limited information '' about Obama , the Republican attack machine would tear him down and he would lose the support of independents
Then Penn tried to point the way to negative information on Obama , just to show that Obama would n't be able to survive Republicans pointing the way to negative information
As she talked Sunday to George Stephanopoulos , a former director of the formidable Clinton war room , Hillary 's case boiled down to the fact that she can be Trouble , as they say about hard-boiled dames in film noir , when Republicans make trouble
`` I have been through these Republican attacks over and over and over again , and I believe that I 've demonstrated that much to the dismay of the Republicans , I not only can survive , but thrive , '' she said
And on Tuesday night she told supporters , `` Let me be clear : I wo n't let anyone Swift-boat this country 's future .
Better the devil you know than the diffident debutante you do n't
Better to go with the Clintons , with all their dysfunction and chaos the same kind that fueled the Republican hate machine than to risk the chance that Obama would be mauled like a chew toy in the general election
Better to blow off all the inspiration and the young voters , the independents and the Republicans that Obama is attracting than to take a chance on something as ephemeral as hope
Now that 's Cheney-level paranoia
Bill is propelled by Cheneyesque paranoia , as well
His visceral reaction to Obama from the `` fairy tale '' line to the inappropriate Jesse Jackson comparison is rooted less in his need to see his wife elected than in his need to see Obama lose , so that Bill 's legacy is protected
If Obama wins , he 'll be seen as the closest thing to J. F. K. since J. F. K. And J. F. K. is Bill 's hero
For much of the campaign , when matched against Hillary in debates , the Illinois senator seemed out of his weight class
But he has moved up to heavyweight , even while losing five pounds as he has raced around the country
The big question is : Can he go from laconic to iconic to bionic
Will he have the muscle to take on the opposition , from Billary to the Republican hate machine to the terrorists overseas
`` I try to explain to people , I may be skinny but I 'm tough , '' he told a crowd of more than 15,000 in Hartford the other night , with the Kennedys looking on
`` I 'm from Chicago .
The relentless Hillary has been the reticent Obama 's tutor in the Political School for Scandal
He is learning how to take a punch and give one back
When she presents her mythic narrative , the dragon she has slain is the Republican attack machine
Obama told me he does n't think about mythic narratives , and Tuesday night in Chicago he was reaching up for `` a hymn that will heal this nation and repair the world .
But , if he wants to be president , he will still have to slay the dragon
And his dragon is the Clinton attack machine , which emerged Tuesday night , not invincible but breathing fire
Blame , Not Shame Donald Rumsfeld has only 815 pages - including a scintillating List of Acronyms - to explain why he was not responsible when Stuff Happened
His memoir , `` Known and Unknown , '' is like a living , breathing version of the man himself : very thorough , highly analytical and totally absent any credible self-criticism
The 78-year-old Rumstud , as W. dubbed him , was both the youngest defense secretary in American history and the oldest
He traces a political career that spans a time when Lucy and Ricky were considered an `` interracial relationship , '' when Gerald Ford was `` fresh blood '' and when Richard Nixon still had a secret taping system
-LRB- He writes that Nixon once insisted he would bring peace to Vietnam , noting , `` Richard Nixon does n't shoot blanks , '' and dismissed his NATO staff as `` a bunch of fairies . ''
Rummy met Dick Cheney when Cheney applied to be an intern in Rummy 's Congressional office , and they had many fine adventures , from figuring out how to keep the sun from shining on President Ford 's neck in the Oval Office to lowering American standards on torture
The high school wrestling champ does n't wrestle with self-doubt
Rummy begins ladling out rationalizations in the preface
`` The idea of known and unknown unknowns recognizes that the information those in positions of responsibility in government , as well as in other human endeavors , have at their disposal is almost always incomplete , '' he writes
He quotes Clausewitz on the challenge of faulty intelligence and Socrates saying , `` I neither know nor think that I know .
When you think about it , it was really all the fault of his nemesis , George Herbert Walker Bush
Rummy writes how humiliating it was to run for president briefly in the 1988 Republican primary , with no money or name recognition , when front-runner Bush did n't bother to show up for their candidate forums
Rummy has never hidden his disdain for Poppy , whom he regards as a flighty preppy who did n't have the brass to march into Baghdad and take down Saddam Hussein
The end of the Persian Gulf war was about manners
The first President Bush had promised the allies he would merely shoo Saddam out of Kuwait , so that 's all he did
Any more would have been `` unchivalrous , '' as Rummy quotes Colin Powell saying
No doubt Rummy feels that if he 'd been a pedigreed scion instead of a working-class scholarship kid , he could have been president
And he would n't have made a hash of it , like some presidents he worked for
He would n't have had indistinct chains of authority or confused lines of responsibility or unrestricted flow charts or unresolved internal conflicts or a paucity of interagency meetings or most grievous of all , memos that were not read and acted upon
There were those in the military who considered Rumsfeld the devil incarnate , and those in diplomacy who considered him more ruthless than any global despot
Rummy dismisses reports of his masterminding as inaccurate rumors
W. , however , loved Rummy 's blunt muscularity and contempt for weakness
`` I was still surprised by Governor Bush 's request to see me , '' Rummy writes about the president-elect
`` He had to be aware that I did not have a close relationship with his father .
At some level , that must have appealed to the wimp-phobic W. , who spent more time trying to be Ronald Reagan 's heir than his dad 's
Starting on 9\/11 , Rummy pushed and maneuvered to blame Saddam for 9\/11 despite the lack of evidence
He excoriates others as scheming infighters
He writes that , despite her `` affinity for '' W. , Condi was a bad N.S.C. chief , forcing consensus rather than letting contentious issues get to the president
He mocks her rhetoric trying to push democracy as secretary of state , especially her contention that `` human rights trump security .
He notes with asperity that it was not her place to press Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf to take off his uniform - much less to tell Rummy himself that the pinstripes on his old pants had faded away
He blames Colin Powell for posturing with the press and George Tenet for being so cocky about Saddam 's phantom W.M.D.
He claims viceroy Paul Bremer messed up Iraq , occupying too long , ignoring the chain of command and carving out a separate relationship with the president
He even delicately blames the president , for not making incisive decisions at times on pressing matters and for not scheduling `` a high-level meeting on my proposals '' sent in a memo
He says it was Tommy Franks who did n't want a lot of ground forces in Tora Bora , when Osama got away from us
He blames the generals for not telling him he needed more troops to secure Iraq - as though he would have listened
He blames the Geneva Convention 's drafters for not knowing detainees of modern `` asymmetrical '' wars would need rougher treatment
He blames the Supreme Court for its `` novel reasoning '' defending detainee rights
He blames Katrina on ... Oh , never mind
You get the idea
`` I either run or try to play basketball every day , '' he said
`` I have severe athlete 's foot feet
I get a foot scrub out of respect for my wife because getting into bed with what I have when I take my socks off is n't respectful to anybody .
Ford had worked out at Equinox and was dressed in a University of Michigan baseball cap and T-shirt , J. Crew sweatshirt , Adidas striped pants and Nike tennis shoes
The New York transplant with the Tennessee driver 's license who was raised in Washington , D.C. , is the darling of what he calls the `` Manhattan social philanthropic crowd .
As the former Tennessee congressman and Merrill Lynch rainmaker told The Times 's Michael Barbaro in an interview about his flirtation with a Senate run , he gets pedicures and has breakfast at the Regency on Park Avenue -LRB- where Rielle Hunter famously picked up John Edwards by calling him `` so hot '' -RRB-
He often gets chauffeured by MSNBC to his gigs on `` Morning Joe '' and has flown to the boroughs in a helicopter
The chopper trip was part of a fundraising drive by the New York City Police Foundation
He said he and his brothers were not spoiled growing up
`` My grandmother beat the -LRB- expletive -RRB- out of us with an electric cord , '' he said
`` Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand and some others want to create this notion that I moved to New York with the intention of running for office and I live this unbelievably luxurious life , '' he said , his green eyes earnest
`` I 'm blessed , and I work extremely hard , and I 'm able to pay my bills
I love New York
I love the smell of the city
I love the subways
As I learn more and more , I love every part of the state
It 's so unfair how it 's been characterized
I eat at places like the Coffee Shop more than I eat uptown .
We had stopped in the Coffee Shop before deciding that , despite its greasy-spoon name , it was a hub of hip , too noisy for an interview
Ford said he and his pretty blond wife , Emily , a marketing expert , were married in 2008 after his racially charged run for the Senate in Tennessee
They have made her apartment their official home
`` My wife decided after the '08 election , '' he said
`` There was so much bad racial stuff out of Tennessee on Obama
I 'm in an interracial marriage
I do n't want to subject my wife to this , and I want to start a family
I think my marriage is more accepted here than it would be in Tennessee
I started paying closer attention to New York politics , and I was pleasantly not pleasantly but I was surprised by how serious the New York political class were in their opposition to Senator Gillibrand .
Being a Wall Street bonus baby is not a plus
`` I 'm not running from the fact that I worked at a bank and brought in clients , '' he said
`` Am I proud of everything that went on
Of course not .
But Ford was helped by Gillibrand Svengali Schumer and the White House the `` political bosses , '' as he calls them shoving him away from the race
He also sees Scott Brown as a happy harbinger that 2010 is going to be , in the words of an Obama adviser , `` a rancid year for incumbents .
`` I 'm not comparing myself to Bobby Kennedy by any stretch , but he was opposed by the liberal establishment , too , '' Ford said
`` Eleanor Roosevelt was the biggest opponent to him running .
He argues that politicians should not have `` static positions '' but should `` allow new information and cultural norms to affect them .
They should not , he said , be punished for `` thoughtfulness .
On his embrace of gay marriage , he observed : `` There were pastors in my Tennessee district who said you can minister to someone and change their sexual orientation
I just never accepted that
I 'm a heterosexual
I do n't know what anyone can say to me to make me sexually be with a man .
There are top Democrats who find Ford too slick
`` He could sell a snowball in a blizzard , '' said one
But he has a buttery way that suits brash New York
He charms everyone , from waiters who drop cutlery to customers who drop into his conversation
`` People walk right over and grab your hand , and they never say , ` Pardon me , ' which I love , '' he said
`` My dad was a congressman , and he taught me at a very early age , ` They voted for me , they view me as theirs , and I am .
Our family 's phone in Memphis was always listed
It rang all day and all night .
The guy at the next table was staring at Ford 's plate
`` The garden omelet , '' Ford said , with a grin
Editor 's Note : Harold Ford was quoted in this column as saying that Eleanor Roosevelt opposed Bobby Kennedy 's New York Senate run
But as many of our readers pointed out , Ford was mistaken ; Mrs. Roosevelt died two years before Bobby Kennedy 's run for the New York Senate
Once upon a time , America thought Prince Charming would glide in and kiss her , reviving her from a coma induced by a poison apple of greed , deceit , carelessness , recklessness and overreaching
But then the prince got distracted , seeing Lincoln in the mirror , and instead gave the kiss of life to a bunch of flat-lining Republican tax-cut fetishists
Somehow the most well-known person on the planet lost control of the economic message to someone named Eric Cantor
-LRB- And Larry Summers ended up making Henry Paulson seem riveting .
In his first weeks padding around a White House that still has nails on the walls waiting for new pictures , and phone and e-mail kinks , Barack Obama could not locate the bully pulpit and ended up being bullied
Republicans , pulled out of their existential lethargy and re-energized by the president 's charm offensive , immediately mounted an offensive against him
Just as Michael Bloomberg learned the perils of cuddling a groundhog when it bit him , Mr. Obama learned the perils of coddling conservatives
Pete Sessions , a conservative from Waco , Tex. , and the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee , warned that they could become an insurgency , having learned more about insurgencies `` because of the Taliban .
-LRB- Yes , that 's the same Taliban that was allowed to regenerate by bumbling Republican leaders .
Obama advisers are right to crow that the president 's civility to Republicans will be popular with the public
But the carrot-stick ratio was way out of whack
Mr. Obama should have written up a kosher -LRB- as in pork-free -RRB- bill that Americans could trust and Republicans could n't as easily mock and jammed it through
It 's a huge , scary moment , with trillions of dollars and millions of jobs flying out the window
Vice President Joseph Biden , in another Cassandra moment , told House Democrats that even if the White House does everything right , `` there 's still a 30 percent chance we 'll get it wrong .
The president and his aides seemed a bit snow-blinded by the White House , overwhelmed and slow to understand that they were losing the high ground and the whip hand
They could n't even get their pick for commerce secretary , the Republican Senator Judd Gregg , to vote for their stimulus bill ; he said he would abstain
Those in the president 's circle were too caught up in more narrow concerns , like how their relationships with the president and the capital were shaking out ; whether they could breathe on this new planet with the rarefied air of cool planes and helicopters ; and whether W. 's mind-boggling mountain of garbage would trash Democratic candidates in 2010 and doom Mr. Obama to one term
`` I would rather do the right thing and have one term than be mediocre and have two , '' Mr. Obama told House Democrats at their Williamsburg retreat Thursday night
The lawmakers had been feeling disillusioned that they were carrying Mr. Obama 's water on the bill , while Obama aides triangulated and promised that the bill would `` improve '' in the Senate
Nancy Pelosi told her leadership team that she had told the president , `` I do n't mind you driving the bus over me , but I do n't appreciate your backing it up and running over me again and again .
The Obama wizards ' tactical skills seemed to desert them
The White House often ends up making its inhabitants tone-deaf -LRB- or even nuts -RRB- , but this was an unusually quick trip into the cognitive third dimension
Asked what he had learned from the Daschle fiasco , one Obama official replied , `` Not to rationalize .
They knew that the choice of Tom Daschle conflicted with the Obama change message , but they preferred to focus on how much the president owed his friend and how good they thought he would be in the job
They wanted him because he was the ultimate insider and they lost him because he was the ultimate insider
Now Daschle 's punishment for getting too rich with special interests will be to get richer with special interests
Obama aides call the morass a good wake-up call , and the president seems more aware of how the White House weather can cloud your thinking
Maybe that 's why he keeps trying to pop out to get a breath of fresh air at an elementary school , at the Kennedy Center , at Camp David
On Friday , a reporter asked Robert Gibbs if the president was already feeling cooped up
`` He 's a bit of a restless soul , '' Gibbs said , laughing
`` His idea of a crazy day is to take a long walk .
A long walk where
somebody asked
`` In solitude and isolation , '' Gibbs replied
President Obama does n't need to leave his new home to be isolated
That 's the specialty of the White House
Forgive Me , Father , for I Have Linked Once funeral homes began live-streaming funerals , it was probably inevitable
But now confessions are not only about touching the soul , but touching the screen
With the help of two priests , three young Catholic men from South Bend , Ind. , have developed an iPhone app to guide Catholics through - and if they are lapsed , back to - confession
It shot to global success , ranking No. 42 on the best-selling app list , according to iTunes
The trio got the idea , surprisingly , from the pope
When I was little , the nuns urged us to find the face of Christ in pictures of landscapes - snowfalls and mountains
In a letter last May , Pope Benedict XVI urged priests to help people see the face of Christ on the Web , through blogs , Web sites and videos ; priests could give the Web a `` soul , '' he said , by preaching theology through new technology
`` Confession : a Roman Catholic App '' is not a session with a virtual priest who restores your virtue with a penance of three Hail Mary 's and three extra gigabytes of memory
Rather , its developers say , it 's a `` baby steps '' program that walks you through the Ten Commandments , your examination of conscience and any `` custom sins '' you might have , then after confession -LRB- purportedly -RRB- wipes the slate clean so no one sees your transgressions
`` We tried to make it as secure as possible , '' said Patrick Leinen , a 31-year-old Internet programmer who built the app with his brother , Chip , a hospital systems administrator , and Ryan Kreager , a Notre Dame doctoral candidate
You still have to go into the real confessional at church to get absolution , and , hopefully , your priest wo n't be annoyed that you 're reading your sins off of a little screen and , maybe , peeking at a football game or shopping site once in awhile
`` The whole point is to get you to go to church , '' said Leinen
He and his fellow programmers got help from two priests , the Rev. Dan Scheidt , the pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mishawaka , Ind. , and the Rev. Thomas Weinandy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
They also got an imprimatur - billed as the first for an iPhone and iPad app - from Bishop Kevin Rhoades of the Diocese of Fort Wayne in Indiana
The app offers different questions depending on your age and gender
For instance , if you sign in as a 15-year-old girl and look under the Sixth Commandment , one of the questions is : `` Do I not treat my body or other people 's bodies with purity and respect ?
If you sign in as a 33-year-old married man , that commandment offers this query : `` Have I been guilty of masturbation ?
Children are asked if they pout or use bad language
Teenagers are asked if they are a tattletale or bully
Women are asked if they 've had an abortion or encouraged anyone to have an abortion and if they 're chaste
Men are asked about the latter two , as well
The app also tailors the questions if you sign in as a priest or a `` religious .
For instance , if you say you 're a female and try to select `` priest '' as your vocation , a dialogue box appears that says `` sex and vocation are incompatible .
So much for modernity
Under the Sixth Commandment , men and women are asked : `` Have I been guilty of any homosexual activity ?
Priests , however , are not
They are asked if they flirt
Father Scheidt assured me that the app `` is n't a morality textbook
It 's just meant to prompt discussion .
`` I have always allowed cheat sheets in the confessional for people who want to be sure they get all of their sins , '' he said of the ritual that can prompt so much anxiety
`` Essentially , this provides an electronic list
Human relations are shifting more and more to being mediated by some of these gadgets
If this is the bridge for people to have a more meaningful encounter about what 's deepest in their heart , I think it 's going to serve the good .
He said when he was giving confessions on Tuesday evening , he was surprised when a parishioner came in with a phone glowing with the Confession app
`` Seeing somebody looking back and forth is initially a little strange , '' he said
`` But I found that it really caused the person to focus and recollect more .
At least we know now that Nietzsche was wrong
God is n't dead
His server may be down though
He had applied the freshness of his independent thought to the critical matters at hand
He had convened his seminar , reviewed the reviews , analyzed the intelligence every which way , thought anew about everything , and lo and behold , he finally emerged to tell us some stuff we already knew
We are under attack
There is evil in the world
Yemen is a dangerous place that breeds people who want to kill us
Al Qaeda is determined to attack inside the United States
Al Qaeda is casting a wide recruiting net for vulnerable young men
Aspirational terrorists eventually become operational terrorists
Our airports are not safe
Metal detectors ca n't detect nonmetal explosives sewn into underwear
Our incomplete no-fly lists are more like `` Welcome aboard '' lists
We still ca n't connect the dots , even when the dots are flying at us like 3-D asteroids
The sun rises in the east
Two plus two equals four
`` We must do better , '' Captain Obvious said Thursday at the White House , `` in keeping dangerous people off airplanes while still facilitating air travel .
John Brennan , the deputy national security adviser , was equally illuminating
`` The intelligence , '' he informed us , `` fell through the cracks .
He also offered this : `` Al Qaeda is just determined to carry out attacks here against the homeland .
That rings a bell
The president and his intelligence officials stressed that these were not the same mistakes made before 9\/11
`` Rather than a failure to collect or share intelligence , '' President Obama said , `` this was a failure to connect and understand the intelligence that we already had .
That makes me feel that all those billions spent on upgrading the intelligence system were well spent
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab 's father personally delivered a neon warning to our embassy in Nigeria , and a State Department employee quickly dropped the ball by misspelling the aspiring terrorist 's name , leading to the false assumption that he did not have a valid U.S. visa
Border security officials figured out while he was in the air that the young man had extremist links , but inexplicably decided to wait until he landed to question him , failing to notify the pilot of his plane
After all , what harm could a foreign extremist bring to a plane over American soil
So it was n't bureaucratic turf wars that caused the intelligence to fall through the cracks this time
The C.I.A. and counterterrorism agencies were n't hoarding information and refusing to pool tips
They were just out to lunch
And this is supposed to be progress
I 'd rather they were hoarding
It would be more reassuring to think our intelligence analysts actually knew what was going on but were hampered by power grabs than to think they were cooperative but clueless
Even though Russ Feingold , who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee , has been pointing out since 2002 that we need to focus on Yemen `` It 's the ancestral home of Osama bin Laden and the place where Al Qaeda blew up the U.S.S. Cole and we lost 17 people , '' he impatiently notes the president said that the intelligence community was caught off guard by the attack planned by the Qaeda affiliate in Yemen , even though `` we knew that they sought to strike the United States , and that they were recruiting operatives to do so .
Senator Feingold told me that `` this is obviously an international network and we have to start thinking about it that way rather than as a country-by-country eradication process .
Unlike the Republicans , who have yet to take responsibility for a single disastrous thing they did , President Obama said `` ultimately the buck stops with me .
But when he failed to immediately step up to the microphones in Hawaii after the Christmas terror and thank the passengers for bravely foiling the plot that his intelligence community had failed to see , President Cool reached the limits of cool
No Drama Obama is reticent about displays of emotion
The Spock in him needs to exert mental and emotional control
That is why he stubbornly insists on staying aloof and setting his own deliberate pace for responding whether it 's in a debate or after a debacle
But it 's not O.K. to be cool about national security when Americans are scared
Our professorial president is no feckless W. , biking through Katrina
He is no doubt on top of the crisis in terms of studying it top to bottom
But his inner certainty creates an outer disconnect
He 's so sure of himself and his actions that he fails to see that he misses the moment to be president to be the strong father who protects the home from invaders , who reassures and instructs the public at traumatic moments
He 's more like the aloof father who 's turned the Situation Room into a Seminar Room
I did n't
It 's probably a federal crime of some sort
But a girl can fantasize
I did , however , assume the Stay-away-from-me-you 've - got-cooties stance that Jimmy Carter used when posing with Bill Clinton at the presidents ' powwow in the Oval
The first time was Tuesday , when Cheney left the ceremony where he gave the oath of office to senators
The senators seemed thrilled , especially Joe Biden , who was getting sworn in for just two weeks and was excitedly showing off a family Bible the size of a Buick
But I thought it gave the ceremony a satirical edge to have the lawless Vice presiding over lawmakers swearing to support and defend the Constitution that he soiled and defiled right in the heart of the legislative branch he worked to diminish
The second time I crossed paths was Thursday night , at a glitzy party at Cafe Milano for Brit Hume , stepping down as a Fox anchor
It required extreme defensive maneuvers much zigging and zagging to avoid Cheney , Wolfie and Rummy , all three holding court and blissfully unrepentant about the chaos they 've unleashed on the world
`` My conscience is clear , '' Rummy volunteered to Bob Woodward , talking about how he 's interviewing people for his memoir
Woodward was stunned
`` I was as speechless as I was in July 2006 when I interviewed him and he said he was not a military commander , that he could make the case that he was ` by indirection , two or three steps removed , ' '' Woodward told me afterward
At least Ernst Stavro Blofeld would have the decency just to leave the scene
From Gaza to the unemployment figures to the $ 10.6 trillion debt , things keep spiraling while W. keeps fiddling
Just as when he was in the National Guard and did n't bother to show up , now , as the scabrous consequences of his missteps shake the economy and the world , he does n't bother to show up
He 's checked out spending his time on more than a dozen exit interviews that do nothing to change his image as a president who was over his head and under Cheney 's spell
Asked by People magazine what moments from the last eight years he revisited most often , W. talked passionately about the pitch he threw out at the World Series in 2001 : `` I never felt that anxious any other time during my presidency , curiously enough .
Asked by Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard if he had made progress in some areas for which he has n't gotten credit , the president put trying to privatize Social Security at the top of his list
It 's frightening to think where a lot of people would be now if that effort had succeeded
After he leaves office , W. wants to go on more bike rides , because biking through Katrina was not enough
He wants to write a memoir , even though the offers are not pouring in as they did for Laura
And he wants to encourage debate at his presidential library on `` big ideas .
The vamoosing Vice has no apologies about turning America into a country that tortured ; indeed , he denies it ever happened
`` Torture , '' he told Barnes , `` that word gets thrown around with great abandon .
He 's going back to Casper , Wyo. , and said he 's giving `` serious thought '' to writing a book , so he can continue his extremist makeover
The only thing he can do now is shoot a big lie across the bow and see if it lands
Cheney 's theory of executive `` unitary '' power and pre-emptive war and frightening the world was a theory of Constitutional thuggishness
Asked last week by Mark Knoller of CBS Radio in one of his exit interviews to name the `` biggest mis-impression '' people had about him , Cheney replied with a laugh , `` That I 'm actually a warm , lovable sort .
He went on to seriously assert that his image as `` a private , Darth Vader-type personality '' has been `` pretty dramatically overdone .
`` I think we made good decisions , '' he told Knoller , adding with even grander delusion , `` I think we knew what we were doing .
He protested `` the notion that somehow I was pulling strings or making presidential-level decisions
I was not
There was never any question about who was in charge
It was George Bush
And that 's the way we operated
This whole notion that somehow I exceeded my authority here , was usurping his authority , is simply not true
It 's an urban legend , never happened .
The fact that Cheney is now putting all the blame for all the messes squarely on W. shows once more how the bureaucratic master outmaneuvers his younger partner
Even on his way out , Vice is still on top
`` For the record , '' Conan O'Brien wryly noted in a statement addressed to `` People of Earth '' outlining his refusal to host NBC 's `` The Tonight Show '' if it was shoved back half-an-hour , `` I am truly sorry about my hair ; it 's always been that way .
This is the week of the television winter press tour from Pasadena , when the networks traditionally roll out their offerings for midseason replacement shows
But there 's only one replacement show that anyone here is talking about : an NBC family drama bloodier than `` The Tudors '' and more inexplicable than `` Lost , '' a tragedy about comedy featuring an imperious emperor and his two dueling jesters in a once-mighty and now-blighted kingdom
As NBC reeled from the fallout of Jeff Zucker 's tacit admission that his attempt to refashion the customary way Americans watch prime time had failed , Hollywood was ablaze with baldenfreude
In a town where nobody makes less than they 're worth , and most people pull in an obscene amount more , there has been a single topic of discussion : How does Jeff Zucker keep rising and rising while the fortunes of NBC keep falling and falling
The 44-year-old is a very smart guy who made a success as a wunderkind at `` The Today Show , '' but many in the Hollywood community have always regarded him as a condescending and arrogant East Coaster , a network Napoleon who never bothered to learn about developing shows and managing talent
At a moment when Zucker 's comedy double-fault was smashing relationships in L.A. , he showed the talent of a Mafia boss for separating himself from the hit when he went and played in a New York City tennis tournament
-LRB- He lost in the first round .
`` Zucker is a case study in the most destructive media executive ever to exist , '' said a honcho at another network
`` You 'd have to tell me who else has taken a once-great network and literally destroyed it .
Zucker 's critics are ranting that first he killed comedy , losing the NBC franchise of Thursday night `` Must See TV , '' where `` Seinfeld , '' `` Friends '' and `` Will & Grace '' once hilariously reigned ; then he killed drama , failing to develop successors to the formidable `` ER , '' `` West Wing , '' and `` Law & Order '' ; then he killed the 10 o'clock hour by putting Jay Leno on at a time when people expect to be told a story ; and then he killed late night by putting on a quirky redhead who did not have the bland mass-market appeal of Leno and who could n't compete with the peerless late-night comedian NBC had stupidly lost 16 years ago , David Letterman
Zucker is a master at managing up with bosses and calculating cost-per-hour benefits , but even though he made money on cable shows , he could not program network to save his life
He started by greenlighting the regrettable `` Emeril '' and ended by having the aptly titled `` The Biggest Loser '' as one of his only winners
Certainly , Zucker greatly underestimated the deeply ingrained viewing patterns of older Americans , who have always watched the networks in a particular way
The kids come home , do their homework , the family has dinner
They 're in front of the TV by 8 , and 8:30 is known as the dog-walking slot
At 9 , it 's time for more comedy
As they get tired , they like to watch a fictional drama that leads into the real drama of the late local news
And then they like to laugh again so that those images of war or a local murder are not the last thing they see before bed
America has been watching a very specific sort of guy at 11:35 p.m. for half a century , one who chuckles as Mary Tyler Moore or Sarah Jessica Parker tells an amusing story and lets us drift off by the time some stand-up comic or blow-up starlet tells a salacious joke
Zucker rolled the dice because he wanted to show Jeff Immelt that he could get beyond his Ben Silverman debacle and get prime time to stop bleeding money -LRB- a problem he created -RRB-
But he learned the hard way that it is a lot to undo
As Mark Harris wrote in New York magazine in November , `` Zucker has often behaved like the grudging caretaker of a dying giant
... As much as Jeff Zucker would like to cast the blame elsewhere , substituting number-crunching defensiveness for enterprise , adventure , and showmanship is what helped get NBC into this mess .
Consumed with the NBC game of musical late-night chairs , Hollywood machers play a game of trying to figure out the last time there has been a blunder of such outlandish proportions
Despite everything , Zucker just got his contract renewed for three years with the Comcast acquisition of NBC
`` Not since J. Pierrepont Finch in ` How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying ' has an executive failed upwards in so obvious a fashion , '' marveled one TV writer
Another called the Leno experiment the worst mistake made by anyone in television since an ABC Entertainment executive told the Chicago affiliate chief that the network did n't want to own and broadcast the new daytime talk show hosted by a young black woman
Her name : Oprah Winfrey
Obama 's brainy ways and political posse of `` hot nerds , '' as one admiring reporter dubbed them , could inspire schoolchildren to aspire
When Duncan spends a little more time in Washington , he will learn something strange : Politics is a place where really smart people often get caught doing really dumb things
Take Tim Geithner , the hot nerd tapped by Obama to fix the colossal mess left by W. and Henry Paulson , a man who played with live snakes and dead-on-arrival ideas
How does a guy on the fast track to be Treasury secretary fail to pay $ 34,000 worth of federal taxes -LRB- $ 43,200 , including interest -RRB- , or forget to check on the immigration status of a house cleaner the same sort of upstairs-downstairs slip-up that has tripped up other top-drawer prospects on their way to top jobs here
Americans expect the man who 's in charge of the I.R.S. to pay his own taxes
Geithner 's transgressions may seem petty given the kind of transgressions that have taken place in the Bush administration , and given the dire warnings of Obama 's choice for budget director , Peter Orszag , that the end may be nigh if the U.S. continues to spend beyond its means
But Obama has proselytized about a shiny new kind of politics , and it 's d j vu all over again with the smart being dumb , the rich being greedy , the powerful being sketchy
This brings us to the Clintons
Hillary aced her Senate hearing on Tuesday , performing as the A-student she is
As one of her former campaign aides said , whatever else you say about her , she is always prepared
With Chelsea sitting protectively behind in a plum dress and glam '40s hairdo Bill was watching on TV with his mother-in-law Hillary showed the reasons she could be a star at state and queen of Obama 's hot nerds
She was on top of all the issues , no matter how obscure
She batted around our `` stale '' arctic policy who knew
with Alaska 's Lisa Murkowski , who does n't seem to realize we 're sick of Alaska
She was up to date on the inevitable Law of the Sea Treaty
She ladled up the broth of flattery expected in the Senate with a chef 's finesse
Even after Senator Dick Lugar , the ranking Republican on the panel that was questioning her , tut-tutted that her links to Bill Clinton 's foundation carry the `` risk '' of foreign governments `` and entities '' trying to curry favor with Madam Secretary by donating money to her husband , she deftly buttered up Lugar
`` Your leadership and inspiration with respect to arms control and especially nonproliferation and the efforts to contain and destroy loose nukes and other materiel , and now moving into the pathogen area , which is particularly dangerous , is a great example to me of what we should be doing , '' she told a beaming Senator Lugar
Not many women can talk about `` the pathogen area '' with such authority and yet femininity
After enduring endless pompous lecturing from John Kerry on what she should read and think a thinly veiled attempt to show the world that he would have made a better secretary of state , and indeed , thinks he was promised it by Obama Hillary slathered on the oleo
After his windy discourse on how scientists had `` revised the levels of supportable greenhouse gas emissions from 550 parts per million to 450 to now 350 , '' Hillary replied : `` You are eloquent in describing it , and you 've been a leader in trying to sound the alarm on it for many years .
That seemed to calm Kerry down a bit
The only one who attempted to joust with her about Bill 's unappetizing gravy train was David Vitter , the Louisiana Republican who was caught messing about with the notorious D.C. Madam in 2007 , and he was n't the right messenger
Hillary swatted him away
She will easily intimidate the world 's dictators , just as she often intimidated Obama in the primaries
But it remains to be seen whether she can put aside her tendency to see disagreement as disloyalty
Can she work at the State Department with those who deserted her to support the usurper Obama
Can she manage Foggy Bottom better than she managed her foggy campaign
Obama and Hillary continue to be engaged in an intense tango
The new president is confident enough to think he can do what has never been done
He thinks he can pull out like a diamond from carbon the sparkling side of the Clintons that can make them exceptional public servants , extracting it from the gray side of the Clintons that can make them tacky , greedy , opportunistic and ethically shady
Cleaning out the Augean stables was nothing compared to this task , with Obama trying to bend Hillary and Bill to his will , while they try to bend him to theirs
As a Saudi soldier with a gold sword high-stepped in front of him , President Bush walked slowly beside King Abdullah through the shivery gray mist enveloping the kingdom , following the red carpet leading from Air Force One to the airport terminal
When the two stepped onto the escalator , the president tenderly reached for the king 's hand , in case the older man needed help
He certainly does need help , but not the kind he is prepared to accept
It took Mr. Bush almost his entire presidency to embrace diplomacy , but now that he 's in the thick of it , or perhaps the thin of it given his speed-dating approach to statesmanship he is kissing and holding hands with kings , princes , emirs , sheiks and presidents all over the Arab world and is trying to persuade them that he is not in a monogamous relationship with the Jews
His message boiled down to : Iran bad , Israel good , Iraq doing better
Blessed is the peacemaker who comes bearing a $ 30 billion package of military aid for Israel and a $ 20 billion package of Humvees and guided bombs for the Arabs
Like the slick Hollywood guy in `` Annie Hall '' who has a notion that he wants to turn into a concept and then develop into an idea , W. has resumed his mantra of having a vision that turns into freedom that could develop into global democracy
W. 's peace train quickly gave way to the warpath , however , with Mr. Bush devoting a good chunk of time to the unfinished war in Iraq and the possibility of a war with Iran
In meetings with leaders , he privately pooh-poohed the National Intelligence Estimate asserting that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003
On Fox News , he openly broke with intelligence analysts , telling Greta Van Susteren about Iran : `` I believe they want a weapon , and I believe that they 're trying to gain the know-how as to how to make a weapon under the guise of a civilian nuclear program .
Less than a week after the president arrived in the Middle East , three violent eruptions an Israeli raid killing at least 18 Palestinians , 13 of whom were militants ; an American Embassy car bombing in Beirut ; and a luxury hotel suicide-bombing in Kabul underscored how Sisyphean a task he has set for himself
`` This is one of the results of the Bush visit , '' said Mahmoud Zahar , a Hamas leader , as he went to a Gaza hospital to see the body of his son , a militant killed in the battle
`` He encouraged the Israelis to kill our people .
Arab TV offered an uncomfortable juxtaposition : Al Arabiya running the wretched saga of Gaza children suffering from a lack of food and medicine during the Israeli blockade , blending into the wretched excess scenes of W. being festooned with rapper-level bling from royal hosts flush with gazillions from gouging us on oil
W. 's 11th-hour bid to save his legacy from being a shattered Iraq even as the Iraqi defense minister admitted that American troops would be needed to help with internal security until at least 2012 and border defense until at least 2018 recalled MTV 's `` Cribs .
At a dinner last night in the king 's tentlike retreat , where the 8-foot flat-screen TV in the middle of the room flashed Arab news , the president and his advisers Elliott Abrams and Josh Bolten went native , lounging in floor-length , fur-lined robes , as if they were Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif
In Abu Dhabi , Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan gave the president dubbed `` the Wolf of the Desert '' by a Kuwaiti poet a gigantic necklace made of gold , diamonds , rubies and emeralds , so gaudy and cumbersome that even the Secret Service agent carrying it seemed nonplussed
Here in Saudi Arabia , the king draped W. with an emerald-and-ruby necklace that could have come from Ali Baba 's cave
Time 's Massimo Calabresi described the Kuwaiti emir 's residence where W. dined Friday as `` crass class '' : `` Loud paintings of harems and the ruling Sabah clan hang near Louis XVI enameled clocks and candlesticks in the long hallways .
It has been quite a journey for Ted Olson
He 's gone from being the conservative lawyer who helped crown W. by winning the Bush v. Gore case before the Supreme Court , to being a lesbian
`` Maureen , '' he told me in his gravelly voice , `` one of the biggest lesbian groups in this country told me I 'm already an honorary lesbian .
Did it make you feel different , I wondered
`` I still like women very much , '' he wryly replied , as his biking pal , liberal adversary and now co-counsel David Boies laughed , snacking on a crust of sourdough bread in their temporary office on Mission Street
In 2000 , Olson and Boies sparred with each other in Washington over which candidate would marry the country
Now they have joined forces here to spar with Prop 8 defenders over who can marry
`` Ted Olson and David Boies , so what are they up to ?
Olson laughed , summarizing the confusion and conspiracy theories that their union inspired
As the sun set on the Bay Bridge behind him and the curtain dropped on the first week of the dramatic trial to challenge the constitutionality of the state 's ban on same-sex marriage , Olson reviewed the case : `` We 're going to explain why allowing same-sex couples to have that same right that the rest of us have is not going to hurt heterosexual marriages
It has no point at all except some people do n't want to recognize gays and lesbians as normal , as human beings .
Boies , wearing a flag pin on his lapel , said that the state of California is engaged in `` gay bashing .
He spoke intensely about the gay and lesbian plaintiffs , who offered poignant testimony about their loving relationships and about wanting to be liked and accepted : `` These people are people you would want your child to grow up and marry
You can be a child molester and get married
You can be a wife beater and get married
You can be a child-support scofflaw and get married
The importance of that emotional relationship is so vital to the pursuit of happiness that even prison felons , who are n't really procreating , have a right to get married .
Noting the rabid effort being made to restrict marriage to only those who can protect its sanctity , a chuckling Olson reeled off some names : `` Tiger Woods , Eliot Spitzer , Mark Sanford , Kobe Bryant , Bill Clinton .
I asked Olson if he misted up , as many in the courtroom did , when Jeff Zarrillo , a 36-year-old manager at AMC Entertainment , testified that he loved his partner `` probably more than I love myself .
`` Yes , '' Olson replied , noting that he finds himself getting weepy a lot , including when a bright lawyer in his Washington law firm approached him in the library to tell him she was a lesbian mother of two and she was grateful to him
`` I think there 's something the matter with you if you do n't care enough to feel the suffering that they 've been through and if you 're not emotionally upset about the fact that we 're doing an immense amount of harm to people , '' he said
`` We 're not treating them like Americans
We 're not treating them like citizens .
Boies said the problem was generational , and they have to try the case before judges their own age who might find it hard to move beyond old prejudices
-LRB- Although this judge , a libertarian-tilting George H. W. Bush appointee , Vaughn Walker , who likes to hire magicians for the court 's annual dinner , has been so accommodating to their side that Ed Meese complained he was tilting the case .
`` I 've got a grandson who 's a senior in college , and he ca n't imagine fighting over this issue , '' Boies said
`` It 's like explaining to my daughter that there was a time when women did n't have the right to vote and could n't own property .
The anti-gay-marriage proponents whipped up a moral frenzy in 2008 , suggesting conjugal parity would harm children , summon the devil , tear down churches and melt civilization
But Olson argued in his opening statement that the discrimination gays experience `` weakens our moral fiber in this country .
While Charles Cooper , the lawyer on the anti-gay-marriage side , cited President Obama 's declaration that marriage should only be between a man and a woman , Olson noted that Obama 's parents could not have married in Virginia before he was born
I asked the lawyers if they were disappointed that the president who had once raised such hope in the gay community now seemed behind the curve
`` Damned right , '' Boies snapped
`` I hope my Democratic president will catch up to my conservative Republican co-counsel .
Olson added : `` I 'm not talking about Obama , but that 's what 's so bad about politicians
They say , ' I must hasten to follow them , for I am their leader . '
Obama sees himself as such a huge change that he can be cautious about other societal changes
But what he does n't realize is that legalizing gay marriage is like electing a black president
Before you do it , it seems inconceivable
Once it 's done , you ca n't remember what all the fuss was about
When President Bush finished doing his sword dances and Arabian stallion inspections , when he finished making a speech in Abu Dhabi on the importance of freedom that fell flat , when he finished lounging in his fur-lined George of Arabia robe in the Saudi king 's tent , he came home
Or he came to what was left of home
A Washington Post cartoon by Tom Toles summed it up best : `` Great to be home , '' W. enthuses on Air Force One , heading toward the East Coast
`` Anything interesting happen while I was gone ?
Hanging on the skyline of New York is a sign reading : `` U.S.A.
Now a Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Foreign Investors .
Wherever he went , W. seemed dazzled by the can-do spirit of the J. Pierrepont Finches of the new Middle East
`` It 's important for the president to hear thoughts , hopes , dreams , aspirations , concerns from folks that are out making a living , '' he told Saudi entrepreneurs
In Dubai , he commended young Arab leaders , saying , `` The entrepreneurial spirit is strong .
In Abu Dhabi , he marveled at the royal family 's plans to build a city based entirely upon renewable energy
`` Amazing , is n't it ?
W. said
You know you 're in trouble when your Middle East oil pump is greener than you are
Even as W. played cheerleader for Arab business , the Arabs were cleaning our clocks then buying them
Our addiction to oil has allowed our pushers in the Persian Gulf to go on a shopping spree to snap us up
Hillary Clinton was right when she said it was `` pathetic '' that President Bush had to beg the Saudis to drop the price of oil
One cascading rationale he offered for invading Iraq was the benign domino theory , that bringing democracy to Iraq would sway the autocrats in the region to be less repressive
But when W. visited Saudi Arabia and Egypt last week , he did not have the whip hand
He could not demand anything of the autocrats in the way of more rights for women and dissidents , much less get the Saudis to help on oil production
He needs their help in corralling Iran , which has been puffed up by the occupation of Iraq
So he was a supplicant in Saudi Arabia
The American economy is a supplicant , too
Two decades ago , we fretted that Japan was taking over America when Sony bought Columbia Pictures and Mitsubishi bought a chunk of Rockefeller Center
But they overpaid for everything
Now , because of Wall Street 's overreaching , our economy depends on foreign oil and foreign loans to stay afloat
China and Arab countries have a staggering amount of treasury securities
And the oil-rich countries are sitting on so many petrodollars that they are looking beyond prestige hotels and fashion labels and taking advantage of the fire sale to buy eye-popping stakes in our major financial institutions
Like the president , Citigroup and Merrill Lynch came with tin cups to Middle Eastern , Asian and American investors last week , for a combined total of nearly $ 19.1 billion , after the subprime mortgage debacle blew up their books
Citigroup , which raised $ 7.5 billion from Abu Dhabi in November , raised another $ 12.5 billion , including from Singapore , Kuwait and Saudi Prince Walid bin Talal
Merrill Lynch gave $ 6.6 billion in preferred stock to Kuwait , South Korea , a Japanese bank and others
-LRB- While the great sage Bob Rubin was advising Hillary Clinton on sound fiscal policy , he seemed to be asleep at the Citigroup switch .
As Warren Buffett has said , we are giving ourselves a party to feed our appetite for oil and imported goods and paying for it by selling off the furniture , our most precious assets
When the president got back Thursday night from a trip that made it clear he has no clout overseas , he had to rush the ailing economy into intensive care
Next to the cool , strong euro , the dollar is a comparative runt in the world 's currencies
The weak dollar lets foreigners snap up real estate in Manhattan
It is striking that the Bush scion , who has tried so hard to do the opposite of his father , also ends up facing the prospect of a recession in his final year in office
Maybe if the president had spent the trillion he squandered on his Iraq odyssey on energy research , we might have broken the oil addiction
Now it 's a race between Iraq , stupid , or the economy , stupid , to see which one will usher out W. The country is engaged in a fit of nativism and Lou Dobbsism , obsessing about the millions of Mexicans who might be sneaking across the border when billions in foreign money are pouring into Citigroup
You figure out what might be a bigger problem
The national boundaries that really matter are the financial ones : Who 's going to own the American economy
`` I mean , oh , God , '' he said , sipping green tea in his elegant office
`` In a couple of years , you 'll see me as the clerk of a wine store .
It 's easy to picture the lithe and charming Newsom with the well-cut suits , the electric Tesla , the beautiful blonde wife and baby advising a Pacific Heights couple on a cabernet with aromas of eucalyptus and mint
Before he got into politics , after all , he started a boutique wine shop in Napa Valley that blossomed into a multimillion-dollar business
So how did this onetime poster boy for the new face of the Democratic Party get to the point where he could n't raise the money to compete with the old-school Jerry Brown in the governor 's race , and why is he leaving politics just when he feels as though he 's getting better at it
`` This is it
God bless
It was fun while it lasted , '' he said of his career , with a rueful smile
`` Guys like me do n't necessarily progress very far , which is fine .
If Newsom feels a little sorry for himself these days , it 's perfectly understandable
In a courthouse a few blocks from City Hall , Ted Olson and David Boies are defending same-sex marriage in a landmark case substantially financed so far by David Geffen and Steve Bing
While the mayor contemplates life as a wine clerk , the two lawyers are becoming bipartisan folk heroes to gays and lesbians and were lionized in a Newsweek cover story and a Diana Walker photo spread in Time
Boies told The New Yorker that the `` powerful images '' of gay couples flocking to San Francisco to tie the knot had helped move him to get involved in the case to overturn Proposition 8
Like many pioneers who go first from the `` Ellen '' sitcom to the Hillary drama the mayor who staked his career on giving equal rights to gays may have to settle for paving the way
The lawyers get praised , but he got pilloried
`` Grand understatement , '' he said dryly , noting that he still remembers press coverage from before the 2004 same-sex marriage eruption about shooting stars of the Democratic Party
`` There were five of us , '' he said , with a teasing nostalgia
`` A guy named Obama
I 'm like ` Why is he in here
This is ridiculous
I mean , he 's a state senator
I 'm kind of insulted .
Life was really good , and then it came crashing down
` You 're not going to be speaking at the convention
We overbooked .
And then it becomes the house of cards with the Democrats excusing themselves from visits to this city and being in the same room with me
`` I went in with the beginner 's mind
I did n't know what I did n't know
I never imagined 4,036 couples getting married over a month
And this is by no means an excuse for the governor 's race
But you just could n't escape from the perception ` he 's just a single-issue person .
I remember standing there at the window , and I swear to you , I resigned myself to not even being re-elected mayor
This is a much more conservative town than people give it credit for .
And now Jerry Brown might be governor redux
`` It 's frustrating , '' Newsom admitted
`` It 's not a critique , but he was n't particularly helpful at the time
I think he came around very recently , and I think there was some pragmatism to that as well , candidly .
I asked whether President Obama , who said at a Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration that the civil rights movement was partly about `` changing people 's hearts and minds and breaking out of old customs and old habits , '' had disappointed him given that the president is a triumph of civil rights himself
`` Oh , I ca n't get in trouble here , '' Newsom said with a playful wince
`` I want him to succeed
But I am very upset by what he 's not done in terms of rights of gays and lesbians
I understand it tactically in a campaign , but at this point I do n't know
There is some belief that he actually does n't believe in same-sex marriage
But it 's fundamentally inexcusable for a member of the Democratic Party to stand on the principle that separate is now equal , but only on the basis of sexual orientation
We 've always fought for the rights of minorities and against the whims of majorities .
He said the promise of Obama sparking an `` organic movement '' has faded and `` there 's a growing discontent and lack of enthusiasm that I worry about
He should just stand on principle , put this behind him and move on .
The mayor , who met with Olson and Boies the day after we talked , said he wanted to go to court and see them in action
After all , they 're the local heroes
Not since Klaatu landed in a flying saucer on the Ellipse has Washington been so mesmerized by an object whirring through the sky
But this one was departing , not arriving
As W. ceased to be president , he flew off over the Capitol and across the Mall en route to Andrews Air Force Base , and then back to Texas
I 've seen many presidents come and go , but I 've never watched a tableau like the one Tuesday , when four million eyes turned heavenward , following the helicopter 's path out of town
Everyone , it seemed , was waving goodbye , with one or two hands , a wave that moved westward down the Mall toward the Lincoln Memorial , and keeping their eyes fixed unwaveringly on that green bird
They wanted to make absolutely , positively certain that W. was gone
It was like a physical burden being lifted , like a sigh went up of `` Thank God
Has Cheney 's wheelchair left the building , too ?
The crowd was exuberant that George Bush was now an ex-president , and 43 himself was jovial `` the way he always is , '' according to his last press secretary , Dana Perino
It was like a catharsis in Greek drama , with the antagonist plucked out of the scene into the sky , and the protagonist dropping into the scene to magically fix all the problems
Except Barack Obama 's somber mien and restrained oratory conveyed that he 's no divinity and there will be no easy resolution to this plot
It was a morning of such enormous emotion and portent jaw-dropping , Dow-dropping and barrier-dropping that even the cool new president had to feel daunted to see his blocks-long motorcade and two million hope-besotted faces beaming up at him , dreaming that he can save their shirts
The optimism was tempered by pessimism , a vibe of `` Maybe this once-in-a-lifetime guy can do it , but boy , there are a lot of never-in-our-lifetime problems here .
Unlike W. , Obama is a realist
He knows there is the potential of letting all these blissed-out people down
The day had its jittery moments : Teddy Kennedy 's collapse and Robert Byrd 's distraught reaction
There was also that match of the titan smarty-pants the new Democratic president face to face with the conservative chief justice he voted against
First John Roberts had to say , Easy , cowboy , after Mr. Obama jumped the gun on `` I '' at the start of the oath of office
Then the president , who had obviously been looking over his lines , graciously offered the chief justice a chance to correct his negligent syntax , when he put the `` faithfully '' and other words out of place
Under the platform , near where I sat , Denzel Washington , Beyonc , Jay-Z and P. Diddy looked on proudly as the new commander in chief showed he was in command of the script and the country
After thanking President Bush `` for his service to our nation , '' Mr. Obama executed a high-level version of Stephen Colbert 's share-the-stage smackdown of W. at the White House correspondents ' dinner in 2006
With W. looking on , and probably gradually realizing with irritation , as he did with Colbert , who Mr. Obama 's target was -LRB- Is he talking about me
Is 44 saying I messed everything up ?
the newly minted president let him have it : `` As for our common defense , we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals , '' he said to wild applause -LRB- and to Bartlett 's -RRB- , adding : `` Those ideals still light the world , and we will not give them up for expedience 's sake .
He said America is choosing hope over fear , unity over discord , setting aside `` false promises '' and `` childish things .
Letting a little air out of the highest hopes about what one man , even `` The One , '' can do , he emphasized the word `` our .
He stressed that rebuilding after the wreckage of W. and Cheney will be a shared burden and that `` giving our all to a difficult task '' is n't as bad as it sounds
I grew up here , and it was the first time I 've ever seen the city wholly , happily integrated , with a mood redolent of New York in the weeks after 9\/11
The Obamas have made an unprecedented pledge to get involved in the real city that lies beyond the political Oz , and have already started doing so in many ways , including starting the night out at the D.C. Neighborhood Inaugural Ball
Downtown was a euphoric pedestrian mall of commerce and communal kindness
The patience that America is extending to Mr. Obama , according to a Times poll , was reflected across the capital , as the cram of people sparked warmth rather than antsiness
Strollers laughed as a peddler in a Rasta hat hawked his `` Barack Obama incense .
And revelers stepped up to a spot where you could pick out a colored magic marker and complete posters that began , `` Mr. President , I hope for ... '' Entries ranged from `` burning less oil '' to `` healthcare for all '' to `` a cure for cancer '' to this lofty and entirely understandable sentiment : `` a sick inauguration party .
If Bill Clinton has to trash his legacy to protect his legacy , so be it
If he has to put a dagger through the heart of hope to give Hillary hope , so be it
If he has to preside in this state as the former first black president stopping the would-be first black president , so be it
The Clintons or `` the 2-headed monster , '' as the The New York Post dubbed the tag team that clawed out wins in New Hampshire and Nevada always go where they need to go , no matter the collateral damage
Even if the damage is to themselves and their party
Bill 's transition from elder statesman , leader of his party and bipartisan ambassador to ward heeler and hatchet man has been seamless and seamy
After Bill 's success trolling the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip , Hillary handed off South Carolina and flew to California and other Super Tuesday states
The Big Dog relished playing the candidate again , wearing a Technicolor orange tie and sweeping across the state with the mute Chelsea
He tried to convey the impression that they were running against The Man , and with classic Clintonian self-pity , grumbled that Barack Obama had all the advantages
When he was asked yesterday if he would feel bad standing in the way of the first black president , he said no. `` I 'm not standing in his way , '' he said
`` I think Hillary would be a better president '' who 's `` ready to do the job on the first day .
He added : `` No one has a right to be president , including Hillary
Keep in mind , in the last two primaries , we ran as an underdog .
He rewrote the facts , saying that `` no one thought she could win '' in New Hampshire , even though she originally had had a substantial lead
He said of Obama : `` I hope I get a chance to vote for him some day .
And that day , of course , would be after Hillary 's eight years ; it 's her turn now because Bill owes her
`` I think it would be just as much a change , and some people think more , to have the first woman president as to have the first African-American president , '' he said
Bad Bill had been roughing up Obama so much that Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina suggested that he might want to `` chill .
On a conference call with reporters yesterday , the former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle , a national co-chairman of the Obama campaign , tut-tutted that the `` incredible distortions '' of the political beast were `` not keeping with the image of a former president .
Jonathan Alter reported in Newsweek that Senator Edward Kennedy and Rahm Emanuel , the Illinois congressman and former Clinton aide , have heatedly told Bill `` that he needs to change his tone and stop attacking Senator Barack Obama .
In the Myrtle Beach debate Monday night , Obama was fed up with being double-teamed by the Clintons
He finally used attack lines that his strategists had urged him to use against Hillary for months
`` It was as though all the e-mails were backed up , '' said one
When Hillary tried once more to take Obama 's remarks about Ronald Reagan out of context , making it seem as though Obama had praised Reagan 's policies , he turned sarcastic about getting two distortionists for the price of one
`` I ca n't tell who I 'm running against sometimes , '' he snapped at Hillary , obviously entrapped and psyched-out by the Clinton duo
On a conference call with reporters yesterday morning , Obama did not back off from his more aggressive , if defensive , stance
The Clintons , he said `` spent the last month attacking me in ways that are not accurate
At some point , it 's important for me to answer .
Recalling that Hillary had called mixing it up the `` fun '' part of politics , he said : `` I do n't think it 's the fun part to fudge the truth .
Bill has merged with his wife totally now , talking about `` we '' and `` us .
`` I never did anything major without discussing it with her , '' he told a crowd here
`` We 've been having this conversation since we first met in 1971 , and I do n't think we 'll stop now .
He suggested as First Lad that `` I can help to sell the domestic program .
It 's odd that the first woman with a shot at becoming president is so openly dependent on her husband to drag her over the finish line
She handed over South Carolina to him , knowing that her support here is largely derivative
At the Greenville event , Bill brought up Obama 's joking reference to him in the debate , about how Obama would have to see whether Bill was a good dancer before deciding whether he was the first black president
Bill , naturally , turned it into a competition
`` I would be willing to engage in a dancing competition with him , even though he 's much younger and thinner than I am , '' he said
`` If I 'm going to get in one of these brother contests , '' he added , `` at least I should be entitled to an age allowance .
He said , `` I kind of like seeing Barack and Hillary fighting .
`` How great is this ?
he said
`` Neither of them has to be a little wind-up doll who 's supposed to behave in a certain way
They 're real people , flesh and blood people
They have differences .
And if he has anything to say about it , and he will , they 'll be fighting till the last dog dies
I wondered how the Governator of California felt about the crumbling Kennedy legacy in Massachusetts and the rocketing Scott Brown , who has promised to scuttle the health care bill
`` In Hollywood , people are made a star overnight , '' Arnold Schwarzenegger said , calling from L.A. on Friday
`` What he has done is spectacular
Party leaders are telling him : ` You could be the next Obama
Two years in office and then you run .
`` Specifically , this has to do with the health care bill , '' he said , noting that he and many others had gotten turned off by the cost of the bill and the inequity of giving sweetheart deals to some senators , like Nebraska 's Ben Nelson
Teddy Kennedy was the uncle of Arnold 's wife , and now , as Jon Stewart proclaimed , `` The Kennedy legacy goes down to a naked guy who owns a truck .
But even though Teddy 's widow , Vicki , is fighting hard for the bill , the governor hopes Brown kills it
Obama , he said , was `` trying to search very quickly for the sweet spot what would just close the deal
And my point is , let 's not go and do this for the sake of having done it .
Yet after his own bronco ride running a state that 's ridiculously hard to govern , Arnold has a new understanding of why Teddy and President Obama struggled in their attempts at big changes
On the cusp of the special election for Kennedy 's seat , when I interviewed Arnold at his favorite Beverly Hills lunchtime haunt , Caff Roma , the governor was already confident that Martha Coakley was going down
`` This is a major disaster the Democrats are in a major panic mode , '' he said , chuckling with satisfaction , leaning back in his black sheepskin-lined jacket and smoking a big stogie
`` They 're going in the dead bed
It will be a punishing blow for the Democrats in 2010 .
About the cinematically handsome Brown , who campaigned in a GMC pick-up truck and once posed in the buff in Cosmo , Arnold ruminated : `` In acting , they always tell you , ` Do n't just talk
Do n't just let words come out of your mouth
Go and get inside the heart .
I think the guy has that ability .
Recalling his own 2003 campaign , when Bill Clinton and other Democratic stars came West to boost Gray Davis improbably casting Arnold as David rather than Goliath he predicted that sending Obama to Boston would backfire : Obama `` up against the little guy no one has ever heard of before , the guy who is with his truck , driving around and shaking hands and really has new vision and energy
People look at that and say , ` We 've got to help the little guy . '
Tea-party-style voter revolts are just part of `` the rhythm '' of American politics , he said
`` I 've been the victim of that myself , '' he observed
`` People change very quickly , and you ca n't complain because that 's the way people are
Work somewhere in a soup kitchen or something if you ca n't take the pressure
`` Obama was a great candidate
He speaks well , looks good , he 's articulate , he 's smart , blah , blah , blah , all these kind of things
They went running towards Obama : ` Here 's our savior .
They hated Republicans
So then Obama gets to office and talks about the things he promised
` We 're going to stimulate the economy .
Well , wh-wh-what is this
Is this handouts
So everything that is put on the table is being fought as if he 's going against his promises , which he is n't
But that 's the way it works , and it 's a very odd thing .
Did Obama make a mistake , using all his capital on health care
`` He let other people do the negotiating , '' Arnold replied
`` If you want to travel around , if you want to put fires out all over the world , O.K. , but you 've got to be there for those negotiations .
James Cameron 's Terminator likes to look at the big picture , or the `` master shot , '' as he puts it
And his own master shot shows him jumping from bodybuilding champ to top movie star to governor , scaling every peak `` with tunnel vision .
He overcame movie focus groups that said , as he recalled , `` Jeez , he scares the hell out of me , I feel like I 'm in Germany and the Nazis are back .
He speculated that Democrats and Republicans were too scared of him to pass a law allowing immigrants to run for president , but if they had , he would have jumped in `` because it 's there .
Arnold freely talks about his admiration for Jerry Brown
Would he be upset if the Republicans lost and Brown succeeded him
`` No , '' he said , taking a final puff
`` I think the best person should win , whatever party that is .
I love his beady little eyes
I love his Serbian shock of hair
I love his flaring nostrils
I love the way he jogs through the snow under indictment , like a stork in spandex trying to gallop
I love the way he compares himself in quick order to Pearl Harbor , Oliver Wendell Holmes and a dead cowboy
I love the hurly-burly way the Illinois governor rammed through his choice for the Senate , compared with the namby-pamby way the New York governor strangled his best choice for the Senate
So now we have an N.R.A. handmaiden in Bobby Kennedy 's old seat
Kirsten Gillibrand , a k a Tracy Flick , accepting the honor with her Republican pal Al D'Amato beside her on stage
After quoting Kipling and Tennyson in previous shameless press conferences , Blago moved on to an old cowboy movie analogy on Friday to explain why he should be allowed to call Rahm Emanuel , Valerie Jarrett and Jesse Jackson Jr. as witnesses at the impeachment trial he 's refusing to attend
`` There was an old saying in the Old West , '' he said
`` There was a cowboy who was charged with stealing a horse in town
And some of the other cowboys , especially the guy whose horse was stolen , were very unhappy with that guy
And one of the cowboys said , ` Let 's hang him .
Then the other cowboys said : ` Hold on
Before we hang him , let 's first give him a fair trial
Then we 'll hang him .
Under these rules , I 'm not even getting a fair trial
They 're just hanging me .
Raising his own high bar for chutzpah , he complained to The Associated Press about his arrest , `` Dec. 9 to my family , to us , to me , is what Pearl Harbor Day was to the United States .
Even though he is accused of pressuring The Chicago Tribune fire members of the editorial board who had criticized him or lose his help in selling the prime asset Wrigley Field Blago called on The Tribune to write editorials defending his rights
Mayor Richard Daley pronounced Blago `` cuckoo .
Governor Paterson is simply a goofball
Paterson could have acted a month ago , or even a week ago
There was no reason not to , certainly not his claim that he had to wait for Hillary , ad nauseam , to exit to State
Colorado 's governor named Michael Bennet senator two and a half weeks before Ken Salazar resigned his seat for the Interior Department
Then the Democrats would have had another Kennedy in the Senate representing New York Bobby 's niece and a smart , policy-oriented , civic-minded woman to whom the president feels deeply indebted in an era when every state has its hand out
Instead they have Gillibrand , who voted against the Wall Street as in New York bailout bill
And who introduced a bill to balance the federal budget annually , which suggests she would oppose the $ 825 billion in deficit spending that President Obama proposes to rescue the country , not least New York
Paterson 's five weeks of dithering let the jealous vindictiveness of the Clintons and friends still fuming over Caroline 's endorsement of Obama and Teddy 's blocking Hillary from a leading health care role in the Senate poison the air
With his usual sense of entitlement and aggrievement , Bill Clinton of Arkansas did not want Caroline Kennedy of New York to have the seat that Hillary Clinton of Illinois held
Paterson was n't thinking of New York , only of how an upstate ally who was a woman would bolster his own chances for re-election
We can only hope that an avenging Andrew Cuomo takes him out in a primary
The 42-year-old Gillibrand , who has been in the House for only two years , is known as opportunistic and sharp - elbowed
Tracy Flick is her nickname among colleagues in the New York delegation , many of whom were M.I.A. at her Albany announcement
Fellow Democrats were warning Harry Reid on Friday that he was going to have his hands full with the new senator because she 's `` a pain .
Chuck Schumer embraced Gillibrand because at long last he can be the best-known senator from New York , something that would have been impossible with Kennedy
The governor who began his accidental tenure , thanks to Client 9 , by confessing his infidelities and drug use had so little class that he trashed Kennedy while letting her hang out to dry , then let aides trash her even after she dropped out
Kennedy friends said that , as Caroline was pulling out for family reasons , the governor made a crude attempt to control the spin a childish `` You ca n't quit , I 'm firing you '' power play
Carolyn McCarthy , who ran for Congress on an antigun platform after her husband was killed and her son wounded by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993 , said she may challenge the `` N.R.A. poster child '' in 2010
She had the best line Friday , wondering about the chuckle-headed governor : `` Who 's in control up there ?
Not a better message
It figured that he would snowbird his strategy , taking his New York subtext of blacks-want-to-mug-you-and-I-can-protect-you down to Florida and switching it to Arabs-want-to-kill-you-and-I-can-save-you
And I was n't surprised that he continued to run on fear and divisiveness , zeroing in on Florida the way he used to target Staten Island , Bay Ridge , Queens and parts of Manhattan where the elderly lived
Hizzoner always focused on those who supported him and ignored those who did n't
I simply expected that Rudy would rise to greater heights as he fell behind , that he would self-immolate in a dramatic way befitting a man who loves opera and the `` Godfather '' movies
I longed for the Manhattan diva to reprise Maria Callas doing one of her famous Donizetti mad scenes that he loved so much
Watching him in colorful Miami in his funereal dark suit , I wondered , where 's the red meat
I missed his showman 's appreciation for pouncing on the news of the day and grabbing headlines with some outrageous , provocative aria
Surely , The New York Times 's McCain endorsement harshly branding America 's Mayor `` a narrow , obsessively secretive , vindictive man '' who spurred racial polarization and exploited 9\/11 for his business and political purposes gave Rudy the lyrics for an operatic rant against The Times that could have replaced his milquetoast stump speech and delighted conservative audiences
And how could he pass up the chance to mock his old nemesis Hillary , the feminist icon who is totally dependent on her husband to do the heavy lifting
It was Mitt Romney who scored the best Hillary line at the Boca debate
When Tim Russert asked him , `` How would you run against Hillary and Bill Clinton in November , '' Mitt replied : `` I frankly ca n't wait , because the idea of Bill Clinton back in the White House with nothing to do is something I just ca n't imagine
I ca n't imagine the American people can imagine .
The audience laughed and Russert tried to pin down Mitt to see if he was implying any East Wing shenanigans
It does conjure up a disquieting image of Hillary in the Oval and Bill rambling around next door in the study right near that pantry
Romney has slyly used the word `` intern '' at least twice talking about Hillary , saying he had more business experience than she did and the White House was `` not a place for a president to be an intern .
But slick Mitt slid away from Russert , replying , `` I just think that we want to have a president , not a whole a team of husband and wife thinking that they 're going to run the country .
Previewing a Republican race in the fall , he went on : `` She is Washington to the core
She 's been there too long
Bill Clinton 's been there too long
The last thing America needs is sending the Clintons back to Washington .
Then he stole an Obama line , to go along with the Obama change mantra he snitched and put on posters , adding , `` Look , sending the same people back to Washington expecting a different result is not going to get America on track .
Facing possible catastrophe last week , Rudy stolidly stuck with peddling a plan for a national catastrophe fund that would make property owners ' insurance more affordable to Floridians whose rates have been driven up by hurricanes
-LRB- Does n't the man who attacks Hillary for socialized medicine worry that this is socialized homeowners ' insurance ?
His deep investment in one state and a one-dimensional message do not seem to have paid dividends
He needs to quit talking about 9\/11 and dial 911
His numbers have dropped by half in the year he has campaigned here
The more he has wooed , the less he has won
His campaign may have always been doomed , given that he was unacceptable to so many other Republicans
But the final act seems sad sputtering , stalling and dying like a bad engine on an old car
Could it be over before the fat lady sings
If early-bird voters do n't save him and he comes in third here , will he get out of the race so he does n't suffer the indignity of losing New York , a scene so melodramatically implausible that even Verdi would n't try to pull it off
One top Democrat , shocked that Rudy had run a race so minimalist that it would make a front-porch campaign look expansive , wondered if it was really some ploy to pump up his business
And perhaps his low-energy windup was meant to maintain dignity for Giuliani Partners
At a Rudy rally in Boca on Thursday , there were snowbirds and transplanted New Yorkers
Some , naturally , loved Rudy and some , naturally , loathed him
Ed Wenger , 65 , a retired aerospace executive who used to live in Long Island , hailed the former mayor as `` fantastic .
`` He turned Times Square from a hooker 's paradise to Disneyland , '' he said
Nearby , Norman Korowitz , 66 , a snowbird , retired guidance counselor and Billary fan from Suffolk County , called Rudy `` an optical illusion .
`` He 's Bernie Kerik 's partner , '' he said
`` And family values
He makes Bill Clinton look like a young upstart .
The handsome , athletic pol with the comely wife and two lovely daughters who precipitously rose from the State Legislature to pull us all together
The fresh face and disarming underdog America 's been waiting for , someone who suffered through his parents ' divorce , watched his mom go on welfare and survived some wayward youthful behavior to become disciplined and successful a lawyer , a lawmaker and a devoted family guy who does dog duty
Someone who 's always game for a game of pickup basketball , loves talking sports and even boasts beefcake photos
A pro-choice phenom propelled into higher office by conservatives , independents and Democrats , a surprise winner with a magical aura
The New One is the shimmering vessel that we are pouring all our hopes and dreams into after the grave disappointment of the Last One , Barack Obama
The only question left is : Why is n't Scott Brown delivering the State of the Union
He 's the Epic One we want to hear from
All that inexperience can really be put to good use here
Obama 's Oneness has been one-upped
Why settle for a faux populist when we can have a real one
Why settle for gloomy populism when we can have sunny populism
Why settle for Ivy League cool when we can have Cosmo hot
Why settle for a professor who favors banks , pharmaceutical companies and profligate Democrats when we can have an Everyman who favors banks , pharmaceutical companies and profligate Republicans
Why settle for a 48-year-old , 6-foot-1 , organic arugula when we can have a 50-year-old , 6-foot-2 , double waffle with bacon
Everyone in Washington now wants to touch the hem of President-elect Brown known in the British press as `` the former nude centrefold '' who has single-handedly revived the moribund Republican Party
It uncannily recalls the way they once jostled to piggyback on the powerful allure of One-Term Obama
The capital is abuzz
What did Scott say about that
Has anybody checked with Scott
Let 's not make a move without consulting Scott
One of the most famous political figures of the age , John McCain , was thrilled -LRB- and no doubt envious -RRB- that a newbie unknown a week ago made robo-calls for him in his tightening Arizona re-election race
Before the Senate rejected a debt-reduction commission on Tuesday , reporters pressed for Brown 's hypothetical intentions : Would he have voted yes if he had been seated
-LRB- Yes , his spokesman told The Politico 's David Rogers .
The Republican leader , Mitch McConnell , has even christened Brown `` 41 , '' usurping Poppy Bush 's nickname
That 's because Brown , the only Republican in the Massachusetts Congressional delegation , gives his party the needed 41st vote to filibuster unmolested
Even some in the Obama White House secretly wonder if the wonder from Wrentham , Mass. , is The One
Could he be a more authentic version of their guy , who also swept in as a long-shot outsider only 14 months ago
Obama is coming across as plastic and hidden , rather than warm and accessibly all-American
-LRB- Brown has even been known to do his daughter 's laundry when she gets too busy .
Whereas Obama had to force himself to nibble French fries and drink beer -LRB- instead of his organic Black Forest Berry Honest Tea -RRB- during the Pennsylvania primary , Brown truly loves diners , Pepsi , Waffle Houses and the unwashed masses
David Axelrod , Obama 's senior strategist , praised Brown for his `` spectacular '' campaign
And Obama aligned himself with the new symbolic force , telling ABC 's George Stephanopoulos that `` the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office
People are angry and they 're frustrated .
Even though Brown opposes Obama 's plan to tax big banks , the president tried to wrap himself in Brown populism : `` And here in Washington from their perspective the only thing that happens is that we bail out the banks .
Stephanopoulos pointed out the obvious difference between Barry and Scotty , telling the president with the populist mask : `` But you 're in charge now .
At the moment , President-elect Brown is a new blank slate in an old pickup truck
As the president scrambles to freeze some spending and unfreeze his persona , Obama strategists hope that , in some weird way , Brown will help revive the president 's fortunes
They say that if Brown turns out to be as independent as Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe , he can help the president bypass the conservative troglodytes on the Hill and pull Obama out of his slump
It wo n't be long before we see the New One and the Old One playing two-on-two Brown with his basketball - and `` American Idol '' - star daughter , Ayla , and Obama , perhaps , with his 6-foot-5 body man Reggie Love on the White House court
Just a couple of messiahs shooting some hoops and swapping man-of-the-people stories
Could n't he throw down his BlackBerry tablet and smash it in anger over the feckless financiers , the gods of gold and their idols in this case not a gilt calf but an $ 87,000 area rug , a cache of diamond Tiffany and Cartier watches and a French-made luxury corporate jet
Now that we 're nationalizing , could n't we fire any obtuse bankers and auto executives who cling to perks and bonuses even as the economy is following John Thain down his antique commode
How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $ 50 million corporate jet , the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12 , after losing $ 28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $ 345 billion in government investments and guarantees
-LRB- Now I get why a $ 400 payment I recently sent to pay off my Citibank Visa was mistakenly applied to my sister-in-law 's Citibank Mastercard account .
The `` Citiboobs '' as The New York Post , which broke the news , calls them watched as the car chieftains got in trouble for flying their private jets to Washington to ask for bailouts , and the A.I.G. moguls got dragged before Congress for spending their bailout on California spa treatments
But the boobs still did n't get the message
The former masters of the universe do n't seem to fully comprehend that their universe has crumbled and , thanks to them , so has ours
Real people are losing real jobs at Caterpillar , Home Depot and Sprint Nextel ; these and other companies announced on Monday that they would cut more than 75,000 jobs in the U.S. and around the world , as consumer confidence and home prices swan-dived
Prodded by an appalled Senator Carl Levin , Tim Geithner even as he was being confirmed as Treasury secretary directed Treasury officials to call the Citiboobs and tell them the new jet would not fly
`` They woke up pretty quickly , '' says a Treasury official , adding that they protested for a bit
`` Six months ago , they would have kept the plane and flown it to Washington .
Senator Levin said that the financiers will not be able to change their warped mentality , but will have to be reined in by Geithner 's new leashes
`` I have no confidence that they intend or desire to change , '' Levin told me
`` These bankers got away with murder , and it 's obscene that close to nothing is being asked of financial institutions
I get incensed at the thought that a bank that 's getting billions of dollars in taxpayer money is out there buying fancy new airplanes .
New York 's attorney general , Andrew Cuomo , always gratifying on the issue of clawing back money from the greedy creeps on Wall Street , on Tuesday subpoenaed Thain , the former Merrill Lynch chief executive , over $ 4 billion in bonuses he handed out as the failing firm was bought by Bank of America
In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC , Thain used the specious , contemptible reasoning that other executives use to rationalize why they 're keeping their bonuses as profits are plunging
`` If you do n't pay your best people , you will destroy your franchise '' and they 'll go elsewhere , he said
They destroyed the franchise
Let 's call their bluff
Let 's see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $ 15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism
Bartiromo also asked Thain to explain , when jobs and salaries were being cut at his firm , how he could justify spending $ 1 million to renovate his office
As The Daily Beast and CNBC reported , big-ticket items included curtains for $ 28,000 , a pair of chairs for $ 87,000 , fabric for a `` Roman Shade '' for $ 11,000 , Regency chairs for $ 24,000 , six wall sconces for $ 2,700 , a $ 13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $ 37,000 , a `` custom coffee table '' for $ 16,000 , an antique commode `` on legs '' for $ 35,000 , and a $ 1,400 `` parchment waste can .
Does that mean you can only throw used parchment in it or is it made of parchment
It 's psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs , homes , pensions and savings
Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M. 's again
Just think : This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won
Bartiromo pressed : What was wrong with the office of his predecessor , Stanley O'Neal
`` Well his office was very different than the the general d cor of Merrill 's offices , '' Thain replied
`` It really would have been very difficult for me to use it in the form that it was in .
Did it have a desk and a phone
How are these ruthless , careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around -LRB- not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff ?
and not as perps
Bring on the shackles
Let the show trials begin
She told one of the Hillary volunteers that she had `` great admiration '' for the senator , but also great doubts about whether her strong negatives would sink her in the general election
`` I ca n't understand why people dislike her so much , '' Mrs. Wessel said
The volunteer assured the wavering caucusgoer that the Republicans will slime anyone who gets the nomination and that Hillary has more experience wrestling them than her rivals
Mrs. Wessel is torn
She likes Obama but worries about his experience
She likes Hillary but worries about her baggage
The presidential anglers here are dancing on the head of a pin
The Democratic race three lawyers married to lawyers who talk too much is very tight and very volatile
Even the jittery pack of seasoned political operatives gazing into their BlackBerrys does n't seem to have a clue which way the Iowa snowdrifts are blowing
Across town , Nancy Hibbs , a 57-year-old nurse , came to listen to John Edwards give his son-of-a-mill-worker rant against corporate greed , complete with a sneer aimed at Obama that anyone who thinks you can `` just nice '' the carnivorous Republican fat cats into submission is in `` Never-Never Land .
Ms. Hibbs had decided after seeing Barack Obama a year ago that she would vote for him
She saw him again Monday night in Ames and felt even more certain that he was the one
After listening to Edwards for 40 minutes on Tuesday , she up and changed her mind , deciding to vote for him
`` You can tell in his voice he 's not playing the game , you can hear his moral commitment , '' she said
`` We need a big turnaround .
And what about Hillary
`` I do n't want the same old entrenched politics , '' she replied , adding emphatically , `` And I do n't want Bill in the White House again .
But Bill very much wants to be in the White House again
He is going around the state relentlessly , giving a speech as tightly choreographed with Hillary 's as a `` Dancing With the Stars '' routine
`` Miss Bill
Vote Hill !
reads one button being sold outside their events
By the time Bill and Hill are finished with you , you could be forgiven for thinking that she had personally forged the peace accord in Northern Ireland while socking away the $ 127 billion Clinton budget surplus and dodging bullets en route to ending ethnic cleansing in Bosnia
The Big Dog pushed the experience card hard
`` Whatever 's fixin ' to happen , '' whether it 's something like 9\/11 , Katrina or Pakistan , he said , Hillary is better equipped to face it
As to the health care debacle , he said , `` Every president will fail at something or another .
It 's how they dust themselves off that counts
And whether she has learned from her mistakes , of course , is the heart of the matter , and something that voters can never really know even if they study up as much as Iowans
Has Hillary truly changed , and grown from her mistakes
Has she learned to be less stubborn and imperious and secretive and vindictive and entitled
Or has she merely learned to mask her off-putting and self-sabotaging qualities better
If elected , would the old Hillary pop up , dragging us back to the dysfunctional Clinton kingdom
She is speaking in a soft , measured voice in these final days , so that , as with Daisy Buchanan , you have to lean in to listen
But is she really different than she was in the years when she was so careless about the people around her getting hurt by the Clinton legal whirlwind that she was dubbed the Daisy Buchanan of the boomer set
The underlying rationale for her campaign is that she is owed
Owed for moving to Arkansas and giving up the name Rodham , owed for pretending to care about place settings and menus when she held the unappetizing title of first lady , owed for enduring one humiliation after another at the hands of her husband
Oddly , Barack and Michelle Obama also radiate a sense that they are owed
Not for a lifetime of sublimation and humiliation , but for this onerous campaign , for offering themselves up to save and uplift the nation , even though it disrupted their comfortable lives
Michelle told Vanity Fair that Americans would have only one chance to anoint her husband , vowing `` it 's now or never '' and explaining `` there 's an inconvenience factor there '' and a `` really , really hard '' pressure and stress on the family that can only be justified if her husband can win the presidency and `` change the world .
She told a group gathered at a nursing home in Grinnell on Monday that `` Barack is one of the smartest people you will ever encounter who will deign to enter this messy thing called politics .
So it comes down to this : Will Queen Hillary reign
Will Prince Barack deign
And who is owed more
It 's already famous as The Snub , the moment before the State of the Union when Obama turned away to talk to Claire McCaskill instead of trying to join Teddy Kennedy in shaking hands with Hillary
Nobody cared about W. , whose presidency had crumpled into a belated concern about earmarks
The only union that fascinated was Obama and Hillary , once more creeping around each other
It would have been the natural thing for the Illinois senator , only hours after his emotional embrace by the Kennedys and an arena full of deliriously shrieking students , to follow the lead of Uncle Teddy and greet the rebuffed Hillary
She was impossible to miss in the sea of dark suits and Supreme Court dark robes
Like Scarlett O'Hara after a public humiliation , Hillary showed up at the gathering wearing a defiant shade of red
But the fact that he did n't do so shows that Obama can not hide how much the Clintons rattle him , and that he is still taking the race very personally
On a flight to Kansas yesterday to collect another big endorsement , this one from Gov. Kathleen Sebelius , Obama said he was `` surprised '' by reports of The Snub
`` I was turning away because Claire asked me a question as Senator Kennedy was reaching forward , '' he said
`` Senator Clinton and I have had very cordial relations off the floor and on the floor
I waved at her as I was coming into the Senate chamber before we walked over last night
I think there is just a lot more tea leaf reading going on here than I think people are suggesting .
But that answer is disingenuous
Their relations have been frosty and fraught ever since the young Chicago prince challenged Queen Hillary 's royal proclamation that it was her turn to rule
Last winter , after news broke that he was thinking of running , he winked at her and took her elbow on the Senate floor to say hi , in his customary languid , friendly way , and she coldly brushed him off
It bothered him , and he called a friend to say : You would not believe what just happened with Hillary
Again and again at debates , he looked eager to greet her or be friendly during the evening and she iced him
She might have frozen him out once more Monday night had he actually tried to reach out
But now Obama is like that cat Mark Twain wrote about who would n't jump on the stove again for fear of being burned
It was only after the distortions of the Clintons in South Carolina that he changed his tone and took on Hillary in a tough way in the debate there
Afterward , one of his advisers said that it was as though a dam had broken and Obama finally began using all the sharp lines against Hillary that strategists had been suggesting for months
Why had it taken so long for Obama to push back against Hillary
`` He respected her as a senator , '' the adviser replied
`` He even defended her privately when she cried , saying that no one knows how hard these campaigns are .
But Obama 's outrage makes him seem a little jejune
He is surely the only person in the country who was surprised when the Clintons teamed up to dissemble and smear when confronted with an impediment to their ambitions
Knowing that it helped her when Obama seemed to be surly with her during the New Hampshire debate , telling her without looking up from his notes that she was `` likable enough '' another instance of Obama not being able to hide his bruised feelings Hillary went on ABC News last night to insinuate that he was rude Monday
`` Well , I reached my hand out in friendship and unity and my hand is still reaching out , '' she said , lapsing back into the dissed-woman mode
`` And I look forward to shaking his hand sometime soon .
Something 's being stretched here , but it 's not her hand
She was n't reaching out to him at all
The New York State chapter of NOW issued an absurd statement on Monday calling Teddy Kennedy 's endorsement of Obama `` the ultimate betrayal '' : `` He 's picked the new guy over us .
But Obama is the more emotionally delicate candidate , and the one who has the more feminine consensus management style , and the not-blinded-by-testosterone ability to object to a phony war
As first lady , Alpha Hillary 's abrasive and secretive management of health care doomed it
She voted to enable W. on Iraq so she could run as someone tough enough to command armies
Given her brazen quote to ABC News , Obama is right to be scared of Hillary
He just needs to learn that Uncle Teddy ca n't fight all his fights , and that a little chivalry goes a long way
No Axe to Grind But rarely has there been a partnership that rocked the world the way the Chicago odd couple did
The lean , neat One and the hefty , messy one accomplished what seemed impossible : Getting a black man the nation 's worst job , as The Onion memorably put it
So it was a parting of sweet sorrow this weekend for The Brand and The Keeper of The Brand
The unsentimental Barack Obama and the sentimental David Axelrod said goodbye Friday night over an intimate dinner in the White House residence
-LRB- Along with their wives .
The adviser will return to Chicago - to his family ; his beloved deli , Manny 's ; the re-election ramp-up ; and to his pal , Rahm
Obama and Axelrod agreed the West Wing team had gotten too insular
`` As one of my colleagues said , the White House is a bit like working in a submarine : it 's better to come up for air , '' Axelrod recalled Friday in his small office in a White House consumed with Cairo fires and pelted with Washington snow
The 55-year-old former newspaperman and political consultant became an early muse to the young poet who bewitched a nation
It was a coup de foudre for the idealistic strategist
`` I 've not made any bones about my feelings about him , '' he says , when asked if he 's too adoring
Robert Gibbs jokingly dubbed Axe `` the guy who walks in front of the president with rose petals .
But once Obama got deluged with a torrent of presidential crises , the poetry stopped , and the adviser in charge of the message got some blame
`` Yeah , we were too prosaic , '' he said
`` We all got sort of dragged down , you know ; we were a triage unit
I think all of us have been guilty of neglecting that really important part of the presidency , where you 're operating in the world of ideals and values and vision .
He continued : `` There were a lot of hands on the words , a lot of concern about every nuance
And it is true that this is a place where an errant clause can send markets tumbling and armies marching , and you 're always aware of that .
The vaunted change gave way to the usual logrolling
`` It was , so , you need this guy 's vote and therefore , perhaps we should n't emphasize that issue because they will be less apt to support us on the recovery plan and the country could slip into a depression , '' Axelrod said
The president recaptured some inspirational force in Tucson , his heart clearly touched by 9-year-old Christina Green
Her parents told Obama that their daughter had gotten interested in politics partly because she was drawn to him
The president is `` happier '' taking a more optimistic , big-picture approach , Axelrod said , noting , `` He 's in the zone in which he 's most comfortable .
Packing boxes leaned against the office wall
David Plouffe , a more orderly , reserved type - a man who shows his affection for Obama by studying the turnout models for Congressional swing districts - is moving in Monday
Though Axe can wax endlessly about Washington 's wayward ways , he admitted to friends that it 's harder leaving than he thought , and he plunged into bon voyage parties and dinners
Asked about the cascade of `` exclusive '' exit interviews he was giving , he warned drolly : `` Do n't turn on the Shopping Network !
`` The White House is like fantasy camp for him , '' said his charming assistant , Eric Lesser
`` He could go to an Afghan war council in the Situation Room , meet Sandy Koufax and have a baseball signed , and have lunch with Caroline Kennedy .
Axelrod 's final Friday began with Lesser bringing the usual oatmeal
-LRB- Now that the boss has lost 25 pounds , Lesser permits him a sprinkling of brown sugar again .
Pointing to some `` victimized '' ties hanging on the door , the strategist noted : `` The one thing I learned on this job is , do n't eat your oatmeal standing up .
The avid punster offered a parting pun at the 8:30 a.m. meeting - urging everyone to `` plow forward '' on a plan for genetically produced alfalfa
Axelrod is not tech-savvy
There was that time he was in such a rush for an early campaign bus that he mistook a bar of hotel soap for his BlackBerry , later pulling the soap out of a pocket to check his e-mails
And the time he killed a BlackBerry with glaze from a donut
So it was a surprise Friday when he said he was going to open a Twitter account so he could `` leap into the debate from time to time .
I asked Axelrod what he 'd like to steal on the way out
Nodding toward the Oval Office , he replied conspiratorially , `` He has the Emancipation Proclamation in there
That would be a nice going-away present .
It began as a bit of partisan gamesmanship and ended , surprisingly , as illuminating political theater
White House advisers thought that if they asked that cameras and reporters be allowed in for the usually closed Q. and A. with the president at the annual retreat of House Republicans , the Republicans might say no and look obstructionist
But the Republicans realized what the White House was up to , got irritated and opened up the exchange in Baltimore to show they were n't scared of the smart , facile and newly warmblooded Barack Obama
And during the next hour and a half , our government did not look quite so lame
Obama is always at his best when his back is against the wall , and he is perversely content when he has the challenge of the lion 's den
He may lapse back into his Camus coma at any moment
But on Friday he dropped the diffident debutante act and offered , as he did at the State of the Union , some welcome gumption
`` You know , '' he said , halfway through his sparring session with Republicans , `` I 'm having fun .
When he was running for president , John McCain said that if he won , he would regularly take questions in the peppering style of the British prime minister in the House of Commons
But it was Obama who ended up doing just such a Ping-Pong session , standing in a hotel ballroom and giving as good he got , to-ing and fro-ing in a far more vivid way than in the presidential debates
The president chided his audience for casting his health care plan as a `` Bolshevik plot '' and for telling folks back home that he 's `` doing all kinds of crazy stuff that 's going to destroy America .
But Obama also acknowledged that the Republicans have some good ideas , and that , as it turned out , was what they yearned to hear
In the end , the Republicans may well go back to being inflexibly inflexible with this president , but for a moment in time , each side realized that the other side had something to say
It was , as The Times 's reporters Peter Baker and Carl Hulse called it , a televised marriage-therapy session `` as each side vented grievances pent up after a year of partisan gridlock .
The Utah Republican Jason Chaffetz picked up on the president 's line in the State of the Union about `` a deficit of trust .
`` We did n't create this mess , but we are here to help clean it up , '' the freshman member said , before ticking off a litany of things that have soured many Americans on the president who came in trailing fairy dust
`` When you stood up before the American people multiple times and said you would broadcast the health care debates on C-Span , you did n't , '' he said
And another good one : `` You said you were n't going to allow lobbyists in the senior-most positions within your administration , and yet you did .
And another : `` You said you 'd go line by line through the health care bill
And there were six of us , including Dr. Phil Roe , who sent you a letter and said we would like to take you up on that offer
... We never got a call .
And this rousing finale : `` And when you said in the House of Representatives that you were going to tackle earmarks and in fact you did n't want to have any earmarks in any of your bills , I jumped out of my seat and applauded you .
But that was another disappointment
Obama hedged on a technicality on the health care question , noting that `` overwhelmingly the majority of it actually was on C-Span because it was taking place in Congressional hearings in which you guys were participating .
When Peter Roskam of Illinois complained that they 'd been `` stiff-armed '' by Speaker Nancy Pelosi , the president promised to bring the Republican and Democratic House leadership together for more play dates
In a way , it was the sort of civic affairs master class that this college-bowl president had wanted from the beginning , before it began to look like W. , Cheney and Rove had truly smashed bipartisanship
But he did n't hesitate to give Jeb Hensarling a smack-down when the rabid ideologue from Texas asked if the president 's new budget , `` like your old budget , '' would `` triple the national debt .
Obama crisply told `` Jim , '' inadvertently -LRB- perhaps -RRB- mixing up Jeb 's name , `` It 's very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we 're going to do , because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign .
Then the president offered a quick math lesson on what Republicans never admit : that it was W. and the Republican Congress who ran up much of our $ 12 trillion debt and left us pawning our family jewels to the Chinese
Obama 's advisers must wish they could do this every week for the cameras
It was a lot more elucidating than Joe Wilson shouting , `` You lie !
But there we were on this soggy Thursday , sitting in her office on the outskirts of the city , beside a big , black leather saddle that was a gift from the governor of Sonora , Mexico , when Napolitano was governor of Arizona
I was working on the last night of the decennium horribile dictu , so I had tried to think of who else might also be burning the midnight oil instead of clinking the midnight bubbly
The answer was obvious
The homeland security chief 's terrible week began on Christmas Day when she got a call at her brother 's house in Danville , near San Francisco , telling her about the foiled terrorist attack
It continued to deteriorate on Sunday when she was pilloried for saying `` the system worked '' on CNN even though Robert Gibbs said the same
After many billions spent , new departments created , the system seemed as permeable as it had prior to 9\/11
Once more , the C.I.A. dropped the ball
And once more , information was not collated , which should mean a bad day at Kinko 's , not at counterterrorism headquarters
On Tuesday , John McCain and Jon Kyl , the two Republican senators from Arizona who had praised Napolitano at her confirmation hearings , stood together , with Kyl saying he no longer felt `` totally safe '' with her in command
`` He and I spoke and he explained to me that that 's not what he meant , '' she said
`` And he was misconstrued .
She said she , too , was misconstrued , and that in other interviews she did on Sunday , she made it clear that she meant the system worked `` after the incident .
`` No excuses , but I was a little focused on what we were doing operationally , '' she said
`` We were working to deal with the airports and the airliners , so perhaps I was a little distracted .
The important message , she said , was `` to immediately tell the American people we were not just cowering somewhere but we were taking this on very , very forcefully .
Asked about the frustrations of some on the 9\/11 Commission , that the description of what went wrong this time was disturbingly similar to what went wrong that time , Napolitano argued that `` we are safer now than before 9\/11 .
`` What this brings home is that we ca n't be complacent , '' she said
`` We have a determined enemy and you ca n't put the United States in a big Tupperware container
That 's not our nation
Those are not our values .
Later she picks up the same theme : `` I think we do a disservice if we tell people there are 100 percent guarantees
I think we tell them we 're doing everything we can to reduce risk
I think we tell people that they are also part of the system
I mean , the passengers on this plane were a line of defense , the flight crew were a line of defense
So everybody has a shared responsibility here
You ca n't just say , well , this government department or that government department 's got the whole shebang .
She said criticism that her department had been on auto-pilot before the sky scare was `` misguided .
Asked if her job is particularly thankless , given that only mistakes are recognized , she smilingly made a `` do n't feel sorry for me '' gesture , rubbing imaginary tears away from her eyes
I noted that Dick Cheney had gone squirrelly seeing the avalanche of daily threats coming in , and asked how she kept paranoia at bay
`` There 's a lot of it out there , '' she said
`` I try to keep focused , really trying to ascertain who needs to be our targets .
Why is it so hard for those charged with keeping us safe to be as imaginative and innovative as filmmakers like James Cameron
`` We do have some great technology , but this is not a movie , '' she said
`` The reality is much more complex and nuanced , and you ca n't take human judgment out of it .
She said that `` one of the things that may come out of this awful day is perhaps a renewed sense of urgency , '' and that it has spurred her department to `` accelerate '' talks it was already having about collaborating with the Department of Energy `` which has a phenomenal research budget and capacity .
She laughed when I wondered if she wished she 'd lobbied harder for that Supreme Court spot
Does anything keep her up at night
Her voice got lower and more serious
`` This one has , '' she said , `` because I want to know how this individual got on this plane with this material
I want to know so we can figure out what we should be doing to defeat that .
As I left , I asked the secretary if she 'd had to cancel her New Year 's Eve plans
`` Oh , yeah , '' she said
`` I guess you 're not going to tell me what they were , '' I wondered
`` No , '' she replied , her brown eyes twinkling
Just another classified matter at the Department of Homeland Security
And they were n't averse to threats
`` My wife told me I 'd have to join them or I 'd be sleeping on the couch tonight , '' said Ed Truslow , a compact 68-year-old manufacturing representative
He was still wearing his Chris Dodd sticker when he lumbered over to his wife 's side
A Clinton organizer slapped a Hillary sticker over the offending Dodd sticker , and with a frantic cheeriness told him : `` Hillary now , right
God bless !
They were n't averse to bending the rules
When they realized that they might not have enough people to get even one Hillary delegate , they sneaked out of their assigned room to Red-Rover their neighbors over , before they 'd been officially counted themselves
It was understandable that Hillary 's `` Golden Girls '' acolytes would freak out when they saw the throngs of young Obama hopemongers swarming the caucuses
As one Dodd supporter said , looking for her little Dodd corner , `` I 'm lost in the Obamas .
A caucusgoer drily noted that it did not seem the most propitious harbinger for Hillary that the fateful evening began with a threat to withhold connubial bliss
But that 's the way the tough cookie crumbled Thursday night
The Obama revolution arrived not on little cat feet in the Iowa snow but like a balmy promise , an effortlessly leaping lion hungry for something different , propelled by a visceral desire among Americans to feel American again
The Bushes always self-consciously and swaggeringly put themselves `` on the American side , '' as Poppy used to say , implying that their rivals were somehow less American
But many Americans can no longer see themselves in the warped values of the Bush White House or the pathetic paralysis of Congress or the disapproving gaze of the world
They want a different looking glass
So they rolled the dice and , as The Chicago Tribune 's Mike Tackett put it , `` voted for a smile .
I interviewed three Republicans in the Obama section of the caucus who were ready for the red state , blue state merger
They said they did n't want Hill and Bill back in the White House , and that John McCain was too much of a yes man for W. , who had betrayed Republicans with his handling of the Iraq war and his fiscal irresponsibility
Hillary 's aides were grumbling last week that Obama had no rationale to offer but himself
Perhaps that was true when he started
People usually run for president because somebody tells them they should and then graft on the reasons afterward
But on Thursday , Obama 's vague optimism and smooth-jazz modernity came together in a spectacular fusion with the deep yearning of Democrats who have suffered through heartbreaking losses in the last two elections with uninspiring candidates
Often unable to surf the electricity he sparked over the last year , Obama has now put on his laurel wreath and dropped his languid pose , tapping directly into what he calls the `` fire burning '' across the country the dream of a cool , smart , elegant , reasonable , literary , witty , decent `` West Wing '' sort of president who wo n't bankrupt us or endanger us or co-opt our rights or put a black hood on the Constitution
`` I want to go before the world and say , America 's back , '' he told cheering Democrats in Milford , N.H. , adding : `` We are one nation
We are one people
And our time for change has come .
Even though Obama was wooing the young demographic so coveted by Hollywood , he took a page from J.F.K. and avoided the casual look last week
There were no jeans or snow boots
Just dark suits , stylish ties and dress shoes
By the time she got to New Hampshire , Hillary was reduced to urging voters not to buy into `` false hopes .
At a hangar in Nashua , with chatty Bill and chatless Chelsea , Hillary tried to purloin more of the Obama message
Besides saying the word `` change '' as often as possible , she said she was particularly reaching out to young people to help them `` reclaim the future .
She claimed that she disliked the red state , blue state terminology `` We are one country , '' she said , echoing Obama even as she added that she should be the nominee because she 's the best one `` to withstand the Republican attack machine .
What she does n't mention is that she knows how to fight off the Republican attack machine because she and her husband were so adept at revving it up
Listening to Hillary and Obama evokes the famous scene in the classic `` The Night of the Hunter , '' when Robert Mitchum , whose fingers are tattooed with `` LOVE '' on his right hand and `` HATE '' on his left , has a wrestling match with his hands to see which emotion triumphs
In the movie , love does , but it 's a close call
Ask not , you know , what your country can , like , do for you
Ask what you , um , can , you know , do for your country
After a lifetime of shying away from the public spotlight , Caroline Kennedy asked herself what she could do for her country
Her soft-spoken answer to follow her father and two uncles and serve in the Senate got her ripped to shreds in the , you know , press
I know about `` you knows .
I use that verbal crutch myself , a bad habit that develops from shyness and reticence about public speaking
I always thought that Caroline and her brother , John , had special magic capital in America because of their heartbreaking roles in the Kennedy House of Atreus
Joe Kennedy , the wily patriarch of the clan , had pioneered the use of Hollywood glamour in pursuit of Washington power
With his glossy pop-culture political magazine , George , John reversed that equation , using his stature as an American political prince to persuade Salma Hayek to pose on the cover of his magazine
I wrote a column once saying that it seemed like a frivolous use of his time
I thought he should run for office and employ his special clout to make life better for Americans
He died before he had the chance
So I found it bizarre that when Caroline offered to use her magic capital and friendship with Barack Obama to help take care of New York in this time of economic distress , she was blasted by a howl of `` How dare she ?
People are suddenly awfully choosy about who gets to go to the former home of Jesse Helms , Strom Thurmond and Robert Torricelli
Although Americans still have enough British in their genes to be drawn to dynasties , W. has no doubt soured the country on scions
And the camps of the other two New York dynasties the Clintons -LRB- still bitter about Caroline 's endorsement of Obama -RRB- and the Cuomos -LRB- who 'd like that Senate seat for Andrew -RRB- have certainly done their best to undermine Caroline
Congress , which abdicated its oversight role as the Bush crew wrecked the globe and the economy , desperately needs fresh faces and new perspectives , an infusion of class , intelligence and guts
People complain that the 51-year-old Harvard and Columbia Law School grad and author is not a glib , professional pol who knows how to artfully market herself , and is someone who has n't spent her life glad-handing , backstabbing and logrolling
I say , thank God
The press whines that she does n't have a pat answer about why she wants the job
I 've interviewed a score of men running for president ; not one had a good answer for why he wanted it
Robert Duffy , the mayor of Rochester , complained that when the would-be senator visited the Democratic headquarters there recently , she did not respond to pictures in a conference room of her father , mother , brother and herself as a little girl
Is n't it creepy to expect her to emote on cue
Is n't it more authentic to want to keep some of your most private feelings to yourself
I know Caroline Kennedy
She 's smart , cultivated , serious and unpretentious
The Senate , shamefully sparse on profiles in courage during Dick Cheney 's reign of terror , would be lucky to get her
And believe me , she talks a whole lot better than the former junior senator from New York , Al D'Amato , who once wailed that he was `` up to my earballs '' in some mess , and another time complained to me that those `` little Jappies '' bring over boats full of cars and then take the boats back empty
Anyhow , it is n't how you say it
It 's what you say
Hillary Clinton is a great talker , but she never stood up in the Senate to lead a crusade against any Republican horror show , from Terri Schiavo to the Bush administration 's dishonest push to war
Sitting in the Senate gallery on Tuesday as senators were sworn in by Dick Cheney , I saw plenty of lawmakers who had benefited from family
Two Udalls were being sworn in , under the watchful eye of Stewart Udall
Mark Begich , the new senator from Alaska , is the son of a former Alaska congressman
The classy Bob Casey of Pennsylvania , son of the late Gov. Robert Casey , was there in a festive pink tie
John McCain , whose wife 's money and Arizona pull made his Senate election possible , looked on with a smile
Hillary , whose husband paved the way for her to join this club and run for president , chatted with colleagues
Jay Rockefeller wandered about , as did Chris Dodd , son of Senator Thomas Dodd
And Teddy Kennedy , walking with a cane , worked the room with his old brio
It is n't what your name is
It 's what you do with it
Or , in the case of W. , do n't
When I walked into the office Monday , people were clustering around a computer to watch what they thought they would never see : Hillary Clinton with the unmistakable look of tears in her eyes
A woman gazing at the screen was grimacing , saying it was bad
Three guys watched it over and over , drawn to the `` humanized '' Hillary
One reporter who covers security issues cringed
`` We are at war , '' he said
`` Is this how she 'll talk to Kim Jong-il ?
Another reporter joked : `` That crying really seemed genuine
I 'll bet she spent hours thinking about it beforehand .
He added dryly : `` Crying does n't usually work in campaigns
Only in relationships .
Bill Clinton was known for biting his lip , but here was Hillary doing the Muskie
Certainly it was impressive that she could choke up and stay on message
She won her Senate seat after being embarrassed by a man
She pulled out New Hampshire and saved her presidential campaign after being embarrassed by another man
She was seen as so controlling when she ran for the Senate that she had to be seen as losing control , as she did during the Monica scandal , before she seemed soft enough to attract many New York voters
Getting brushed back by Barack Obama in Iowa , her emotional moment here in a cafe and her chagrin at a debate question suggesting she was not likable served the same purpose , making her more appealing , especially to women , particularly to women over 45
The Obama campaign calculated that they had the women 's vote over the weekend but watched it slip away in the track of her tears
At the Portsmouth cafe on Monday , talking to a group of mostly women , she blinked back her misty dread of where Obama 's `` false hopes '' will lead us `` I just do n't want to see us fall backwards , '' she said tremulously in time to smack her rival : `` But some of us are right and some of us are wrong
Some of us are ready and some of us are not .
There was a poignancy about the moment , seeing Hillary crack with exhaustion from decades of yearning to be the principal rather than the plus-one
But there was a whiff of Nixonian self-pity about her choking up
What was moving her so deeply was her recognition that the country was failing to grasp how much it needs her
In a weirdly narcissistic way , she was crying for us
But it was grimly typical of her that what finally made her break down was the prospect of losing
As Spencer Tracy said to Katharine Hepburn in `` Adam 's Rib , '' `` Here we go again , the old juice
Guaranteed heart melter
A few female tears , stronger than any acid .
The Clintons once more wriggled out of a tight spot at the last minute
Bill churlishly dismissed the Obama phenom as `` the biggest fairy tale I 've ever seen , '' but for the last few days , it was Hillary who seemed in danger of being Cinderella
She became emotional because she feared that she had reached her political midnight , when she would suddenly revert to the school girl with geeky glasses and frizzy hair , smart but not the favorite
All those years in the shadow of one Natural , only to face the prospect of being eclipsed by another Natural
How humiliating to have a moderator of the New Hampshire debate ask her to explain why she was not as popular as the handsome young prince from Chicago
How demeaning to have Obama rather ungraciously chime in : `` You 're likable enough .
And how exasperating to be pushed into an angry rebuttal when John Edwards played wingman , attacking her on Obama 's behalf
`` I actually have emotions , '' she told CNN 's John Roberts on a damage-control tour
`` I know that there are some people who doubt that .
She went on `` Access Hollywood '' to talk about , as the show put it , `` the double standards that a woman running for president faces .
`` If you get too emotional , that undercuts you , '' Hillary said
`` A man can cry ; we know that
Lots of our leaders have cried
But a woman , it 's a different kind of dynamic .
And there were such loud howls about betrayal , disloyalty , selfishness , revenge and intrigue that it might have impressed even a Shakespearean court
`` I 'm going to take my talents to South Beach , '' LeBron James told Jim Gray on ESPN 's special - and specially obnoxious - show , `` The Decision , '' as though he were going on spring break
It 's always a bad sign when people begin talking about themselves in the third person
`` I wanted to do what was best , you know , for LeBron James , what LeBron James was going to do to make him happy , '' LeBron James told Michael Wilbon on ESPN after the special
ESPN 's 28 minutes of contrived suspense over James 's narcissistic announcement that he was going , aptly , to My-Am-Me played like `` The Bachelor , '' without the rose for the winner
`` Kobe Bryant has twice re-signed with the Lakers - no TV special , '' said David Israel , an L.A. TV writer who had a renowned sports column at The Washington Star when I had an obscure one about tennis
`` Alex Rodriguez got more than twice as much money when he left his first team , Seattle - no TV special
Tom Brady , three Super Bowls in the nation 's most popular sport , quietly re-signs with the Patriots when his contract expires .
The special was packaged by Gray and James 's agents , with Gray asking lame questions
CNBC reported that Gray was paid by James , a claim the veteran sports broadcaster denies
It drew more than nine million viewers - more than baseball games , home run derbies and even some N.F.L. Monday night games
The setting of the Boys and Girls Club of Greenwich , Conn.
#NAME?
`` What was up with that ?
wondered Israel
`` He wanted to show how much he cares about the welfare of the children of hedge fund managers ?
Asked by Wilbon about Cleveland fans burning No. 23 jerseys in the street , James noted that if `` you put the shoe on the other foot and the Cavs would have got rid of me at one point , would my family burn down the organization
Of course not
This is a business .
James said he did not want to make `` an emotional decision .
But it was a personal decision
The kid who grew up poor in Akron without a father - moving 12 times between 5 and 8 - regards his teams as family
So much so that he ruled out bidding teams , like Chicago , that ruled out putting any of his `` LeBrontourage '' on the payroll
His decision came after he consulted with his mom and formed a hoops cartel with his pals Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade
It 's usually women who get accused of needing to go places -LRB- restaurant bathrooms -RRB- together
James wanted to be wooed because he missed any courtship when he was drafted by the pros right out of high school
But the 25-year-old superstar , who tweets as King James and tattooed `` Chosen 1 '' on his back , got lost in the stratosphere of sports marketing advice and wound up with too many people whispering in his ear
He seems to have no idea of the public relations damage he has inflicted on himself
`` Never has so much time , effort and money been expended by an individual to diminish himself , '' Israel told me
A sports TV executive I know agreed : `` I do n't think he has any concept that people will be rooting against Miami harder than ever
These three players have attempted to hijack the league and said , ` We 're all good buddies who are going to gang up and go to one team and dictate who wins championships . '
After seven years as the local hero , James should have shown more class than to let the Cleveland owner , coach and fans hear about his defection on TV , broadcasting from cosseted Greenwich to struggling Cleveland
It is true , as The Washington Post 's Mike Wise put it , that a message to fans from the Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert , accusing James of a `` cowardly betrayal , '' sounded like `` the kind of psycho , ex-girlfriend letter that certifies LeBron made the right decision .
But you feel the rabid pain of Gilbert , who was clearly played
He exacted further revenge by dropping the price of a life-size James decal from $ 99.99 to $ 17.41 , the year Benedict Arnold was born
In essence , James was acknowledging that he did n't think he could lead a team - or at least that team - to a championship on his own
`` The King abandoned the throne like Edward VIII , not for love of a latter-day Wallis Simpson , but for fear of failure , '' Israel said
`` All the bravado has been a pose
He 's not a leader , he 's not an alpha , he 's just a pack animal
In Miami , Dwyane Wade is the alpha dog .
Israel believes James would have had a better chance to win in Chicago : `` These guys do n't fit together on the Heat
It 's kind of like asking Jackson Pollock to finish a painting Picasso started .
It was only a matter of time , once John McCain joined the 21st century and got himself a Ford Fusion Hybrid , a Facebook page and a Twitter account , that he would reconnect with people out of his past he would rather forget
But some people , including the conservative posing on the cover of this week 's Time wearing purple toenail polish , are unforgettable
And so comes this remarkable exchange of tweets between the erstwhile mavericky twins
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain How the heck are ya , ya big hero ?
Long time no hear , pardner
Y did u defriend me on Facebook
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin I needed room for Kissinger
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain Funny
Up here slaying salmon & assisting orphaned moose calves w \/ Todd & kids @ Bristol Bay
Need SUPERHUGE favr ! ! ?
; -RRB- MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Another one
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain LOL
My publisher , Harpercollins , wants u 2 blurb my book
It wld b rockin '
u + me + hot pix of me = $ $ $
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Busy watchdogging Obama , who 's acting na ve with kgb russians and spending like drunkn sailr
Apologies , drunkn sailrs
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain Obama is so uneconomic
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Warren Buffett says Wall St ripping off govt on stimulus
He says 1st stimulus bill like eating half-tab Viagra & candy
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain First Dude does n't need Viagra ! !
So , anyhoo , the blurb
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Hanging with Joe & Lindsey
Was on CSPAN 's Wash Journal , in case you missed it go to my website to watch video
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain Like I have time to watch CSPAN when I 'm all over NBC , ABC , CNN , and FOX , u goose !
And my cool Time `` Renegade '' cover ! !
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Very busy tracking China unrest , Honduras coup , thugs running Burma , protests in Iran
Obama weak-kneed on Iran
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain Whatev
But seriously , I 'm riding a really big story up in AK , in case you had n't noticed
Me and Jacko rule the news
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin That 's exactly what 's wrong with my former base , the media
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain No need 2 get snippy
Life with u was n't so awesome
Vanity Fair says ur BFFs called me `` Little Shop of Horrors .
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin I see u still ca n't control Levi , who says u quit 2 cash in on the book and TV offers
On Fox , you 'd b just another fox
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain Just progressing my bank account
Could n't marry rich like some lucky cusses we know
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Leave Cindy out of this and I wo n't tell you how I really felt about antics of `` The Real World : Wasilla .
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain I should 've quit ur campaign when ur team was undermining me , just like Obama WH is doing 2 me now on ethics complaints
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin That 's ridic
You 're more paranoid than Hillary
Quitting is n't noble
That 's why I 'm still fighting nasty earmarks
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain And I hear ur losing on those , old timer
Maybe u should think about quitting
: -LRB- MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Hey , Daffy
I 'm running for reelection next yr
Some of us know u have 2 b in govt to `` effect change '' in govt
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain That 's the old-fashnd thinking that got ur butt kicked
I did all I could 2 get u crowds & drag u across the finish line
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Peggy Noonan 's right
U r `` the most careless sower of discord since George W. Bush '' Http://tinyurl.com/ll833p PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain I ca n't stand her or your pal Mike Murphy , who says my only accomplishment is my `` smirking enemies '' in media elite
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin U ca n't hate the media and b so obsessed with it at the same time
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain The media can too be my frenemy
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin Ur sounding a little cockamamie
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain `` Most newspapermen by definition have to be liberal ; if they 're not ... they can hardly be good newspapermen '' W. Cronkite
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin U might want to make up with Letterman
I did
He 's not a bad guy
PALIN : @ SenJohnMcCain Y in heaven 's name wld I follow ur example
I 'm the pt guard fast breaking for an easy lay up
How bout that blurb , Pops
MCCAIN : @ AKGovSarahPalin OK , here 's ur blurb : `` The Keating Five was nothing compared to the Alaska One
America , I 'm sorry .
Barack Obama may make it to the Rose Garden , but he 'll still be an orchid
For all his attempts to act like a sturdy American perennial , he 's a genuine hothouse flower , and everything he is and does is cultivated
He has been trying of late to show off his dad cred both as a potentially strong dad for the country and as a good dad to his daughters
His liberal supporters were stung when he tacked to the right on Iraq and government snooping
But the man who grew up without a father clearly felt the need to beef up his image as someone who could be a protective parent for America and Iraq
The Republican game is hilariously transparent : if Obama does n't shift to more muscular postures , he 's not a patriot
If he does , he 's a flip-flopper
Refining the Iraq stance was fine
Reconsidering the eavesdropping position was sketchy
But he definitely went one `` re '' too far when he appeared on all three morning shows and revisited his decision to allow his daughters to be interviewed on `` Access Hollywood .
Some of his closest political allies were appalled to see Malia , 10 , and Sasha , 7 , formerly off limits , being interviewed , and the allies told Obama afterward that it was a mistake to open that door
The girls were impossibly cute and charming and a tribute to the Obamas ' parenting
When Malia said she enjoyed decorating and was most excited about a possible move to the White House because she 'd have a new bedroom to dress up , it made me want to see the Obama girls in the White House no matter who wins
But the Illinois senator was very upset the night the interview aired and told aides it would never happen again
He felt he had hawked his own kids
He claimed he got caught up in the moment of a Fourth of July picnic in Butte , Mont. , and a birthday celebration for Malia
He may not have realized it while they were miking Malia and lighting the kids , but it clearly hit him midway through the interview
He looked frustrated when Sasha revealed that `` my dad does n't like sweets '' and that he preferred `` minty gum '' to bubble gum
She then began singsonging `` Everybody should like ice cream '' before pointing a finger at the person who does n't : `` Except Daddy !
As Margaret Carlson told Mike Barnicle on `` Hardball , '' in a segment called `` Is Obama Too Cool
, '' about whether he relates to average Americans , sometimes you just want to tell the guy , `` Eat the doughnut .
Whether Obama was irritated that he had slipped up and exposed his daughters or was annoyed that his kids were exposing more delicious details about his finicky , abstemious tastes , we 'll never know
He got even more antsy after the family chat turned to `` intimate '' moments
Maria Menounos , whose questions were as bubbly as her Pantene shampoo commercials , asked Michelle , `` What is the most recent romantic thing you 've done for him ?
After saying that love is taking care of his kids , Michelle added : `` I think it 's the little , you know , kisses
He likes to get attention
Just coming and sitting on his lap and telling him I 'm proud of him .
When Malia chimed in that it also made her feel good to see that affection , Michelle continued : `` They like it when Mommy and Daddy hold hands and we hug .
At that point , the candidate looked off camera and made a gesture of utter exasperation
While it 's a good idea not to repeat the experience , it was overkill for Obama to rebuke himself and recant his decision on the morning shows right in the midst of other repositioning that spurred a harsh reaction among many supporters
Matt Lauer told Obama : `` Some people said : ` Well , wait a minute
It seems like the senator is trying to have it both ways .
On one hand , you want to protect your private life
On the other hand , here you are sitting there with your two daughters and allowing them to answer questions .
Obama chided himself in two tenses : `` We would n't do it again , and we wo n't be doing it again .
The bad news and the good news is that Obama can be opportunistic
He 's more pragmatic than dogmatic
He 's flexible and a bit of a situationalist
If Bill Clinton were n't still sulking , he would appreciate Obama 's emulation of his style in ' 92 , taking a bit from the left and a bit from the right
The self-pitying Bill and the self-flagellating Barack both need to take a cue from the Obama girls
Asked by Ms. Menounos , `` What could you guys do that Mommy and Daddy would get really mad at ?
Malia and Sasha replied in unison : `` Whining .
The mercurial billionaire made poor Costanza fetch eggplant calzones and listen to paranoid rants , including one about Babe Ruth : `` Nothing more than a fat old man with little girl legs
And here 's something I just found out recently : He was n't really a sultan !
The Steinbrenner doppelganger - shown only from behind and voiced by the brilliant `` Seinfeld '' co-creator and Yankees fan , Larry David - even scalped his own tickets
`` Who else could be a memorable character on a television show without actually appearing on the show ?
Jerry Seinfeld told the OnTheRedCarpet blog after hearing that the larger-than-life Steinbrenner had died of a heart attack on Tuesday , the day of the All-Star Game
But how did the Yankees owner feel about Big Stein , his oddball yet finally lovable caricature in `` Seinfeld ''
My friend David Sussman called `` The Boss '' his boss for eight years , working as the Yankees ' general counsel , and for the last five of those , as the team 's chief operating officer as well
He shared the inside-baseball story on Steinbrenner 's relationship with `` Seinfeld , '' which was , suitably , oddball yet finally lovable
In the mid - '90s , NBC contacted Sussman to ask Steinbrenner to do a cameo on an episode and to get his permission to use a Yankees pennant on the wall of Jerry 's apartment
The Boss considered the part demeaning and refused both to appear - `` Why would I do that ?
he snapped - and to allow the pennant to be used
When the show aired a few days later with the pennant on Jerry 's wall , Steinbrenner did n't say anything
A year later , Seinfeld came back with a minor request , Sussman recalled
The star wanted permission to use a Yankees uniform in an episode where George Costanza decides to switch the uniform from polyester to cotton - a disaster once the cotton shrinks
Seinfeld had already arranged for the Yankees right fielder Danny Tartabull and manager Buck Showalter to appear on the show
Sussman told him that , given the earlier script and the unauthorized use of the pennant , Steinbrenner would never agree
Seinfeld apologized profusely to Sussman and asked for another chance
Could n't the lawyer just show The Boss the script
Seinfeld faxed it over to Sussman with the usual Hollywood cover note , ending `` Your friend , Jerry .
At the end of a long day of business meetings in Tampa , Sussman told Steinbrenner about Seinfeld 's request
`` Did n't they screw us last time ?
barked The Boss , whose role model was George Patton
Sussman conveyed Seinfeld 's apology and told Steinbrenner that `` this is an innocuous script that does n't involve you .
He explained that Danny and Buck were appearing on the show
The owner retorted , `` I 'll be the judge of that
Let me see the script .
Noticing the sign-off on the cover letter , Steinbrenner , sensitive even to imagined breaches of loyalty , needled his lawyer : `` Oh , I can see you and Jerry are becoming close friends .
After reading less than a page , Steinbrenner angrily threw down the script
`` I thought you said this does n't involve me ?
he bellowed
Sussman tried over and over to reassure him that this script contained no cameo for the owner
`` Then , '' Steinbrenner demanded , `` what are all of these references to ` George ' in the script ?
Sussman was stunned but tried to explain : '' ` George ' is George Costanza
He is a character on the show
He is a friend of Seinfeld 's , and he plays the role of one of your employees .
Steinbrenner acted incredulous , intoning : `` I thought you were smarter than that
Do n't you see
This is how they are trying to get at me
They have named their character after me .
All attempts to tell him that the `` George '' character had been on the show since it started were brushed aside
`` Here 's what we do , '' Steinbrenner declared
`` Call your friend Jerry back and tell him he has Mr. Steinbrenner 's permission to use the Yankees uniform but on one condition : He changes the name of the Costanza character
In fact , have him name this character after you , David .
Sussman conveyed the good news\/bad news message to Seinfeld , who was understandably befuddled
The Boss declined to return Jerry 's phone calls to Tampa
The following Friday , Steinbrenner called Sussman to discuss business , and then seemingly casually noted : `` Oh , yes , that request from your friend Jerry Seinfeld
I watched that ` Seinfeld ' show last night
It is a really funny show
And the George character is great
So you tell your friend Jerry he has my permission .
And that 's how George and George coexisted happily ever after
Despite the best efforts of Republicans to root out any sign that Sonia Sotomayor has emotions that color her views on the law , the Bronx Bomber kept a robotic mask in place
A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not know that a gaggle of white Republican men afraid of extinction are out to trip her up
After all , these guys have never needed to speak inspirational words to others like them , as Sotomayor has done
They 've had codes , handshakes and clubs to do that
So when Republican Senator Jon Kyl , without so much as a howdy-do , went at Sotomayor , and soon was asking her if she agreed with Barack Obama 's contention , when he voted against John Roberts , that a judge 's heart is important , the would-be justice was as adroit as her idol Nancy Drew
`` No , sir , '' she said , indicating that the only bleeding-heart thing about her was the color of her jacket
She added that `` it 's not the heart that compels conclusions in cases
It 's the law .
President Obama wants Sotomayor , naturally , to bring a fresh perspective to the court
It was a disgrace that W. appointed two white men to a court stocked with white men
And Sotomayor made it clear that she provides some spicy seasoning to a bench when she said in a speech : `` I simply do not know exactly what the difference will be in my judging , but I accept there will be some based on gender and my Latina heritage .
The judge 's full retreat from the notion that a different life experience is valuable was more than necessary and somewhat disappointing
But , as any clever job applicant knows , you must obscure as well as reveal , so she sidestepped the dreaded empathy questions even though that 's why the president wants her
`` We apply law to facts , '' she told Kyl
`` We do n't apply feelings to facts .
She even used a flat tone when talking about the `` horrific tragedy '' of 9\/11 , when she was living near the World Trade Center
And she was mechanical in explaining to a grumpy Senator Orrin Hatch that banning nunchaku sticks did not dent the Second Amendment because the martial-arts weapons ' swing `` can bust someone 's skull .
Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer gamely tried to make the judge seem even more coldhearted
Recalling the sad plight of poor families from the Bronx who sued T.W.A. after a jet crashed off Long Island in 1996 , he quoted the Bronx jurist 's dispassionate dissent : `` The appropriate remedial scheme for deaths occurring off the United States coast is clearly a legislative policy choice , which should not be made by the courts .
Schumer also cited the case of an African-American woman who filed suit after being denied a home-equity loan , even after the loan application was conditionally approved based on her credit report
Sonia Legree ruled that the woman 's claim was filed too late , the same argument that the Supremes used on Lilly Ledbetter when she belatedly learned that her male coworkers were much better paid
President Obama has cited the Ledbetter decision as a reason the court needs a more `` common touch .
`` The law requires some finality , '' Sotomayor explained about her case , with an iciness that must have sent a chill up the conservative leg of Alabama 's Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III , even as it left Obama hanging out on an empathy limb
Republican Lindsey Graham read Sotomayor some anonymous comments made by lawyers about her , complaining that she was `` temperamental , '' `` nasty , '' `` a bit of a bully .
Then he patronizingly lectured her about how this was the moment for `` self-reflection .
Maybe Graham thinks Nino Scalia has those traits covered
But the barbed adjectives did n't match the muted performance on display before the Judiciary Committee
Like the president who picked her , Sotomayor has been a model of professorial rationality
Besides , it 's delicious watching Republicans go after Democrats for being too emotional and irrational given the G.O.P. shame spiral
W. and Dick Cheney made all their bad decisions about Iraq , W.M.D. 's , domestic surveillance , torture , rendition and secret hit squads from the gut , based on false intuitions , fear , paranoia and revenge
Sarah Palin is the definition of irrational , a volatile and scattered country-music queen without the music
Her Republican fans defend her lack of application and intellect , happy to settle for her emotional electricity
Senator Graham said Sotomayor would be confirmed unless she had `` a meltdown '' a word applied mostly to women and toddlers until Mark Sanford proudly took ownership of it when he was judged about the wisdom of his Latina woman
And then there 's the Supreme Court , of course , which gave up its claim to rational neutrality when the justices appointed by Republican presidents including Bush Sr.
ignored what was fair to make a sentimental choice and throw the 2000 election to W. Faced with that warped case of supreme empathy , no wonder Sotomayor is so eager to follow the law
`` It seems like a President Obama would be harder to make fun of than these guys , '' I said
`` Are you kidding me ?
Stewart scoffed
Then he and Colbert both said at the same time : `` His dad was a goat-herder !
When I noted that Obama , in his memoir , had revealed that he had done some pot , booze and `` maybe a little blow , '' the two comedians began riffing about the dapper senator 's familiarity with drug slang
Colbert : Wow , that 's a very street way of putting it .
A little blow .
Stewart : A little bit of the white rabbit
Colbert : ` Yeah , I packed a cocktail straw of cocaine and had a prostitute blow it in my ear , but that is all I did
High-fivin . '
Flash forward to the kerfuffle and Obama 's icy reaction over this week 's New Yorker cover parodying fears about the Obamas
`` We 've already scratched thrift , candor and brevity off the list of virtues in this presidential cycle , so why not eliminate humor , too ?
wrote James Rainey in The Los Angeles Times , suggesting `` an irony deficiency '' in Obama and his fans
Many of the late-night comics and their writers nearly all white now admit to The New York Times 's Bill Carter that because of race and because there is nothing `` buffoonish '' about Obama and because many in their audiences are intoxicated by him and resistant to seeing him skewered he has not been flayed by the sort of ridicule that diminished Dukakis , Gore and Kerry
`` There 's a weird reverse racism going on , '' Jimmy Kimmel said
Carter also observed that there 's no easy comedic `` take '' on Obama , `` like allegations of Bill Clinton 's womanizing , or President Bush 's goofy bumbling or Al Gore 's robotic personality .
At first blush , it would seem to be a positive for Obama that he is hard to mock
But on second thought , is it another sign that he 's trying so hard to be perfect that it 's stultifying
Or that eight years of W. and Cheney have robbed Democratic voters of their sense of humor
Certainly , as the potential first black president , and as a contender with tender experience , Obama must feel under strain to be serious
But he does not want the `` take '' on him to become that he 's so tightly wrapped , overcalculated and circumspect that he ca n't even allow anyone to make jokes about him , and that his supporters are so evangelical and eager for a champion to rescue America that their response to any razzing is a sanctimonious : Do n't mess with our messiah
If Obama keeps being stingy with his quips and smiles , and if the dominant perception of him is that you ca n't make jokes about him , it might infect his campaign with an airless quality
His humorlessness could spark humor
On Tuesday , Andy Borowitz satirized on that subject
He said that Obama , sympathetic to comics ' attempts to find jokes to make about him , had put out a list of official ones , including this : `` A traveling salesman knocks on the door of a farmhouse , and much to his surprise , Barack Obama answers the door
The salesman says , ' I was expecting the farmer 's daughter .
Barack Obama replies , ` She 's not here
The farm was foreclosed on because of subprime loans that are making a mockery of the American dream . '
John McCain 's Don Rickles routines `` Thanks for the question , you little jerk '' can fall flat
But he seems like a guy who can be teased harmlessly
If Obama offers only eat-your-arugula chiding and chilly earnestness , he becomes an otherworldly type , not the regular guy he needs to be
He 's already in danger of seeming too prissy about food a perception heightened when The Wall Street Journal reported that the planners for Obama 's convention have hired the first-ever Director of Greening , the environmental activist Andrea Robinson
She in turn hired an Official Carbon Adviser to `` measure the greenhouse-gas emissions of every placard , every plane trip , every appetizer prepared and every coffee cup tossed .
The `` lean 'n' green '' catering guidelines , The Journal said , bar fried food and instruct that , `` on the theory that nutritious food is more vibrant , each meal should include ` at least three of the following colors : red , green , yellow , blue\/purple , and white .
-LRB- Garnishes do n't count .
At least 70 % of the ingredients should be organic or grown locally , to minimize emissions from fuel during transportation .
Bring it on , Ozone Democrats
Because if Obama gets elected and there is nothing funny about him , it wo n't be the economy that 's depressed
It will be the rest of us
If the Vatican is trying to restore the impression that its moral sense is intact , issuing a document that equates pedophilia with the ordination of women does n't really do that
The Catholic Church continued to heap insult upon injury when it revealed its long-awaited new rules on clergy sex abuse , rules that the Vatican spokesman , the Rev. Federico Lombardi , said signaled a commitment to grasp the nettle with `` rigor and transparency .
The church still believes in its own intrinsic holiness despite all evidence to the contrary
It thinks it 's making huge concessions on the unstoppable abuse scandal when it 's taking baby steps
The casuistic document did not issue a zero-tolerance policy to defrock priests after they are found guilty of pedophilia ; it did not order bishops to report every instance of abuse to the police ; it did not set up sanctions on bishops who sweep abuse under the rectory rug ; it did not eliminate the statute of limitations for abused children ; it did not tell bishops to stop lobbying legislatures to prevent child-abuse laws from being toughened
There is no moral awakening here
The cruelty and indecency of child abuse once more inspires tactical contrition
All the penitence of the church is grudging and reactive
Church leaders are merely as penitent as they need to be to protect the institution
Can you imagine such a scene in the confessional
`` Forgive me , Father , for I have sinned
I am as sorry as my job or school requires me to be .
`` But my daughter , that is not true penitence
That 's situational penitence .
After the Belgian police bracingly conducted raids on the church hierarchy , inspired in part by the horrifying case of a boy molested for years by his uncle , the bishop of Bruges , a case that the church ignored and covered up for 25 years , the pope did not applaud the more aggressive tack
He condemned it
In a remarkable Times story recently , Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger debunked the spin that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger had been one of the more alert officials on the issue of sexual abuse : `` The future pope , it is now clear , was also part of a culture of nonresponsibility , denial , legalistic foot-dragging and outright obstruction
More than any top Vatican official other than John Paul , it was Cardinal Ratzinger who might have taken decisive action in the 1990s to prevent the scandal from metastasizing in country after country , growing to such proportions that it now threatens to consume his own papacy .
If Roman Polanski were a priest , he 'd still be working here
Stupefyingly , the new Vatican document also links raping children with ordaining women as priests , deeming both `` graviora delicta , '' or grave offenses
Clerics who attempt to ordain women can now be defrocked
On Beliefnet , Mark Silk , a professor of religion at Connecticut 's Trinity College , suggested that the stronger threat against women 's ordination is not `` a maladroit add-on '' but the medieval Vatican 's `` main business .
After the Vatican launched two inquisitions of American nuns , it did n't seem possible that the archconservative Il Papa and his paternalistic redoubt could get more unenlightened , but they have somehow managed it
Letting women be priests - which should be seen as a way to help cleanse the church and move it beyond its infantilized and defensive state - is now on the list of awful sins right next to pedophilia , heresy , apostasy and schism
Archbishop Donald Wuerl of Washington , the chairman of the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops , asserted , `` The Catholic Church , through its long and constant teaching , holds that ordination has been , from the beginning , reserved to men , a fact which can not be changed despite changing times .
But if it was reserved to celibate men centuries ago simply as a way for the church to keep land , why ca n't it be changed
If a society makes strides in not subordinating women , why ca n't the church reflect that
If men prove that all-male hierarchies can get shamefully warped , why ca n't they embrace the normality of equality
The Vatican 's insistence on male prerogative is misogynistic poppycock - enhancing American Catholics ' disenchantment with Rome
In The New Republic , Garry Wills wrote about his struggle to come to terms with the sins of his church : Jesus `` is the one who said , ` Whatever you did to any of my brothers , even the lowliest , you did to me .
That means that the priests abusing the vulnerable young were doing that to Jesus , raping Jesus
Any clerical functionary who shows more sympathy for the predator priests than for their victims instantly disqualified himself as a follower of Jesus
The cardinals said they must care for their own , going to jail if necessary to protect a priest
We say the same thing , but the ` our own ' we care for are the victimized , the poor , the violated
They are Jesus .
Like cats that have lost their whiskers , the Republicans seem off balance now that they have lost their talent for hypocrisy
They are still practicing the ancient political art of Tartuffery , of course , just without their former aplomb
Who can forget the glory years , when the Gipper invoked God but never went to church
When Arlen Specter accused Anita Hill of perjury to distract from Clarence Thomas 's false witness
When Newt Gingrich and other conservatives indulged in affairs with young Washington peaches as they pushed to impeach Bill Clinton
No one had more flair than W. and Cheney , crowing about making us safe as they made the world more dangerous , and bragging about fiscal restraint while they spent us into oblivion
Now when Republicans get caught flouting the principles they dictate , they are not able to practice hypocrisy with such impunity
Loverboy Mark Sanford 's career continued to go south last week as news organizations exposed his two-faced tactics on travel expenses
When he ran for South Carolina governor in 2002 , he attacked the Democratic incumbent for `` lavish spending '' on hotels and planes
Once elected , he asked state employees to bunk together in hotel rooms when they traveled and chastised staffers who spent more than the $ 208 federal rate
But , as Politico reports : `` He routinely billed taxpayers for high-end airline seats , racking up more than $ 44,000 on business and first-class tickets
He often stayed in pricey hotels that far exceeded the rates he imposed on other state employees .
On a trade mission to China , Sanford spent $ 12,000 on business-class tickets , leaving aides in economy for about $ 1,900
The religious boardinghouse in Washington where Sanford sought succor from fellow conservatives , where he agonized to pals about his tango with the enticing Mar a , is also back in the news
Affiliated with a secretive Capitol Hill group known as the Fellowship which also sponsored Bible study and prayer circles attended by Hillary Clinton when she was a senator the pious dwelling is becoming a tourist attraction , a monument to Republican hypocrisy
The C Street house , as the flag-flying brick rowhouse near the Capitol is known , serves as a residence and Bible study retreat for many Christian conservative lawmakers
But it looks as if what these guys were praying for was a chance to get lucky
John Ensign , the Promise Keeper who broke all his promises , resides there
As The Washington Post reported , Senator Tom Coburn , who lives there , had an emotional meeting about forgiveness at the house with Doug Hampton , the husband of Ensign 's mistress
-LRB- Forgiveness plus bribery can often do the trick .
Coburn says he would not talk to a court or the Senate ethics committee about the episode because he was counseling Ensign partly as a doctor
-LRB- Coburn is an ob-gyn .
Last week , The Associated Press revealed that the estranged wife of a former Republican congressman , Chip Pickering of Mississippi , had filed an alienation of affection lawsuit seeking damages against her husband 's gal pal , a wealthy former college sweetheart named Elizabeth Creekmore Byrd
The suit charges that as a lawmaker , Chip used C Street as a divine love nest
`` Ultimately , '' it says , `` Creekmore Byrd gave Pickering the option to remain a public servant or become a private citizen and continue relations with her .
Republican hypocrisy fell flat at the Sotomayor hearings
After railing all week against the `` empathy standard , '' as Senator Jeff Sessions called it , the Republicans tried to play the empathy card by calling in two New Haven firefighters , one white and one Hispanic , who were on the losing end of Sonia Sotomayor 's ruling
Wearing their dress uniforms , the pair told their heart-tugging tales of studying for an exam that got thrown out after they scored high
Frank Ricci , who studied hard to overcome his dyslexia , used his finger to trace under the words as he read his testimony
But the Republican complaint against Sotomayor in that case boiled down to wanting her to be more activist
They were upset that she sided with elected officials and precedent rather than intervening to strike down a result that many people , including me , found unfair
Sotomayor 's syntax was unfathomable , but the Republicans ' language sounded positively archaic : dire warnings against activist judges , when the conservative majority on this Supreme Court has ignored or upended precedent in a slew of cases
Judge Sotomayor kept her feelings in check , while her white male Republican interrogators dissolved into whining about wanting to keep their guns and nunchakus and wishing they could get back some sway over what women do with their bodies
If they are so interested in women 's bodies , maybe they should just move to C Street
Skip the press conference , especially when your husband is copping to call girls , gay pickups in airport bathrooms or `` tragic '' and `` forbidden '' telenovela-style love stories
Stoicism at the skunk 's side is overrated and , as Larry Craig 's wife learned , sunglasses do n't help
When there 's an Associated Press bulletin quoting your husband saying that he has found his soul mate but he 's going to try to fall back in love with you , change the locks
-LRB- At your second home , too .
If you ca n't maintain a dignified Silda Spitzer silence ; if you ca n't find a girlfriend , a shrink , a personal trainer , a hairdresser or a yoga teacher to confide in ; if you must unburden yourself of your fury about your loser husband , go to Jesse Jackson , Al Sharpton or even Deepak Chopra before crying to The A.P.
A news wire is not a spiritual adviser
When your husband turns into a Harlequin romance , babbling to The A.P. yes , even The A.P. thought it was T.M.I. about a magical encounter on an open-air dance floor in Uruguay , `` a soul that touches yours in a way that no one 's ever has , '' and the `` left brain and right brain '' compartmentalization of `` the world of ideas that impact this country and state '' and `` the pursuit of happiness , whatever that is , '' just beat it
If you think the worst is over , it 's probably only beginning
On Tuesday , after you thought Mark Sanford had already emoted and burbled more than any man in history , he volunteered to The A.P. -LRB- again !
that he had `` crossed lines '' with a handful of women on trips out of the country , but only `` crossed the ultimate line '' with his enchanting Maria
And just when you thought John Edwards could not sink any lower , there is news of a sex tape , in which Rielle Hunter shows off her skills not only in videography but pornography
No matter how revolting your husband 's behavior is , do n't be passive-aggressive in public
Refrain from making any remarks that have a veneer of dignity but derogatory subtexts that sound like : `` We 're trying to reconcile but it 's going to be tough because he has irreparably damaged my children '' or `` He has no integrity and I want my kids to have integrity '' and `` Sure , I 'd like to give him a chance if he were n't such a sleazeball .
Do n't bring the children into it
They suffer enough being the kids of politicians
In the era of Facebook , texting , Google and iPhones , calling him out as a bad father will just go viral in the kids ' circles
Do n't trot out the family on `` Oprah , '' as Elizabeth Edwards did , or weepily show The A.P. the report cards of your two oldest sons from their elite private school in Columbia , S.C. , as Jenny Sanford did
Even if you 're a clever , competent woman , you risk sounding like a stereotypical harridan if you use the kids as a bludgeon and tell the press , as Jenny did : `` You would think that a father who did n't have contact with his children , if he wanted those children , he would toe the line a little bit .
When kids are involved , it 's best to chill when dishing out revenge
Do n't slam his girlfriend for lying when you know she 's telling the truth
Do n't refer to the baby your rival had with your husband as `` it .
Do n't trash a mistress , as Hillary and Elizabeth did , as a wacky stalker
No one except the wife blames the girlfriend as much as they blame the husband
Besides , you invite The Other Woman 's retaliation , as when Rielle decided after watching Elizabeth spill to Oprah that she might want that DNA test after all
High-powered women like Hillary , Elizabeth and Jenny who give up their careers to focus on their husbands ' ambitions feel doubly betrayed
But it 's not your husband 's fault if you sacrifice more for the relationship than he does
Like an investor in a down market , you took a risk without a guarantee it would pay off
If you make your husband your career and you lose your husband , you lose your career , too
Cut your losses and keep going
Do n't let yourself get dragged into his drama or your reputation may follow his down the well
Hillary refused to let that happen
She salvaged her long investment in Bill Clinton and turned a profit when she became a senator
As you stay out of the spotlight that singes your husband , listen to whatever messages he is sending you through the press
When your husband says that is a world-class love story , ask him what this is
Just do n't do it through The
Whenever she gets serious about somebody , she brings them home to Wisconsin , ostensibly for a relaxing vacation with her family
Then she leads them through their outdoorsy paces biking , hiking , golfing , shooting hoops , swimming to see if they can pass muster with her athletic clan
It starts to dawn on these young men in the middle of their romantic triathlon that they are on a perilous quest and that if they falter , another lad might touch down in Kenosha several months hence
Now Barack Obama is about to embark on his own Feats of Strength
Maybe that 's why , back home in Chicago , he worked out three times on Wednesday
An Associated Press report jokingly compared his fitness regime to that of Mr. Universe and marveled at `` a distinct lack of visible sweat on the Illinois senator .
But even the perennially cool Obama may sweat this summer
In the next six weeks , he will have to successfully complete a number of tasks , some that he set up himself after being taunted by John McCain , some spawned from slaying the Clinton machine , and some that are a natural part of the path he 's on
Because Obama started from scratch a year and a half ago in his amazing presidential odyssey , he has to swiftly and convincingly perform the political equivalent of the Labors of Hercules
Cleaning the Augean stables in a single day seems like a cinch compared with navigating the complexities of Afghanistan , Iraq , Israel , Palestine and Jordan in a few short days
He has a week to prove his commander-in-chiefiness , even though he does n't have the authority to do anything commander-in-chiefy
`` It 's important to note that it is not our intent to make policy or to negotiate ; we wo n't do so , '' said Susan Rice , an Obama foreign policy adviser
`` There 's one president of the United States at any given time , and we will certainly honor and respect that .
Instead of slaying the nine-headed Hydra , he must bedazzle three European countries without causing Middle America to begrudge his popularity with a bunch of foreigners
Since he 's already fighting the perception that he 's an exotic outsider , he ca n't be seen as too insidery with the Euro-crats
He does n't want a picture of him nibbling on a baguette to overtake the effete image of the Europhile John Kerry windsurfing
Then again , maybe it will be a refreshing change to see a leader abroad reflecting the America the world wants to believe in , after the ignominy of Iraq , Afghanistan , Dick Cheney and Abu Ghraib
Even if Obama is treated as a superstar by W.-weary Europeans , some Obama-wary Americans may wonder what he 's doing there , when they ca n't pay for gas , when the dollar is the Euro 's chew toy , when Bud is going Belgian and when the Chrysler Building has Arab landlords
`` I do n't know that people in Missouri are going to like seeing tens of thousands of Europeans screaming for The One , '' a McCain aide snarked to The Politico
Once Obama gets done with his European feats , which will have to include a knockout speech in Berlin , once he figures out where the dour Angela Merkel will let him soar , he has more labors at home
Instead of obtaining the girdle of the Amazon warrior queen Hippolyte , Obama has to overcome the hurdle of the Amazon warrior queen Hillary
He has to figure out how to let her down easy on the vice presidential deal , while wooing the frantic Clinton sisterhood and Hillraisers who would rather see a McCain Supreme Court than support the glib , cocky young guy who presumptuously sped past their gal
Obama must capture his own equivalent of the Erymanthian Boar , deciding how much to grovel to get Bill Clinton in his corner , and he has to calculate whether the Big Dog will be help or hindrance , or both , as he was with his wife , and how to use him , if at all
Bill said Thursday at a press conference about his foundation 's work on malaria drug prices that he had had `` a good talk '' with Obama
`` He said he wanted me to campaign with him , and I said I was eager to do so , '' he recalled , though his intimates confide that the sulky former president `` is not there yet , '' as one put it
Obama 's last summer labor should be the simplest for him , nailing his Denver convention speech
Not half as hard as getting past that 100-headed dragon to steal the Apples of the Hesperides
You balance a Jewish moneylender 's ugly urge to physically cut his enemy 's heart from his body with a Christian merchant 's ugly urge to symbolically cut his enemy 's soul from his body
You acknowledge that this is the only Shakespearean play that has jumped its category , morphing from `` a comical history '' into a disturbing drama
You realize that such a scalding tale of money , religious faith and bad faith in relationships - the same elements roiling today 's world - can not have a festive romantic comedy finale
And you let Shylock - written as a comic villain three centuries after Jews were , in essence , expelled from England and then allowed back only to do the dirty work of usury - evolve into an abused and damaged man
After his daughter runs off with his ducats and diamonds to marry a Christian and convert , he wants revenge
`` The play has a very dark heart , '' says Daniel Sullivan , the director of `` The Merchant of Venice '' now at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park , starring Al Pacino
`` It 's simply a matter of allowing that heart to bleed through the rest of the play .
After the Holocaust , he said , there 's no way to play it as a comedy
The last time the play was produced at the Delacorte was in 1962 , when George C. Scott starred as Shylock
The New York Board of Rabbis protested , calling Shylock `` an amalgam of vindictiveness , cruelty and avarice .
Joseph Papp , who was Jewish , fended off the rabbis and told Scott to `` go all the way '' because the audience would understand biblical wrath
Papp quoted from `` King Lear '' : `` Anger has a privilege .
Sullivan speculated that Shakespeare wanted to follow up on the success of Christopher Marlowe 's `` The Jew of Malta .
`` But that was a poisonously anti-Semitic play and Shakespeare could not do what Marlowe did , '' the director said
`` He created a human being , for better or worse , who continues to nettle us .
Portia dresses up like a man to play a lawyer , and cleverly rebuts Shylock 's demand for a pound of flesh in return for Antonio defaulting on his debt
She informs Shylock that he 's not allowed to shed a drop of Christian blood while he exacts his pound , so he 's stymied
She also notes that since he is `` an alien '' who schemed to take the life of a Venetian , he must forfeit his property and fortune
When Antonio demands that Shylock convert to Christianity , the moneylender responds : `` I am content .
But Sullivan did n't buy it
So he added a searing baptism scene , where Christian church men tear off Shylock 's yarmulke and push him into the water as the priest prays in Latin and makes the Sign of the Cross over him
Shylock 's frightened Jewish friends huddle on the side in the dark
`` He 's broken , and the baptism is the thing that revives him , '' Sullivan says
Pacino , mesmerizing as Shylock , rejects his friends ' entreaties to hurry away
He puts his yarmulke back on and deliberately walks past the Christians , who ominously track him offstage
`` Are they following him to do him harm ?
Sullivan muses
`` My feeling is they probably are
I do n't think he survives .
He recalled that a friend of his appeared in the play at a Shakespeare festival in Utah and when Shylock said he would convert to Christianity , Mormons in the audience broke into applause
`` I realized that 's what Shakespeare 's audiences must have done , '' Sullivan said
He set the play in turn-of-the-century Venice , at the advent of electricity , traders and stock markets
The customary happy ending is replaced by depleted lust and aching questions
The text is the same , but body language and emphasis imply power struggles and disillusionment in love
`` The last act has always been problematic , '' the director said , `` because it 's always been this ` Hurray , the wicked Jew has been defeated ' celebration .
In this version , after successfully masquerading as a man in Venice , Lily Rabe 's Portia returns to her sumptuous estate in Belmont and realizes she ca n't have it all as a woman
One of Shakespeare 's most sparkling heroines finds herself tied to a callow , bisexual , disloyal , tippling fortune-hunter
Portia , her handmaiden , Nerissa , and Shylock 's daughter , Jessica , do n't trip off into the sunrise
Haunted by the harrowing events in Venice , the women go off separately to contemplate their flighty husbands and wonder : Is that all there is
Everything is transactional
Obsession with money can trip you up
Obsession with love can let you down
And what could be a more modern message than that
We have Mitt Romney spending $ 300 for makeup appointments at Hidden Beauty , a mobile men 's grooming spa , before the California debate , even though NBC would surely have powdered his nose for free
We have Elizabeth Edwards on a tear of being more assertive than her husband
She argued that John Edwards is a better advocate for women than Hillary , explaining that her own experience as a lawyer taught her that '' sometimes you feel you have to behave as a man and not talk about women 's issues .
We have Bill Clinton , who says he 'd want to be known as First Laddie , defending his woman by saying , '' I do n't think she 's trying to be a man .
We have The Times reporting that Hillary 's campaign is quizzical about why so many women who are like Hillary -- married , high income , professional types -- do n't like her
A Times\/CBS News poll shows that women view her more favorably than men , but she has a problem with her own demographic and some older women resistant to '' a lady president '' from the land of women 's lib
In a huge step forward for her , The Times said that '' all of those polled -- both women and men -- said they thought Mrs. Clinton would be an effective commander in chief .
So gender is n't Hillary 's biggest problem
Those who do n't like her said it was because they do n't trust her , or do n't like her values , or think she 's too politically expedient or phony
There is a dread out there about 28 years of Bush-Clinton rule
But most people are not worried about Hillary 's ability to be strong
Anyone who can cast herself as a feminist icon while leading the attack on her husband 's mistresses , anyone who thinks eight years of presidential pillow talk qualifies her for the presidential pillow , is plenty tough enough to smack around dictators , and other Democrats
John Edwards and Barack Obama often seem more delicate and concerned with looking pretty than Hillary does
Though the tallest candidate usually has the advantage , Hillary has easily dominated the debates without even wearing towering heels
When she wrote to Bob Gates asking about the Pentagon 's plans to get out of Iraq , it took eight weeks for an under secretary , Eric Edelman , to send a scalding reply , suggesting that she was abetting enemy propaganda
But Mrs. Clinton hit back with a tart letter to Secretary Gates on Friday and scored something of a victory , since he issued a statement that did not back up his own creep
Maybe Hillary has had her tear ducts removed
If she acted like a sob sister on the war the way Mr. Gates did , her critics would have a field day
Even in an era when male politicians can mist up with impunity , it was startling to see the defense chief melt down at a Marine Corps dinner Wednesday night as he talked about writing notes every evening to the families of dead soldiers like Douglas Zembiec , a heroic Marine commander known as '' the Lion of Falluja , '' who died in Baghdad in May after giving up a Pentagon job to go on a fourth tour of Iraq .
They are not names on a press release or numbers updated on a Web page , '' he said .
They are our country 's sons and daughters .
The dramatic moment was disconcerting , because Mr. Gates , known as a decent guy who was leery of the Bushies ' black-and-white , bullying worldview , has clearly been worn down by his effort to sort out the Iraq debacle
He and Condi , who worked together under Bush I , have been trying to circumvent the vice president to close Gitmo without much success , while the president finds ingenious new ways to allow torture
Mostly , though , it was moving -- a relief to see a top official acknowledge the awful cost of this war
The arrogant Rummy was dismissive
The obtuse W. seems incapable of understanding how inappropriate his sunny spirits are
And the callous Cheney 's robo-aggression continues unabated
#NAME?
Could it be -- a Medal of Freedom for Scooter ?
Mr. Gates captured the sadness we feel about American kids trapped in a desert waiting to be blown up , sent there by men who once refused to go to a warped war themselves
One night several years ago , my mom slipped and broke a bone in her neck
I stayed late at the hospital with her
Driving home on a mostly deserted road , I checked my cellphone messages
I did n't notice either the red light coming up or the car stopped at the light
I banged into the back of it , and even though the damage was minor , it was a scary moment
I admitted that I was upset and distracted , took the blame and swore to myself I 'd never use a cellphone in a car again
But , of course , I did
D.C. police will pull you over if they see you using a cellphone that you 're holding up to your ear , but not if you 're hands-free
Ominously , research by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suppressed for years and released on Tuesday after petitions were filed by advocacy groups shows that there are `` negligible differences '' in accident risk whether you 're holding the phone or not
Hands-free devices may even enhance the danger by lulling you into complacency
It is the conversation that pulls focus
My greatest fear is that I 'm going to be in a taxi when the driver gets a call from his wife to tell him that she 's run off with his sexy cousin
In a March New Yorker profile , Tony Gilroy , the screenwriter of `` Michael Clayton '' and `` Duplicity , '' told the nightmare tale of being in a New York taxi when the cell-chatting driver ran a red light and hit another car
`` So they 're lifting the other guy out of the car , and I 'm thinking , I 'm lucky , '' he said , adding : `` Then I see them come at my cab with those things , the Jaws of Life .
He 'd fractured his rib and hip
Studies show that drivers who talk on cellphones are four times more likely to be in a crash and drive just as erratically as people with an 0.08 percent blood-alcohol level
In one study cited by the highway safety agency , `` drivers found it easier to drive drunk than to drive while using a phone , even when it was hands-free .
The agency buried its head in the sand , keeping the research to itself for years and ignoring the fact that soon nearly all Americans would own cellphones and that the phones are always getting smarter and more demanding , putting a multimedia empire at your fingertips while you 're piloting a potentially lethal piece of artillery
Americans are so addicted to techno-surfing that they 've gotten hubristic about how many machines they can juggle simultaneously
One reporter I know recently filed a story from his laptop while driving on the Pacific Coast Highway
As John Ratey , the Harvard professor of psychiatry who specializes in the science of attention , told The Times 's Matt Richtel for his chilling series , `` Driven to Distraction , '' using digital devices gives you `` a dopamine squirt .
That explains the Pavlovian impulse of people who are out with friends or dates to ignore them and check their BlackBerrys and cellphones , even if 99 out of 100 messages are uninteresting
They 're truffle-hunting for that scintillating one
Americans woke up one day to find that they were do n't - miss-a-moment addicts who feel compelled to respond to all messages immediately
The tech industry is our drug dealer , feeding the intense social and economic pressure to stay constantly in touch with employers , colleagues , friends and family
It also explains why Christopher Hill , a 21-year-old from Oklahoma who killed a woman last September when he ran a red light while on his cellphone and rammed into her S.U.V. , tried to keep dialing and driving with a headset his mother gave him two months after the accident
He `` found his mind wandering into his phone call so much that ' I nearly missed a light , ' '' he told Richtel
Now he says he rarely uses the phone
Hollywood offered a cautionary story with the depressing `` Seven Pounds , '' which begins with Will Smith spoiling his perfect life when he BlackBerrys while driving in his fancy car with his gorgeous new fianc e. He crashes into another car , killing six strangers and his girlfriend
The movie ends with a poisonous jellyfish in an icy bathtub
Do n't ask
Left , literally , to our own devices , we spiral out of control
States should outlaw drivers from talking on phones except in an emergency and using digital devices that cause you to drift and swerve ; or at least mandate a $ 10,000 fine for getting in an accident while phoning or Twittering
Auto companies are busy creating new crack hits for our self-destructive cravings
Ford is developing a system that would let drivers use phones and music players and surf the Internet with voice commands and audible responses
Sounds like a computerized death machine
But , as our dealers know , we 'll never disconnect
Just slightly , and just when he has to wear a flak jacket over his blue oxford shirt
The media behemoth slouching after the senator is scouring his every word , expression , bead of sweat , basketball shot and accessory are those hiking boots too Bremer
Are the sunglasses too rapper
Will he leave enough time for his glittery groupie , Carla Bruni
for hints of imperfection that would foretell lacunae in presidential judgment
The One , as McCain aides sardonically call Obama , glided through Afghanistan , Iraq and Jordan , girding his messianic loins for the inevitable kvetching he would face in Israel as skeptical Jews `` try to get a better sense of what 's in Obama 's kishkes .
So said Nathan Diament of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America , in The Daily News , defining `` kishkes '' as Yiddish for gut
The king of Jordan personally drove the prince of Chicago from the palace to the airport on Tuesday night to catch his flight to Israel , leading a motorcade in his slate Mercedes 600 across the tarmac and right up to O-Force One , as The Chicago Sun Times mockingly calls the candidate 's freshly branded 757 , with the captain 's chair embroidered with `` Obama - ' 08\/President .
As the senator got out of the passenger seat , King Abdullah jumped out to chat some more , as though the two , who had only met in passing on the Hill , were old pals
Obama finally found a Muslim with whom he 's willing to be photographed
At moments , Obama was acting as though he were already `` on a coin , '' as Jon Stewart would say
But cocky or not , he needs to swoop up to conquer so Americans can picture him in the role
The One left them swooning in Jordan
A member of the king 's inner circle who attended the chicken-and-rice dinner with King Abdullah and Queen Rania said that Obama had gone a long way toward assuaging their fears that he would be so eager to run away from his paternal family 's Muslim roots and to woo skeptical American Jews that he would not be `` the honest broker '' they long for after W. 's crazed missionary work in the Middle East
`` The guy gets it , '' the Jordanian official said after dinner with Obama
`` Sharp , aware and a very good listener
He does n't seem stuck in preconceived positions
He said he would get straight to the Palestinian issue as soon as he becomes president .
That old skill that Obama honed at the Harvard Law Review of listening until everyone at the table felt they had been heard -LRB- and agreed with -RRB- is coming in handy on his presidential dress rehearsal
Soon after his sweet parting with King Abdullah , Obama spoke on the Tel Aviv tarmac about the special relationship between Israel and America that he vowed to `` actually strengthen in an Obama administration .
Ominous signs showed up in Jerusalem , including a construction vehicle attack near his hotel before he arrived and a dozen Americans holding McCain signs as he walked into the King David Hotel
The smoother his trip has gone from sinking a 3-pointer with the troops in Afghanistan to presenting the Obama-Maliki withdrawal plan for Iraq the more panicky Republicans back in Washington have become
The image of John McCain in a golf cart with Bush 41 in Kennebunkport with Poppy charmingly admitting that they were `` a little jealous '' of all the Obama odyssey coverage was not a good advertisement for the future , especially contrasted with the shots of Gen. David Petraeus and Obama smiling at each other companionably in a helicopter surveying Iraq
-LRB- Asked by a Democratic lawmaker a while back why there were n't more Democrats in the military , General Petraeus smiled slyly and said `` there are more than you think . ''
A foiled and frustrated McCain trying to get covered when the entire media world has gone fishin ' for Obama stories took the Hillary tack of mocking the press for having a `` love affair , '' as his campaign said , with the senator
McCain is hopping mad that the surge that he backed , and Obama resisted , has now set the stage for the Bush puppet Maliki to agree with Obama 's exit strategy
But Obama has a better batting average with his judgment on how we should n't have gotten into Iraq , we should have gone after Osama and we should talk to Iran and other foes , if only to better assess their psychology
Then we might have deduced that Saddam had the `` Beware of Dog '' sign up without the dog
It does n't work for McCain and his foreign policy guru Henry Kissinger to keep insisting that timetables will lead to defeat
The Angry One can try to paint The One as having bad judgment
But who is being advised by Kissinger , the man who helped keep us in Vietnam and get us into Iraq
Correction : July 29 , 2008 In her column last Wednesday , Maureen Dowd wrote that a Democratic lawmaker privately asked Gen. David Petraeus why there were n't more Democrats in the military , and he replied , `` There are more than you think .
Col. Steven Boylan of the general 's public affairs office in Baghdad , which was not contacted for comment , says the quotation `` is in error as he never made nor would make such a statement .
But unlike Bill Clinton , who never needed help fathoming Southern black culture , Obama lacks advisers who are descended from the central African-American experience , ones who understand `` the slave thing , '' as a top black Democrat dryly puts it
The first black president should expand beyond his campaign security blanket , the smug cordon of overprotective white guys surrounding him - a long political tradition underscored by Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 when she complained about the `` smart-ass white boys '' from Walter Mondale 's campaign who tried to boss her around
Otherwise , this administration will keep tripping over race rather than inspiring on race
The West Wing white guys who pushed to ditch Shirley Sherrod before Glenn Beck could pounce not only did n't bother to Google , they were n't familiar enough with civil rights history to recognize the name Sherrod
And they did n't return the calls and e-mail of prominent blacks who tried to alert them that something was wrong
Charles Sherrod , Shirley 's husband , was a Freedom Rider who , along with the civil rights hero John Lewis , was a key member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the '60s
As Lewis , the longtime Georgia congressman , told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution , he knew immediately that something was amiss with the distorted video clip of Sherrod talking to the N.A.A.C.P. `` I 've known these two individuals - the husband for more than 50 years and the wife for at least 35 , 40 - and there 's not a racist hair on their heads or anyplace else on their bodies , '' Lewis said
We may not have a `` nation of cowards '' on race , as Attorney General Eric Holder contended , but we may have a West Wing of cowards on race
The president appears completely comfortable in his own skin , but it seems he feels that he and Michelle are such a huge change for the nation to absorb that he can be overly cautious about pushing for other societal changes for blacks and gays
At some level , he acts like the election was enough ; he should n't have to deal with race further
But he does
His closest advisers - some of the same ones who urged him not to make the race speech after the Rev. Jeremiah Wright issue exploded - are so terrified that Fox and the Tea Party will paint Obama as doing more for blacks that they tiptoe around and do less
`` Who knew that the first black president would make it even harder on black people ?
asked a top black Democratic official
It 's the same impulse that caused Obama campaign workers to refuse to let Muslim women with head scarves sit in camera range during a rally
It 's the same impulse that has left the president light-years behind W. on development help for Africa
In their rush to counteract attempts to paint Obama as a radical\/Muslim\/socialist , Obama staffers can behave in insensitive ways themselves
`` I do n't think a single black person was consulted before Shirley Sherrod was fired - I mean c'mon , '' said Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina , a black lawmaker so temperate that he agreed with an op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal on Friday by Senator James Webb of Virginia , which urged that `` government-directed diversity programs should end .
`` The president 's getting hurt real bad , '' Clyburn told me
`` He needs some black people around him .
He said Obama 's inner circle keeps `` screwing up '' on race : `` Some people over there are not sensitive at all about race
They really feel that the extent to which he allows himself to talk about race would tend to pigeonhole him or cost him support , when a lot of people saw his election as a way to get the issue behind us
I do n't think people elected him to disengage on race
Just the opposite .
Eleanor Holmes Norton , D.C. 's House delegate , agreed : `` The president needs some advisers or friends who have a greater sense of the pulse of the African-American community , or who at least have been around the mulberry bush .
And why does the N.A.A.C.P. exist if not to help clear a smeared champion of civil rights who gave a stirring speech about racial reconciliation at an N.A.A.C.P. banquet
Its president , Ben Jealous , shamefully following the administration 's rush to judgment , tweeted Monday night that Shirley Sherrod was a racist without even calling his Georgia chapter president or reviewing the N.A.A.C.P. 's own video of the speech
It was Donna Brazile , a Democratic strategist , who , after hearing the entire speech , pushed to get it out and helped clear Sherrod 's reputation on CNN
The president should n't give Sherrod her old job back
He should give her a new job : Director of Black Outreach
This White House needs one
As we reflect on the arc of civil rights dramas from Jim Crow to Jim Crowley , my friend John Timoney , the police chief of Miami , observes : `` There 's a fine line between disorderly conduct and freedom of speech
It can get tough out there , but I tell my officers , ` Do n't make matters worse by throwing handcuffs on someone
Bite your tongue and just leave . '
As the daughter of a police detective , I always prefer to side with the police
But this time , I 'm struggling
No matter how odd or confrontational Henry Louis Gates Jr. was that afternoon , he should not have been arrested once Sergeant Crowley ascertained that the Harvard professor was in his own home
President Obama was right the first time , that the encounter had a stupid ending , and the second time , that both Gates and Crowley overreacted
His soothing assessment that two good people got snared in a bad moment seems on target
It escalated into a clash of egos the hard-working white cop vs. the globe-trotting black scholar , the town vs. the gown , the Lowell Police Academy vs. the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Crowley told a Boston sports station that Gates `` seemed very peculiar even more so now that I know how educated he is .
Gates told his daughter Elizabeth in The Daily Beast : `` He should have gotten out of there and said , ` I 'm sorry , sir , good luck
Loved your PBS series check with you later ! '
Gates told me Crowley was so `` gruff '' and unsolicitous `` the hair on my neck stood up .
Crowley says Gates acted `` put off '' and `` agitated .
But the strong guy with the gun has more control than the weak guy with the cane
An officer who teaches racial sensitivity should not have latched on to a technicality about neighbors who seemed to be outnumbered by cops getting `` alarmed '' by Gates 's `` outburst .
From Shakespeare to Hitchcock , mistaken identity makes for a powerful narrative
A police officer who 's proud of his reputation for getting along with black officers , and for teaching cadets to avoid racial profiling , feels maligned to be cast as a racist white Boston cop
A famous professor who studies identity and summers in Martha 's Vineyard feels maligned to be cast as a black burglar with backpack and crowbar
Race , class and testosterone will always be a combustible brew
Our first African-American president will try to make the peace with Gates -LRB- who supported Hillary -RRB- and Crowley -LRB- whose father voted for Obama -RRB-
I tracked down Gates by phone at J.F.K. on Friday after he had talked to the president and agreed to go to the White House for a symbolic beer with the man he labeled `` a rogue policeman .
Gates , coughing from a cold he picked up in China , said he wondered if perhaps `` fate and history chose me for this event .
He was pleased with the thousands of empathetic e-mail notes he 's getting , material for a PBS documentary on racial profiling
He says he 's ready for `` marriage counseling '' from the `` Solomon '' in the Oval , who wrote in his memoir that the police pulled him over `` for no apparent reason .
`` If Sgt. Crowley and the president and I meet , it 's clearly not going to be like Judge Joe Brown , OK
` You tell your side , you tell your side .
We have to agree to disagree
But I would be surprised if somebody did n't say , ` I 'm sorry you were arrested . '
How can they ever reconcile their accounts
Crowley says he asked Gates to come outside and the professor replied , `` Ya , I 'll speak with your mama outside .
Gates wryly suggests Crowley got the line from watching `` Good Times '' as a child
`` Does it sound logical that I would talk about the mother of a big white guy with a gun ?
he asked
`` I 'm 5-7 and 150 pounds
I do n't walk on ice , much less -LRB- expletive -RRB- with some cop in my kitchen
I do n't want another hip replacement .
I asked how he felt when he learned that Crowley was the one who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to Reggie Lewis , the black Celtics basketball star , in a vain attempt to save his life after a heart attack in 1993
He replied : `` I do n't stereotype
I never saw him as the head of the Ku Klux Klan
Maybe he was just having a bad day .
And Gates says that if anyone thinks he 's a fiery black militant , they 've got the wrong guy , considering he married a white woman , has mixed-race daughters and has white blood himself
Mike Barnicle warns that the next time Gates needs 911 , he should call the Harvard faculty lounge instead
But Gates ripostes , `` I have a feeling the Cambridge police will be especially attentive to my needs .
He said that , as he was packing for China , he got a call from the Cambridge police soliciting a donation and told them to try back in two weeks
`` I have n't quite decided , '' he said between coughs , `` if I 'm up to that right now .
Passing acquaintances collide in a moment of transcendent passion
They look at each other shyly and touch tenderly during their Paris cinq sept , exchange some existential thoughts under exquisite chandeliers , and tant pis go their separate ways
Sarko , back to Carla Bruni
Obama , forward to Gordon Brown
A Man and a Man
All it needed was a lush score and Claude Lelouch
Even for Sarkozy the American , who loves everything in our culture from Sylvester Stallone to Gloria Gaynor , it was a wild gush over a new Washington crush
Sarko is right and Barack is left
One had a Jewish grandfather , the other a Muslim one
The French president is a frenetic bumper car ; the Illinois senator is , as he said of the king of Jordan 's Mercedes 600 , `` a smooth ride .
But the son of a Hungarian , who picked a lock to break into the French ruling class , embraced a fellow outsider and child of an immigrant who had also busted into the political aristocracy with a foreign-sounding name
After 200,000 people thronged to see Obama at the Victory Column in Berlin , christening him `` Redeemer '' and `` Savior , '' it turned out Sarko was also Obamarized , as the Germans were calling the mesmerizing effect
`` You must want a cigarette after that , '' I teased the candidate after the amorous joint press conference , as he flew from Paris to London for the finale of his grand tour
`` I think we could work well together , '' he said of Sarko , smiling broadly
He did not get to meet his fan , Carla Bruni
`` She was n't there , '' he said
`` Which I think disappointed all my staff
That was the only thing they were really interested in .
He admitted showing `` extraordinarily poor judgment '' in leaving Paris after only a few hours
Watching Paris recede from behind the frosted glass of his limo was `` a pretty good metaphor '' for how constricted his life has become , he said , compared with his student days tramping around Europe with `` a feeling of complete freedom .
`` But the flip side is that I deeply enjoy the work , '' he said , `` so it 's a trade-off .
How do you go back to the Iowa farm after you 've seen Paree
`` One of the values of this trip for me was to remind me of what this campaign should be about , '' he said
`` It 's so easy to get sucked into day-to-day , tit-for-tat thinking , finding some clever retort for whatever comment your opponent made
And then I think I 'm not doing my job , which should be to raise up some big important issues .
I asked how his `` Citizen of the World '' tour will go down in Steubenville , Ohio
`` There will probably be some backlash , '' he said
`` I 'm a big believer that if something 's good then there 's a bad to it , and vice versa
We had a good week
That always inspires the press to knock me down a peg .
He thinks most people recognize that `` there is a concrete advantage to not only foreign leaders , but foreign populations liking the American president , because it makes it easier for Sarkozy to send troops into Afghanistan if his voting base likes the United States .
How does he like the McCain camp mocking him as `` The One ''
`` Even if you start believing your own hype , which I rarely do , things 'll turn on you pretty quick anyway , '' he said
`` I have a fairly steady temperament that has at times been interpreted as , ` Oh , he 's sort of too cool .
But it 's not real .
Obama kept his cool through a week where he was treated as a cross between the Dalai Lama and Johnny Depp
A private prayer he left in the holy Western Wall in Jerusalem was snatched out by a student at a Jewish seminary and published in a local newspaper
In Berlin , the tabloid Bild sent an attractive blonde reporter to stalk Obama at the Ritz-Carlton gym as he exercised with his body man , Reggie Love
She then wrote a tell-all , enthusing , `` I 'm getting hot , and not from the workout , '' and concluding , `` What a man .
Obama marveled : `` I 'm just realizing what I 've got to become accustomed to
The fact that I was played like that at the gym
Do you remember ` The Color of Money ' with Paul Newman
And Forest Whitaker is sort of sitting there , acting like he does n't know how to play pool
And then he hustles the hustler
She hustled us
We walk into the gym
She 's already on the treadmill
She looks like just an ordinary German girl
She smiles and sort of waves , shyly , but does n't go out of her way to say anything
As I 'm walking out , she says : ` Oh , can I have a picture
I 'm a big fan .
Reggie takes the picture .
I ask him if he found it a bit creepy that she described his T-shirt as smelling like `` fabric softener with spring scent .
He looked nonplused : `` Did she describe what my T-shirt smelled like ?
Being a Citizen of the World has its downsides
The more we try to do for our foreign protectorates , the more angry they get about what we try to do
As Congress passed $ 59 billion in additional war funding on Tuesday , not only are our wards not grateful , they 're disdainful
Washington gave the Wall Street banks billions , and , in return , they stabbed us in the back , handing out a fortune in bonuses to the grifters who almost wrecked our economy
Washington gave the Pakistanis billions , and , in return , they stabbed us in the back , pledging to fight the militants even as they secretly help the militants
We keep getting played by people who are playing both sides
Robert Gibbs recalled that President Obama said last year that `` we will not and can not provide a blank check '' to Pakistan
But only last week , Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Pakistan to hand over a juicy check : $ 500 million in aid to the country that 's been getting a billion a year for most of this decade and in 2009 was pledged another $ 7.5 billion for the next five
She vowed to banish the `` legacy of suspicion '' and show that `` there is so much we can accomplish together as partners joined in common cause .
Gibbs argued that the deluge of depressing war documents from the whistle-blower Web site WikiLeaks , reported by The New York Times and others , was old
But it reflected one chilling fact : the Taliban has been getting better and better every year of the insurgency
So why will 30,000 more troops help
We invaded two countries , and allied with a third - all renowned as masters at double-dealing
And , now lured into their mazes , we still do n't have the foggiest idea , shrouded in the fog of wars , how these cultures work
Before we went into Iraq and Afghanistan , both places were famous for warrior cultures
And , indeed , their insurgents are world class
But whenever America tries to train security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan so that we can leave behind a somewhat stable country , it 's positively Sisyphean
It takes eons longer than our officials predict
The forces we train turn against us or go over to the other side or cut and run
If we give them a maximum security prison , as we recently did in Iraq , making a big show of handing over the key , the imprisoned Al Qaeda militants are suddenly allowed to escape
The British Empire prided itself on discovering warrior races in places it conquered - Gurkhas , Sikhs , Pathans , as the Brits called Pashtuns
But why are they warrior cultures only until we need them to be warriors on our side
Then they 're untrainably lame , even when we spend $ 25 billion on building up the Afghan military and the National Police Force , dubbed `` the gang that could n't shoot straight '' by Newsweek
Maybe we just ca n't train them to fight against each other
But why ca n't countries that produce fierce insurgencies produce good standing armies in a reasonable amount of time
Is it just that insurgencies can be more indiscriminate
Things are so bad that Robert Blackwill , who was on W. 's national security team , wrote in Politico that the Obama administration should just admit failure and turn over the Pashtun South to the Taliban since it will inevitably control it anyway
He said that the administration does n't appreciate the extent to which this is a Pashtun nationalist uprising
We keep hearing that the last decade of war , where we pour in gazillions to build up Iraq and Afghanistan even as our own economy sputters , has weakened Al Qaeda
But at his confirmation hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee , Gen. James Mattis , who is slated to replace Gen. David Petraus , warned that Al Qaeda and its demon spawn represent a stark danger all over the Middle East and Central Asia
While we 're anchored in Afghanistan , the Al Qaeda network could roil Yemen `` to the breaking point , '' as Mattis put it in written testimony
Pakistan 's tribal areas `` remain the greatest danger as these are strategic footholds for Al Qaeda and its senior leaders , including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri , '' the blunt four-star general wrote , adding that they `` remain key to extremists ' efforts to rally Muslim resistance worldwide .
Questioned by John McCain , General Mattis said that we 're not leaving Afghanistan ; we 're starting `` a process of transition to the Afghan forces .
But that process never seems to get past the starting point
During the debate over war funds on Tuesday , Representative Jim McGovern , a Massachusetts Democrat , warned that we are in a monstrous maze without the ball of string to find our way out
`` All of the puzzle has been put together , and it is not a pretty picture , '' he told The Times 's Carl Hulse
`` Things are really ugly over there .
The woman who was prematurely counted in is out
And the woman who was prematurely counted out is in
Goodbye , Sarah
Hello , Hillary
In their vivid twin performances Sunday Hillary on `` Meet the Press '' in Washington and Sarah at her farewell picnic in Fairbanks two of the most celebrated and polarizing women in American political history offered a fascinating contrast
Hillary , who so often in the past came across as aggrieved , paranoid and press-loathing , was confident and comfortable in her role as top diplomat , discussing the world with mastery and shrugging off suggestions that she has been disappeared by her former rival , the president
Sarah , who was once a blazingly confident media darling , came across as aggrieved , paranoid and press-loathing in her new role as bizarre babe-at-large , a Nixon with hair extensions ranting about `` American apologetics , '' which sounds like a cross between apologists and Dianetics
Sarah once criticized Hillary for being a whiny presidential contender , arguing that women who want `` to progress this country '' should not complain about being under a `` sharper microscope , '' but instead should just work harder to prove themselves capable
Now Sarah is a whiny presidential contender , complaining about the sharper microscope that women wanting to progress this country are under and rejecting advice to work harder to prove herself capable
The Alaskan who shot to stardom a year ago as the tough embodiment of Diana the Huntress has now stepped down as governor and morphed into what the Republicans always caricatured Hillary as preachy , screechy and angry
And Hillary , who is at long last in a job that she earned on her own merits , has lost that irritating question mark she used to carry around above her head like a thunder cloud : What is Hillary owed because of what she gave up , and went through , for Bill
During the campaign , Hillary got in trouble for pretending to be more than she was , for bragging about dodging bullets in Bosnia and making peace in Northern Ireland
Just so , Sarah got in trouble for pretending to be knowledgeable about foreign affairs just because she lived across the Bering Strait from Russia
But now Hillary does not have to tell stretchers
She 's fully qualified for her job and does n't sound defensive
Now Sarah has taken up Hillary 's old habit of keeping grudges and playing the victim and blaming the press for her own mistakes in judgment and gaffes
If Sarah 's problem on the trail was that she knew too little , Hillary 's was that she knew too much
Before her misty turn in New Hampshire , Hillary 's wonkiness got in the way of her ability to make people comfortable
Sarah , lacking Hillary 's cerebral side , has decided to wing it , Quayle-style , and go only for the visceral
That 's why she now sounds like a demagogue , embodying grievances and playing to people 's worst impulses
Hillary 's radiant robustness , on the other hand , even with a sore elbow , makes the dictators in Iran and North Korea we 're so worried about seem like frail , little creatures
Obama advisers say privately that the president truly respects the woman he ran against , and that they have a good relationship , so good it has even surprised Hillary
Certainly , she does n't have to worry that this president 's gaze is going to drift over her shoulder to some pretty thing behind her
In this White House , Barack Obama is the pretty thing who is taken with Hillary 's serious , smartest-girl-at-Wellesley aura
In a funny way , he 's the man of her dreams
His support of her has allowed her to keep her paranoia in check even with Richard Holbrooke and Joe Biden biting off parts of her portfolio
Just to make sure it stays that way , Obama advisers told Hillary that she could not bring on board Sidney Blumenthal , her former aide de camp nicknamed G.K. , `` Grassy Knoll , '' for his tendency to stoke her grievances
In her cuckoo speech in Fairbanks , Sarah warned Alaskans to `` be wary of accepting government largess
It does n't come free .
Funny coming from a woman who charged the Alaskan taxpayers every time she worked from Wasilla
She also went after that old conservative villain Hollywood , saying , `` They use these delicate , tiny , very talented celebrity starlets '' for `` their anti-Second Amendment causes .
Sarah seems happily oblivious that she benefited from Hollywood casting techniques
Just as movie directors have beautiful young actresses playing nuclear physicists and Harvard professors , knowing the fusion of sex appeal and a heavyweight profession will excite , the novelty of a beautiful former beauty queen and TV reporter cast in a powerful role that has featured dour , gray old men like Dick Cheney was thrilling
At first
As McCain pal and Republican strategist Mike Murphy so sagely observed recently : `` If Sarah Palin looked like Golda Meir , would we even be talking about her today ?
Sarah should follow her own advice to Hillary and work harder to be capable
Until then , she 's all cage , no bird
On the way back from Unity , N.H. , Friday evening , Barack Obama 's plane got diverted by bad weather
Instead of landing at Reagan airport , it landed farther out at Dulles
Before he got into his S.U.V. , Senator Obama walked hesitantly toward the press , who were standing nearby
He looks wary at such spontaneous sessions
He 's still getting used to being covered protectively like a president , with journalists filing probing pool reports about how he `` reportedly showered and changed '' after his morning workout in Chicago
He gives the impression of someone who would like to kid around with reporters for a minute , but knows he 's going to be peppered with on-the-record minutiae designed to feed the insatiable maw of blogs and Internet news
`` So , what 's going on , guys ?
he asked on the tarmac at dusk
`` What 's going on on Friday night
You 'll be back in time to have some fun .
And what about you
a reporter asked the candidate
`` I ca n't have fun anymore , '' Obama said , in a comment meant to be wry but sounding wistful
`` It 's not allowed .
The guy is not , as Dan Quayle once put it , a happy camper
He 's an American who has climbed to the most rarefied stratosphere of American life , only to find that he has to make a major speech arguing that he loves his country
-LRB- A new CNN poll shows that a quarter of registered voters say Obama lacks patriotism .
He 's a man happily married to a strong professional woman who has to defend his wife , as he says , for being `` feisty .
He must simultaneously defend himself for being too exotic and , because of recent moves , too conventional
In the warped imagination of some on the left and right , this is a race between two Manchurian candidates , the Vietnam Manchurian candidate and the Muslim Manchurian candidate
-LRB- The Manchurian vibe thrummed today with the scoop by Scott Shane of The Times that military trainers in Gitmo had practiced techniques used by the Chinese Communists during the Korean War to wrest confessions , many false , from American prisoners .
This presidential race should be about how to fix the scary cascading crises in the country and the world
But as Obama offers himself as an avatar of modernity , the horizon fills with Swift boats against the current , and he is , Gatsby-like , `` borne back ceaselessly into the past .
The 46-year-old is supposed to be the tonic for the culture wars of the 60s
In his patriotism speech , he said that `` the anger and turmoil '' of that generation had `` never entirely drained away , '' leaving our politics `` trapped in these old , threadbare arguments .
But it 's Obama who seems trapped , sucked back into yesteryear
Wes Clark joined the growing ranks of troublesome Obama associates when he meowed that just `` riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down '' is not a qualification to be president
He made McCain sound like a drone aircraft
This is not even about Obama
It 's the old business of grunts resenting flyboys
Bob Dole made a crack long ago about patrician Poppy Bush flying over the infantry
And Clark , as Fred Kaplan writes in Slate , `` was an Army infantry commander during the Vietnam War while McCain was a Navy aviator .
The McCain team ratcheted up the fight , trotting out an army of defenders on a conference call
One was Col. Bud Day , McCain 's fellow P.O.W. who appeared in a Swift boat ad sliming John Kerry in 2004
`` The Swift Boat , quote , ` attacks ' were simply revelation of the truth , '' he said
Another renowned Marine grunt in Vietnam , Democratic Senator Jim Webb , chimed in on MSNBC , advising flyboy McCain to `` calm down '' on his promotion of his military service , saying we need to `` get the politics out of the military .
Naturally , the words `` calm down '' caused the McCain camp to rev up
When McCain zoomed in the New Hampshire polls in 2000 , W. 's supporters insinuated that McCain 's years in Vietcong dungeons , including two suicide attempts , left him with snakes in his head
Now McCain is trying to magnify the words of Obama surrogates on Vietnam to tarnish his self-styled postpartisan rival as partisan
On the way to Colombia , he talked about Clark and said it was time for Obama to `` cut him loose .
Yet McCain himself has joked : `` It does n't take a lot of talent to get shot down
I was able to intercept a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane .
Maybe instead of refighting the Vietnam War while we 're still fighting the Iraq war , the candidates can figure out how to feed the world , find enough fuel for everyone and oh , yeah , catch that bin Laden fiend who 's running around free
Correction : July 3 , 2008 In describing an encounter between Barack Obama and a schoolboy in Zanesville , Ohio , Maureen Dowd 's column on Wednesday used a campaign pool report
The report said that Mr. Obama had declined to bump fists with the boy
The campaign now says that the boy was trying to get Mr. Obama to autograph his hand , but the candidate declined , citing the possible reaction of the boy 's mother
`` When we were talking about Iran , '' he told me , `` it turns out that carrots and sticks in German is sweetbread and whips , which I thought was a little more evocative .
I said it sounded like a skit with Ali G , sitting on a settee , talking to Madam Chancellor , the `` Iron Frau , '' about whips
`` That 's the equivalent German expression , '' he continued , with an amused smile
`` That was a little cultural lesson
Sweetbread and whips
I thought , man , we 're in Berlin ... '' At home , Jon Stewart was poking fun at the grandiosity of the `` Obama Quest '' and `` the Obamanauts .
He showed film clips of `` our hero '' in chain mail fighting off dragons and a Cyclops in his crusade to come home and rule over Dreamerica
By happenstance , on O-Force One I raised the matter of quests and Cyclops with the candidate
Having read that he had left the trail in early June to go back to Chicago and see his daughter Malia perform in `` The Odyssey '' for theater class , I wondered if that rang any bells on this trip
The hero on a foreign journey , battling through obstacles to get back home , where more trouble would wait
`` The whole sort of siren thing , the Cyclops , that 's interesting , '' he said
Unlike an idol , Bobby Kennedy , Obama does not see himself in terms of Greek myth , although he did tell The Times 's Jeff Zeleny on the trip that he knew the risks of `` flying too close to the sun .
The Obamanauts were so pleased with navigating their complex thicket of global photo-ops without even one embarrassing picture of Obama hugging an Arab that they were n't as wary with the press
The senator left his briefing books behind for a rare instance of mingling with his journalism posse at a Berlin restaurant as he sipped a rare `` very dry '' martini with olives
-LRB- This was either because he wanted to charm the press , which , contrary to popular imagination , is not universally enchanted with him , or because he could not get ESPN in his hotel room .
The Obamanauts were so elated that they did n't even seem to mind the caricature of Obama , ears sticking out , that had been drawn on the round We-Are-The-World Obama logo in the press section
The cartoon candidate demanded : `` Worship me .
After he got out of the Middle East unscathed and filled up the park in Berlin , Obama seemed to relax
I asked him what presents he takes home to his daughters
`` Anytime I make a stop , Sasha gets snow globes and Malia gets key chains , '' he said
`` Somebody is assigned to that .
`` You have a snow globe aide ?
I marveled
He also admitted that he did n't know exactly what was in those blue boxes with ribbons that his body man , Reggie Love , was toting for world leaders
`` I was not well organized enough to personally think of what presents to give these guys , '' Obama said
`` Hopefully , should I end up being president , I can put my touch on the present thing
But I did n't even know it was a custom to give presents other than state visits .
I said he could be forgiven for not knowing the customs of a trip that had never taken place before a mere presumptive nominee of one party being feted like a president
Or , given W. 's repellant effect on Old Europe and Obama 's pheromone effect , better than a president
The British opposition leader David Cameron gave Obama a copy of Winston Churchill 's `` A History of the English-Speaking Peoples '' and a box of CDs by British bands , including the Smiths , Radiohead and the Gorillaz
Obama told Cameron that he had been told by `` somebody who had worked in the White House '' that `` should we be successful , that actually the most important thing you need to do is have big chunks of time during the day when all you 're doing is thinking .
Sure enough , `` our hero '' came home to a passel of economic troubles in Dreamerica , rushing to talk to Bernanke & Paulson
Some news analyses of his trip wondered `` Where 's the Bounce ?
The old Hillary refrain why ca n't he close the deal against a supposedly flawed opponent echoes
A USA Today\/Gallup poll found that his trip `` has not broadened confidence in his ability to be commander of the U.S. military , '' according to the paper , and `` suggested Obama 's trip may have helped energize voters who favor McCain .
Obama met with House Democrats on Tuesday evening
Some said his reception was not as enthusiastic as the one Hillary got when she returned from her odyssey
The room warmed to him , mainly because he told the lawmakers how much he 'd need them to get policies passed if he gets elected
Odysseus 's heroic trait is his cunning intelligence
Given his inability to get lift off , even flying close to the sun , Obama will need all he can muster
When you 're young , and even at times when you 're older , it 's hard to fathom this : What needs to be nurtured is the stuff that 's different , that sets you apart from the pack , rather than the stuff that helps you blend in
On this Independence Day , if you 're passionate about it - even -LRB- or especially -RRB- if no one else is - let your freak flag fly
Al Gore would probably have gotten to be president if he had n't let his campaign mercenaries talk him out of a full-throated zeal on the subject he was most passionate about , the one topic that snapped him out of his wooden mien : the environment
His hired guns in the 2000 race advised him that if he droned on about the environment , he would come across as a tedious tree-hugger
It was n't considered a sexy issue at that point
Later , when `` An Inconvenient Truth , '' his slide show that left jaded Washingtonians bored , became a hit - the movie won two Oscars and Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize - he no doubt realized he should have stuck with his passion when he campaigned
From the time I was small , I had a passion that many others found strange
While my friends put up posters of Mick Jagger and John Lennon in their rooms , I had a royal heartthrob who appealed to no one but me
He had a funny accent , odd eating habits and bizarre sleep patterns
He was vain but would n't look in the mirror
Like me , he did n't like the beach or baking in the sun
All through my teens , I nurtured a yen for him , though at that time he was the epitome of uncool
Even his clothes were old-fashioned and dandyish
He was n't nice
He was a parasite , constantly changing the face he showed to the world to suit his selfish needs
And he was really old , which made it creepy when he seduced young women on his travels
He would n't even have a glass of wine with them , much less pop for some pasta and garlic
But growing up , I was a sucker for the guy
I read everything I could about him and his family and his hometown in the impassable mountains far away
My girlfriends found my obsession creepy , so I suppressed my ardor
I tried to get the gloomy goth out of my bloodstream and move on to more mainstream sex symbols like Steve McQueen
It was n't until I was in high school that fangs started to seem alluring - with the arrival of the campy daytime soap `` Dark Shadows , '' set in Maine and featuring the vampire Barnabas Collins
-LRB- Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have discussed an adaptation .
A decade later , Anne Rice of New Orleans exploded onto the literary scene with the vampire Lestat in `` Interview With the Vampire , '' which years later led to Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in a memorable homoerotic tango
Then `` Buffy the Vampire Slayer '' hit big on TV
I realized I could have made a living , even gotten rich , on my old boyfriend Dracula
All I needed to do was update his look , sign him up at the gym and send him back to high school
I figured I had missed the moment , but a decade later , the vamps are vamping it up more than ever
How could I ever have doubted their immortality
Bella and Edward -LRB- a more self - controlled bloodsucker -RRB- are scaring up box office for Hollywood , after a phlegmatic cinematic spring , with the latest installment of the `` Twilight '' battle between vampires and werewolves , between the bidden and the forbidden
Sookie Stackhouse and her undead pals on the steamy summer hit `` True Blood '' have pumped new ratings blood into HBO , bereft after losing `` The Sopranos '' and stupidly passing on `` Mad Men .
What I kept on the down-low is now dominating American pop culture
Once vampires were mere monsters
Now they 're gorgeous monsters , serving as sultry metaphors for everything from alienation to loneliness to AIDS to thorny gender identification to thwarted teen lust
CW has `` The Vampire Diaries '' and ABC has a new vampire soap opera called `` The Gates '' - dubbed `` Desperate Weirdwives '' by USA Today
Tim Stack wrote in an Entertainment Weekly cover story on `` True Blood '' that the two words that send the cast into `` utter giddiness '' are Goo Drop : `` It means that not only will a vampire be staked , but said vamp will dissolve into a puddle of red , sticky , slimy ... goo .
The moral of my story is simple : To thine own goo be true
Usually we do n't find that exquisite battiness in our leaders until they 've been battered by sordid scandals like Watergate -LRB- Nixon -RRB- , gnawing problems like Vietnam -LRB- L.B.J. -RRB- , or scary threats like biological terrorism -LRB- Cheney -RRB-
When Lyndon Johnson was president , some of his staff began to think of him as `` a sick man , '' as Bill Moyers told Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
Moyers and his fellow Johnson aide Dick Goodwin even began reading up on mental illness Bill on manic depression and Dick on paranoia
And so it was , Todd Purdum learned , as he traveled Alaska reporting on Palin for Vanity Fair , that the governor 's erratic and egoistic behavior has been a source of concern for people there
`` Several told me , independently of one another , '' Purdum writes , `` that they had consulted the definition of ` narcissistic personality disorder ' in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ' a pervasive pattern of grandiosity -LRB- in fantasy or behavior -RRB- , need for admiration , and lack of empathy ' and thought it fit her perfectly .
The White House can drive its inhabitants loopy
So at least Sarah Palin is ahead of the curve on that one
As Alaskans settled in to enjoy holiday salmon bakes and the post-solstice thaw , their governor had a solipsistic meltdown so strange it made Sparky Sanford look like a model of stability
On the shore of Lake Lucille , with wild fowl honking and the First Dude smiling , with Piper in the foreground and their Piper Cub in the background , the woman who took the Republican Party by storm only 10 months ago gave an incoherent , breathless and prickly stream of consciousness to a small group in her Wasilla yard
Gobsmacked Alaska politicians , Republican big shots , the national press , her brother , the D.C. lawyer who helped create her political action committee and yes , even Fox News , played catch-up
What looked like a secret wedding turned out to be a public unraveling as the G.O.P. implosion continued : Sarah wanted everyone to know that she 's not having fun and people are being mean to her and she does n't feel like finishing her first term as governor
She can hunt wolves from the air and field-dress a moose , but she fears being a lame duck
Some brickbats over her ethics and diva turns as John McCain 's running mate , and that dewy skin turns awfully thin
Maybe there 's another red Naughty Monkey high heel to drop there 's often a hidden twist in Sarah 's country-music melodramas
Or is this a reckless high-speed escape from small-pond Alaska , where her popularity is dropping , to the big time Below
Even some conservative analysts admitted that the governor 's move seemed ga-ga before venturing the spin that Palin might be `` crazy like a fox , '' as Sarah 's original cheerleader , Bill Kristol , put it
Maybe , Kristol mused , she could use the 18 months she would have spent finishing her term to write her book and study up on the issues for 2012
Why not
Palin\/Sanford in 2012 , with the slogan : `` Save time we 're already in Crazy Town .
Palin 's speech is classic casuistry
After girlish burbling about how `` progressing our state '' and serving Alaska `` is the greatest honor that I could imagine , '' and raving about how much she loves her job , she abruptly announced that she was making the ultimate sacrifice : dumping the state on her lieutenant
Why `` milk it , '' as she put it , when you can quit it
`` Only dead fish go with the flow , '' she said , while cold fish can blow out of town
Leaving Alaska in the lurch is best for Alaska
She can better `` effect change '' in government from outside government
She can fulfill her promise of `` efficiencies and effectiveness '' by deserting Juneau midway through her term and taking her tanning bed with her
`` We need those who will respect our Constitution , '' said Palin , who swore on the Bible to uphold the Constitution
She said she ca n't fulfill that silly old oath of office in the usual way because she 's not `` wired to operate under the same old politics as usual .
Naturally , she dragged the troops in , saying that her trip to see wounded soldiers overseas `` fortified '' her decision to give up because `` they do n't give up .
She refuses to succumb to the `` politics of personal destruction .
It 's no fun unless she 's the one aiming those poison darts , as she did when she accused Barack Obama of associating `` with terrorists who targeted their own country .
Sometimes , she explained , if you 're the star , you have to `` call an audible and pass the ball '' and leave at halftime , `` so the team can win '' somehow without you
The maverick must run free when greener pastures beckon
The musher must jump out of the dogsled when warmer climes call
As Palin 's spokeswoman , Meg Stapleton , says , `` The world is literally her oyster .
But just remember , beloved Alaska , it 's all about you
So how do you avoid a relationship where you end up saying , `` The man who I was living with , I just did n't know who he was '' as Brinkley did in court when talking about her husband 's $ 3,000-a-month Internet porn and swinger site habit
-LRB- Not to mention the 18-year-old mistress\/assistant .
Father Pat Connor , a 79-year-old Catholic priest born in Australia and based in Bordentown , N.J. , has spent his celibate life including nine years as a missionary in India mulling connubial bliss
His decades of marriage counseling led him to distill some `` mostly common sense '' advice about how to dodge mates who would maul your happiness
`` Hollywood says you can be deeply in love with someone and then your marriage will work , '' the twinkly eyed , white-haired priest says
`` But you can be deeply in love with someone to whom you can not be successfully married .
For 40 years , he has been giving a lecture `` Whom Not to Marry '' to high school seniors , mostly girls because they 're more interested
`` It 's important to do it before they fall seriously in love , because then it will be too late , '' he explains
`` Infatuation trumps judgment .
I asked him to summarize his talk : `` Never marry a man who has no friends , '' he starts
`` This usually means that he will be incapable of the intimacy that marriage demands
I am always amazed at the number of men I have counseled who have no friends
Since , as the Hebrew Scriptures say , ` Iron shapes iron and friend shapes friend , ' what are his friends like
What do your friends and family members think of him
Sometimes , your friends ca n't render an impartial judgment because they are envious that you are beating them in the race to the altar
Envy beclouds judgment
`` Does he use money responsibly
Is he stingy
Most marriages that founder do so because of money she 's thrifty , he 's on his 10th credit card
`` Steer clear of someone whose life you can run , who never makes demands counter to yours
It 's good to have a doormat in the home , but not if it 's your husband
`` Is he overly attached to his mother and her mythical apron strings
When he wants to make a decision , say , about where you should go on your honeymoon , he does n't consult you , he consults his mother
-LRB- I 've known cases where the mother accompanies the couple on their honeymoon !
`` Does he have a sense of humor
That covers a multitude of sins
My mother was once asked how she managed to live harmoniously with three men my father , brother and me
Her answer , delivered with awesome arrogance , was : ` You simply operate on the assumption that no man matures after the age of 11 .
My father fell about laughing
`` A therapist friend insists that ` more marriages are killed by silence than by violence .
The strong , silent type can be charming but ultimately destructive
That world-class misogynist , Paul of Tarsus , got it right when he said , ` In all your dealings with one another , speak the truth to one another in love that you may grow up .
`` Do n't marry a problem character thinking you will change him
He 's a heavy drinker , or some other kind of addict , but if he marries a good woman , he 'll settle down
People are the same after marriage as before , only more so
`` Take a good , unsentimental look at his family you 'll learn a lot about him and his attitude towards women
Kay made a monstrous mistake marrying Michael Corleone
Is there a history of divorce in the family
An atmosphere of racism , sexism or prejudice in his home
Are his goals and deepest beliefs worthy and similar to yours
I remember counseling a pious Catholic woman that it might not be prudent to marry a pious Muslim , whose attitude about women was very different
Love trumped prudence ; the annulment process was instigated by her six months later
`` Imagine a religious fundamentalist married to an agnostic
One would have to pray that the fundamentalist does n't open the Bible and hit the page in which Abraham is willing to obey God and slit his son 's throat
`` Finally : Does he possess those character traits that add up to a good human being the willingness to forgive , praise , be courteous
Or is he inclined to be a fibber , to fits of rage , to be a control freak , to be envious of you , to be secretive
`` After I regale a group with this talk , the despairing cry goes up : ` But you 've eliminated everyone !
Life is unfair .
Have you had your fill of gl gg and Kaffebars , leather jackets with rivets and sausages with pickles
Do you want to hop off the tunnelbana , and move on from feminist-socialist-journalist Mikael Blomkvist and his pals , Eriksson , Svensson , Johansson , Jonasson , Nilsson , Martensson , Magnusson , Ekstrom , Edklinth and that suspected lesbian Satanist Lisbeth Salander , the most literally riveting heroine in some time and the most famous doll-like , krona-drenched Swedish twin besides Tiger Woods 's wife , Elin Nordegren
Then you might consider some beach reading featuring unforgettable characters spilling sensational secrets - but this time with simple names like Young and Edwards and familiar hangouts like Cracker Barrel and PetSmart
Aaron Sorkin bought the rights to Andrew Young 's memoir , `` The Politician , '' which is apt since Young writes that John Edwards was inspired to become a politician after he saw Sorkin 's `` The American President .
Young 's book is an amazingly sordid yarn about a fawning aide and the feckless pol he serves beyond all reason
The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible , as Oscar Wilde called foxhunting
We learn that in this era of immersion coverage , we can still end up with a shallow view of our candidates and their real - or Rielle - lives
A man like Edwards can be extremely close to ascending to the White House and still be camouflaging his true nature
To paraphrase Raymond Chandler , if character were elastic , John Edwards would n't have enough to make suspenders for a parakeet
Once more putting the diss in dysfunction , Elizabeth Edwards last week promoted the paperback version of her best seller , `` Resilience : Reflections on the Burdens and Gifts of Facing Life 's Adversities , '' making her feelings of betrayal by her ex , her ex 's mistress and her ex 's sycophant perfectly clear
It 's tough to watch Elizabeth talk about her dirt-sandwich former mate because you have to wish her the best as she continues chemotherapy
She 's suffered through the worst b tes noires that can rip through a woman 's life , and now , as she told Larry King , she feels sad about `` the likelihood '' she may live `` the rest of my days without someone holding me in a passionate way .
But even before the scalding portrait of her in `` Game Change '' and `` The Politician , '' strategists who had worked for her and her husband said she had rejected the idea of a campaign commercial featuring Edwards 's mother and millworker father , dismissing them as hicks , just as she sometimes put her husband in his place by calling him a bumpkin
`` If I ever called him a hick , it was because he 'd like to be called a hick , you know ?
Elizabeth explained to King , in what seemed like a stretch
`` Oh , you 're such a hick , you know
You 're such a country boy .
Indicating that she found Rielle Hunter 's half-naked pictures in GQ distasteful , Elizabeth cast her as Lady Voldemort , barring King from mentioning the name of her husband 's girlfriend
She said she would have accepted John 's daughter with Rielle and been her stepmother if John and she had stayed together , but `` now there 's no reason really for me to .
Well , there is that little matter of 2-year-old Frances Quinn Hunter being the half-sister of Elizabeth 's kids
Elizabeth gave up on her 32-year marriage after making the supremely strange gesture of buying lavender soap for John to give to Frances Quinn to give to Rielle at Christmas
Speaking to People magazine , she did not dispute The National Enquirer 's `` sex-and-booze bender '' story that John has been hitting on women in North Carolina bars
Young is the anti-Iago , debasing himself for his boss , doing tasks like fetching the Christmas tree for their North Carolina mansion and meeting John at the airport with his favorite chilled wine
In December 2007 , the former senator called Young , saying that he needed to find a `` way out of this thing , '' and outlined a scheme to outsource sin that made F. Scott Fitzgerald 's careless Buchanans seem models of responsibility
`` I was dumbfounded , '' Young writes
`` How , I asked , was I supposed to explain to my wife that I should confess to an affair I never had , claim an unborn child that was not mine , and then bring her along with our family as we attempted to vanish into thin air ?
They used Edwards 's trial lawyer friend 's private jet and they bilked poor Bunny Mellon out of the money for their screwball flight to luxury hotels where Rielle could squander thousands - and then the selfish Edwards did n't even go to Bunny 's daughter 's funeral
Edwards told Young that it would be a one-day story and that they must be guided by a cause that was `` bigger than any one of us '' - i.e. , Edwards
It 's a cautionary tale both for those who fawn and for those who need to be fawned over
The man who preached about two Americas will be remembered for doing it with two faces
No one understands me
It 's like I 'm speaking some Eskimo dialect or something
Andrea Mitchell follows me all the way to Kanakanak Beach and I get a French manicure and set up this huge photo op for her , even though she spooked the salmon
Todd and me are in our cool fishing bibs
Piper 's helping out on the boat
It 's an amazing day that shows how our Creator favored my beloved Alaska , gatekeeper of the continent , and makes a great shot for all the network reporters up here to milk
This progresses me away from my image as some kind of flaky `` rogue diva '' and back to my image as a tough huntin ' and fishin ' gal
But Andrea makes such a darn big deal about how I 'm quitting in the middle of my term
`` You 're not listening to me !
I snap
She says maybe I did n't want to go back to the nitty-gritty of Alaska politics after the bright lights of the national campaign
`` The nitty-gritty , like , you mean , the fish slime and the dirt under the fingernails and stuff that 's me ?
I said
Awesome response , huh ? !
It 's the same old double standard
I am not one of those who would whine and cuss
It 's just not how I 'm wired ! !
But the minute I start to whine and cuss , the mainstream media totally misunderstands my verbiage and the combination of things that brought me to this place of knowing
And I know that I know that I know those crappy bloggers will put out more confliction stories
I keep explaining what impacted me , but everyone seems more confused and ironic than ever
What is it about average , hard-working Americans like me that Americans ca n't understand
I love Alaska too much to waste any more time on her Bridge to Nowhere
I need to be able to go forth out there and fight for what is right
And what is right is for me and my First Dude to take that big fish run to the White House
So people should stop being so stinkin ' mean to me because this is a goal-setting thing , a full-court press , a sub-four marathon
Karl Rove thinks I 'm not prepared for the national stage ? ?
Pundits think I should read a book before I write one ? ?
Man , I feel a grizzly rising up in me ! !
Every mom we know multitasks
And I am one to believe I can use an all-of-the-above approach , too
I can abandon Alaska and ambition myself for the presidency
I can get bored with my job and fight apathy
I can take the easy path out to work hard on a path for fruitfulness
I can move on selfishly and call it altruistically
I do n't need a title now when I can shake up the good ol' boys and get a better title in the end
You did n't really think I was going anywhere , did you
I 'm one of Google 's hot trends
We 're doing a fund-raising push this week on SarahPAC to destroy Obama 's attempt to destroy capitalism
And forget about Obama 's youth revolution
I posed for a cheesecake shot in Runner 's World with short-shorts and a crumpled American flag that 's destined to be on the bedroom wall of every conservative 12-year-old boy
It 's the metaphor , stupid
Heck yeah , I 'm running
As I learned when I was a beauty contestant flags and gams show you it 's about country
And before you say anything though about the glam shots of me stretching and preening on the waterfront in my cute running outfits , do n't bother
That would be a sexist double standard
Nobody said anything when Obama walked around in Hawaii without his shirt , showing off his washboard abs
Well , maybe they did , but I betcha they say more about me because , of course , we know by now , for some reason , a different standard applies to my decisions
It 's just like when Obama , the One Who Must Be Obeyed , said his family was off-limits so everyone left them alone
But they never left mine alone
Thank goodness for that though because we hate being out of the limelight
It was a blast to see Bristol with my grandbaby Tripp on the cover of People as the ambassadress of abstinence
It 's the same different standard with the dirt-digging behind these frivolous ethics complaints
As I told the reporters who chased me up here , if I were in the White House instead of Alaska , the Department of Law down there would look at some of the things that we 've been charged with and automatically throw them out
Later , the media brats began making a big , fat ugly scene about there being no Department of Law in Washington
I say , tell that to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan who are risking their lives to protect our system of laws
How sad that the unpatriotic , godless media picking away at me will never understand it 's about country
It 's about me running the country
It 's about me running
It 's about me
The media does n't get Sarah Palin
I hear planes buzzing
Oh , no !
Have they all left ?
Even that Time reporter who I showed how to smoke salmon ? ?
The cover of this fantasy version of Laura Bush 's life , `` American Wife , '' is alluring , a woman 's shapely figure in a white gown , with white opera gloves and a diamond ring
The author is not Anonymous , or Eponymous or Pseudonymous , yet there is the air of a `` Primary Colors '' stunt about this political roman clef , which is timed to come out during the Republican convention
Still , it 's not a salacious tell-all , and words like `` smear '' and `` gossip '' are misplaced
It 's a well-researched book that imagines what lies behind that placid facade of the first lady , a women 's book-club novel by a young woman named Curtis Sittenfeld who has written two best sellers , including `` Prep .
It 's the sort of novel Laura Bush might curl up with in the White House solarium if it were not about Laura Bush
It would be interesting to hear how that lover of fiction feels about being the subject of fiction
You do n't get any fingerprints from Laura Bush
When you look into her eyes during an interview , you feel as if she is there somewhere , deep inside herself , miles and miles down
But though she is lovely and gracious , the main vibe she gives off is an emphatic : `` I am not going to show you anything .
Once in a while , you 'll read about something she 's said , like that legendary line she uttered to her future in-laws `` I read , I smoke , and I admire '' that makes you realize how intriguing it would be to see the real Laura
One with her guard down and outside of the Kabuki-like job of first lady
But there 's only one vessel that can ferry you past Laura 's moat , and that 's fiction
Ms. Sittenfeld has creatively applied her crayons to all the ambiguous blanks in the coloring book
It is n't an invasion of privacy
Art has always been made out of the stories of kings and queens
Fictionalizing historical figures is fine
Fantasies about public figures are inevitable
The question of an ostensibly ordinary girl who lives through extraordinary things will always be gripping
For `` Madame Bovary , '' Flaubert partly drew on the real-life story of Delphine Delamare , a village doctor 's unhappy wife who had lots of lovers and a premature and humiliating death
And the story of the quiet , pretty librarian who could suffer the fate of being an old maid if not rescued by the dashing hero is a favorite American narrative from `` The Music Man '' to `` It 's a Wonderful Life .
During her husband 's presidential runs , many reporters shied away from asking Laura Bush about the freakishly horrible accident she had when she was 17
Hurrying to a party , she ran a stop sign in Midland , Tex. , one night on Farm Road 868 and ran into a car that turned out to be driven by the golden boy of her high school , a cute star athlete she was believed to have had a crush on
He died instantly of a broken neck
As Ann Gerhart wrote in `` The Perfect Wife '' : `` Killing another person was a tragic , shattering error for a girl to make at 17
It was one of those hinges in a life , a moment when destiny shuddered , then lurched in a new direction
In its aftermath , Laura became more cautious and less spontaneous , more inclined to be compassionate .
Laura has rarely spoken publicly about it , except to say in 2000 that `` it was crushing ... for the family involved and for me as well .
How could a novelist not be drawn to such a tragedy
It 's easy to imagine all that guilt , shame , conscience , fear , sex and nightmares in the hands of Eudora Welty or Larry McMurtry
Ms. Sittenfeld was not out to sensationalize but sympathize
The portraits of Laura and W. known as Alice and Charlie Blackwell here are trenchant and make you like them more
The Barbara Bush doppelg nger , dubbed `` Maj , '' for Her Majesty , is as tart as ever
`` When she turned her attention to me , '' Alice says of Maj , `` I always felt , and not in a positive way , as if we were the only ones in the room and total vigilance were required .
In 2004 , Ms. Sittenfeld wrote a Salon piece confessing that despite her `` flaming '' liberalism and disdain for W. 's policies , she loved Laura Bush
She called the first lady `` an easy heroine to root for smart and nice , but just flawed enough -LRB- she still sneaks cigarettes !
to remain likable .
She identified with Laura 's omnivorous fiction reading
In the novel , Alice , tormented by the choices her husband has made about the war that she 's stood by , blurts out to a grieving father that she thinks the war should end
In life , we can only wonder how Laura feels
Given the serious times , the chatter goes , should Barack Obama be allowed to enjoy date night with Michelle in New York , sightseeing in Paris , golf outings in D.C. , not to mention doing a promotion for Conan O'Brien and a video cameo for Stephen Colbert 's first comedy show from Iraq
With two wars and G.M. in bankruptcy proceedings , should n't the president be glued to the grindstone , emulating W. 's gravity when he sacrificed golf in 2003 as the Iraq insurgency spread
`` I do n't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf , '' the former president explained later
`` I think , you know , playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal .
Actually , what sends the wrong signal is going to war with a phony justification , inadequate troop levels , insufficient armor , an inept Defense secretary and an inability to admit for years , deadly ones , that you needed counterinsurgency experts
The right signal is Michelle and her daughters being charming ambassadors , `` gobsmacking '' the town , as a British tabloid put it , by scarfing down fish and chips at a London pub for 7.95 -LRB- about $ 13 -RRB- , like regular tourists
As a taxpayer , I am most happy to contribute to domestic and international date nights
As Arthur Schlesinger noted in his diaries , the White House tends to drive its occupants nuts
So some respite from the pressure is clearly a healthy thing
Not as much respite as W. took , bicycling and vacationing through all the disasters that President Obama is now stuck fixing spending a total of 490 days in the tumbleweed isolation of Crawford and rarely deigning to sightsee as he traveled the world
Some White House officials fretted that the Obamas ' Marine One and Gulfstream magic-carpet ride to dinner in Greenwich Village and a play on Broadway was too showy
Others thought it helped show a softer side of the often dispassionate Obama
Interestingly , Dr. No , Dick Cheney , declined to tut-tut with other Republicans , saying `` I do n't know why not , '' when he was asked about the propriety of the president 's getaway to Broadway
A far more mature response than Senator Chuck Grassley 's nit-twit tweets grumbling about the president urging progress on health care `` while u sightseeing in Paris .
I loved the `` Pretty Woman '' romance of the New York tableau , the president , who had not lived an entitled life where he could afford such lavish gestures , throwing off his tie and whisking his wife , in a flirty black cocktail dress , to sip martinis in Manhattan , as Sasha hung over a White House balcony and called out goodbye
When the president and first lady walked to their seats in the Belasco for `` Joe Turner 's Come and Gone , '' the theater-goers went nuts
And why not
What a relief to have an urbane , cultivated , curious president who 's out and about , engaged in the world
Not dangerously detached , as W. was , or darkly stewing like Cheney
Not hanging with the Rat Pack like J.F.K. or getting bored and up to mischief like Bill Clinton
It was lame of critics on Capitol Hill to carp that the Obamas could have taken in a play in D.C. I 'm a native , but it 's not the same
And it 's nice to see them tending to their marriage
According to Richard Wolffe in `` Renegade , '' his new book about the Obama campaign , it has taken effort to get the relationship this strong
`` She hated the failed race for Congress in 2000 , and their marriage was strained by the time their youngest daughter , Sasha , was born a year later , '' Wolffe writes
`` There was little conversation and even less romance
She was angry at his selfishness and careerism ; he thought she was cold and ungrateful
Even as he ran for the United States Senate in 2004 , she still harbored very mixed feelings about her husband 's love of politics
... So she had played no part in Barack 's previous contests and preferred to keep her distance .
Wolffe limns what those of us who traveled with Obama could see : He was often grumpy on the campaign
He missed his family
He disdained what he saw as superficial , point-scoring conventions of politics , like debates and macho put-downs and public noshing
The Chicago smarty-pants was a Michael Jordan clutch player who grew bored if he was not challenged
Being president , by contrast , suits him much better
He has not lapsed into his old ambivalence
He is intellectually engaged by sculpting history
The trellis of hideous problems is a challenge that lures him to be powerfully concentrated
And , as his aides say , he loves living above the family store
Mixing play with intense work is not only a good mental health strategy ; it 's a good way to show the world that American confidence and cool and Cary Grant romantic flair still thrive
Date on and tee it up , Mr. President
It 's O.K. if they 're teed off
If a President Obama put her on the Supreme Court , of course , we would have the infinite fun of hearing Bill rant about how Scalia , Alito , Thomas and Roberts were dissing Hillary
It 's good news for Obama that Hillary 's out of the race
But it 's also bad news
Now Republicans can turn their full attention to demonizing Michelle Obama
Mrs. Obama is the new , unwilling contestant in Round Two of the sulfurous national game of `` Kill the witch .
There are some who think it will be harder for America to accept a black first lady the national hostess who serenely presides over the White House Christmas festivities and the Easter egg roll than a black president
There are creepy Web sites , like TheObamaFile.com , dedicated to painting Michelle as a female version of Jeremiah Wright , an angry black woman , the disgruntled , lecturing `` Mrs. Grievance '' depicted on the cover of National Review
On that site and others around the Internet , the seamy rumors still slither that there 's a tape of Michelle denouncing `` whitey , '' a rumor that Barack Obama disdained last week as `` scurrilous .
E.D. Hill , the Fox anchor who said that the celebrated fist pump between Michelle and her husband the night he snagged the nomination could be called a `` terrorist fist jab , '' apologized Tuesday
In their narrative of how Hillary lost in The Times on Sunday , Jim Rutenberg and Peter Baker said that Mark Penn argued that Hillary should subtly stress Obama 's `` lack of American roots .
That 's a good preview of how Republicans will attack Michelle , suggesting that she does not share American values , mining a subtext of race
She 's a devoted daughter , wife and mother who has lived the American dream , from the humble South Side of Chicago to Harvard Law School
Hey , is n't it totally unAmerican to complain that being a black woman in the '80s at a class-conscious , white-bread college , Princeton , was somewhat uncomfortable
Just as Bill and Hillary did the `` Pssst
He 's black !
thing on Barry , now the Republicans will use the same tactic on the strong and opinionated Michelle
Unlike her husband , who wrote in his memoir that he had learned at a young age to smile and charm and disarm whites of the notion that he might be a bristly black militant , Michelle has not always hidden her jangly opinions so well
She has spent more time dwelling on the ways in which society can pull down the less privileged and refers a lot to a callous but unnamed `` They .
`` Michelle , '' as one political observer puts it , `` is a target-rich environment .
Team Obama is hoping for the best
When she 's on her game , after all , Michelle is a knockout
And as one Obama booster enthuses : `` Michelle 's story is a lot more mainstream American than Cindy McCain inheriting a brewery .
But the campaign is preparing for the worst , planning to shore up Michelle with her own slick and quick war room staffed by top operatives from previous campaigns
David Axelrod thinks `` there 's a real recoil potential '' if the Republicans go after Michelle
`` I do n't think she 's projecting herself into the fray in a way that would justify that , '' he said , adding that her charming and polite daughters , Malia and Sasha , are walking testimony to Michelle 's `` loving parenting .
Mike Murphy , the G.O.P. strategist who worked for John McCain in 2000 , but not yet this year , said Michelle is heading into her `` big moment in the sun .
`` She 'll have the opportunity to do pretty well and the opportunity to really screw up .
he said
`` What I glimpse of her from far away makes me think there could be trouble , but anytime you have that size microphone , she will have some control over how she handles the pressure .
She 's going to take her big microphone on `` The View '' as a co-host next week , when she will no doubt try to put her remark about her belated pride in her country in context
And she clearly scored a pre-emptive hit both with her chic style Vogue 's Andr Leon Talley declared in The Times the dawn of `` a black Camelot '' and with her playful fist pump that now has older white guys , like North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley , awkwardly trying to do it with Obama
The dap or pound , as it 's also called , was a natural and beguiling moment that showed the country that , even though she started out as her husband 's boss and has a r sum that matches his , she likes him and is rooting for him , and is not engaged in a dreaded Clintonesque competition with him
-LRB- On the night of the Pennsylvania primary , Bill was eagerly checking to see who had swayed more voters him or Hillary .
`` She is n't sitting with a fixed , adoring gaze , '' Axelrod said
`` But she obviously loves him deeply and believes in him , and more than that , she believes in this
And that motivates him .
The two men running the White House have very different relationships with the press ; one is warm and one is frosty
One 's relationship is more JFK , and one 's has self-pitying echoes of Nixon
By all rights , you 'd think it would be Joe Biden who would resent journalists for kicking him around for years
It was the press , me included , who reported on the problems that led him to drop out of the 1988 presidential race
It was the press that delighted in Biden 's foot-in-mouth syndrome in 2008 and played up the exacting Barack Obama 's occasional chagrin at the ber-exuberant Joe as they began their odd-couple partnership
Yet the vice president is so lacking in any vengeful feelings for past reporting that left him for dead , I sometimes wonder if he 's really Irish
Biden gave a press party at his house recently with a beach theme - complete with Uzi-size squirt guns and water slides
Journalists came with their families , schmoozed with top White House officials like David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel , and watched a dripping wet vice president walk around with his little grandson
One Obama aide remarked that Biden is `` the most beloved person in the White House .
Jon Stewart and bloggers mocked the journalists , suggesting they were too chummy with power
But the picnic was on the record , and good reporters ca n't be co-opted by some cold French fries
Whenever you see politicians in a relaxed or stressful situation , beyond the usual teleprompter speeches and scripted photo ops , you learn something about those charged with making life and death decisions
You may even pick up some news
We learned there that Joe Biden has been assigned the press portfolio
This is remarkable , given that it was Obama who was hailed as the charming new JFK , the mesmerizing leader who beguiled an infatuated press , as the `` Saturday Night Live '' skit went , to plump his pillows
But that skit was more of a caricature of some ideological cable guys and besotted columnists - including some conservatives - than a realistic portrayal of his relationship with the `` working '' press
The press traveling with Obama on the campaign never had a lovey-dovey relationship with him
He treated us with aloof correctness , and occasional spurts of irritation
Like many Democrats , he thinks the press is supposed to be on his side
The patrician George Bush senior was always gracious with reporters while conveying the sense that what we do for a living was rude
The former constitutional lawyer now in the White House understands that the press has a role in the democracy
But he is an elitist , too , as well as thin-skinned and controlling
So he ends up regarding scribes as intrusive , conveying a distaste for what he sees as the fundamental unseriousness of a press driven by blog-around-the-clock deadlines
The 21st-century press beast is a scary multimedia monster , caught up in the trite as well as the vital , and reporters rarely can be as contemplative as the cerebral Obama would like
Sometimes on the campaign plane , I would watch Obama venture back to make small talk with the press , discussing food at an event or something light
Then I would see him literally back away a few moments later as a blast of questions and flipcams hit him
But that 's the world we live in
It hurts Obama to be a crybaby about it , and to blame the press and the `` old Washington game '' for his own communication failures
`` On health care , Obama told single-payer liberals that they had to deal with the world as it is , not as they wanted it to be , '' said Jonathan Alter , the author of `` The Promise , '' about Obama 's first year in office
`` But he does n't take his own advice when it comes to the media
Obama refuses to deal with the media world as it is
He 's holding out for the media world that he wants
But that will never be
That disdainful attitude toward 24-hour cable culture is slowing his political reflexes
We 're seeing that in the oil spill
I do n't think it 's personal with him
It 's not that he despises reporters as human beings , like Nixon
He does scores of interviews and he does n't rage behind closed doors
But if he does n't make more concessions to Washington as it is , he 's going to hurt his presidency .
Now that Obama has been hit with negative press , he 's even more contemptuous
`` He 's never needed to woo the press , '' says the NBC White House reporter Chuck Todd
`` He 's never really needed us .
So , as The Washington Post 's Howard Kurtz writes , the more press-friendly , emotionally accessible , if gaffe-prone Biden has become `` the administration 's top on-air spokesman .
How ironic
Instead of The One , they 're sending out The Two
`` When my husband says , ` Can you believe how much better this is ?
I say , ` Yes , honey , it 's amazing , ' '' one woman told me
`` I really do n't see that much difference , but he 's so happy , I just pretend to .
As an explosion of pixels hits our TV screens this weekend , with the digital and high-def revolution , my unscientific survey shows women are less excited about high-def than men
I prefer life and TV to be a little gauzy
I do n't want to see every blemish in a harsh light
Joel Brinkley , the author of `` Defining Vision , '' says HDTV technology was developed totally by men
Alfred Poor , author of the HDTV Almanac , says men drove its success , too
`` Men are all about the bigger , better , more , '' he said
`` And sports are infinitely better in high definition .
The advent of sleek flat screens began to shrink the gender gap
`` Women went , ` Ah , now it 's not just high-def , it 's a stylish piece of furniture , '' ' said Phillip Swann , founder of the Web site TVPredictions.com , which features lists of HDTV `` horribles '' -LRB- Cameron -RRB- and `` honeys '' -LRB- Angelina -RRB-
Everywhere I look , products are being pitched for a world in keener focus
At my eye exam last week , Dr. Jay Klessman used `` Wavefront '' technology , which he said could `` make sort of like high-def glasses , with sharper , crisper vision .
-LRB- It was originally used to fix blurry images from the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993 and has also led to more precise Lasik .
At the Georgetown Sephora , a big sign in the window hawks high-def makeup to use with the Sephora High Definition Air Brush
The point , said a Sephora `` product expert , '' Jei Spatola , is to look `` like you literally have nothing on .
In a high-def culture , we have to wear more makeup to look like we have on no makeup
Armani offers `` Lasting Silk '' foundation , `` a new high-definition cosmetic textile .
`` Obviously , if you are on HDTV , that 's great , '' said Mara Stimac of Armani
`` But we 're of the mind that there 's no more true HD than real life .
Yet concealing can not keep up with revealing
`` The red carpet looks different , '' said Jeffrey Cole , the director of the Annenberg School 's Center for the Digital Future at U.S.C. `` Actresses in particular have come to hate HDTV .
Don Malot , a top L.A. makeup artist who works with television and movie stars , says that high-def is turning Tinseltown topsy-turvy
`` People who thought they looked younger on camera than in real life see themselves in high-def and say , ` Oh my God ! '
he said
`` We ca n't use the heavy makeup that used to cover flaws like a drinker 's broken capillaries any more .
He said that television actresses in their 40s and over are starting to insist that their contracts say they have to be shot slightly out of focus
`` It 's getting rarer to see tight shots of a woman 's face , '' he said
`` Now the camera guys shoot from the waist up .
He said that `` sadly '' women are going to their doctors for more cosmetic fixes and gallons of Botox , but that high-def acts almost like an X-ray to show the slightly bluish tinge of some fillers or the lumpy bumps and ripples from fillers and surgery
MSNBC 's luminous Norah O'Donnell went to New York to do a promo in high-def , in advance of unveiling new sets designed , colored and angled with HD in mind
`` I was wearing a nice dress , '' she recalled , `` and standing there saying , ` MSNBC is the place for politics ' when the production had to be stopped because there was a spot on my dress that was invisible to the naked eye or the wardrobe guy with the lint brush or the director who did n't have an HDTV set
`` The promotion folks saw it looking through the HD camera at the HD screen , '' she said
`` It 's impossible to achieve that level of perfection
But people like authenticity
And if it means they see more of my wrinkles and freckles , and where I tried to wipe clean where my kid spit up on my shoulder , so be it .
David Shuster , another MSNBC anchor , says the growing prevalence of high definition is disorienting for men , too
When he started shooting his HD promo , he was asked to take his pants off so they could steam the creases
And they dulled his shiny shoes , which were picking up green tones from the green screen
Now he 's dreading high-def five o'clock shadow
As the CBS White House reporter Bill Plante said , `` You go in knowing every mole and random facial hair will be visible to somebody watching closely .
I did n't get the high-def glasses
I do n't want more acuity
I 'm keeping it fuzzy
The word `` elite '' is not a pejorative here ; it 's a compliment
It does not occur to Parisians that Americans will choose the old , white-haired one if they can have the cool , skinny one with the Ray-Bans , John le Carr novels , chic wife and secret cigarettes
Newsstands carry a whole magazine devoted to `` La r volution OBAMA .
The papers are avidly following Obama 's post-Hillary quest to `` cherche les femmes , '' and on Friday , Le Figaro led with the headline that he had widened his lead over his `` rival r publicain .
There was nothing on Le Figaro 's front page about that other American guy who was over here , munching on langoustes at the lys e Palace with Sarko and the seductress Carla -LRB- animated and dazzling with a midnight blue dress and a hopelessly long , thin cigarette -RRB-
`` You kind of wrote my political obituary tonight , '' W. teased the French president after Sarko 's toast Friday night , adding that he still has six months left and a lot of work to do
In Old Europe , they 've moved on , assuming that the American president has done all the damage that he can do
The blazing hostility toward W. has faded to indifference and a sort of fatigued perplexity about how les imbeciles de regime cowboy got into office , and how America could have put the world through all this craziness
Even as the Supreme Court slapped him back for the third time on the suffocation of civil liberties at Guant namo , President Bush gave the keynote speech of his European farewell tour extolling the virtues of liberty
He celebrated European unity at the very instant it was falling apart , thanks to an Irish donnybrook
Paris responded with a yawn
-LRB- Freedom 's just another word for nothing left to say .
A Bush organizer asked people sitting in the back of the hall to move to the front , so the empty seats would not be visible on TV
The image of the U.S. abroad has improved slightly , according to a new Pew poll , but only in anticipation of seeing the back of this president
In a way , W. is very different from the cocky , know-nothing , chip-on-his-shoulder `` Bully Bush '' I followed on his maiden European tour in 2002
His disdain for Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schr der , and theirs for him , was bristlingly clear
He told the bemused French that he 'd heard tell from Jacques about their `` fantastic food , '' and he lectured the bewildered Germans , as though they were thick on the subject , that Saddam was evil because he `` gassed his own people .
This time , he left the heavy lifting on Afghanistan to the more popular Laura Bush , while he hung out with French , German and Italian leaders he likes
`` Your Eminence , '' he told the pope , `` you 're looking good .
Angela Merkel dodged when asked at a press conference whether she would miss W. , but said she liked being able to `` call a spade a spade with him .
He enthused that `` German asparagus are fabulous , '' and wryly told a Paris audience that `` my hair is a lot grayer , '' assuming that the French , with their history of foiled colonialism , would know why
He seemed , all these years later , intent on spiritual absolution
In other ways , however , W. was not very different
He was still pushing , but more softly , the same refrain that turned Europe so virulently anti-American : his muscular proselytizing that sometimes military power is necessary to break up terror networks , and that there is `` a moral obligation '' to extend `` a more hopeful and compelling vision '' of democratic ideals to `` provide our security and to spread the peace .
Europeans overwhelmingly agree with Scott McClellan , the former Bush press secretary , that this approach amounts to `` coercive democracy , '' and that the administration 's `` compelling vision '' on Iraq was undergirded with a brazenly untruthful and cynically manipulative propaganda campaign
On the illicit rush to war , W. ne regrette rien
He reiterated a rhetorical sop to those who yearn for a scintilla of remorse , telling The Times of London that his gunslinging talk made him seem like a `` guy really anxious for war , '' and that phrases like `` dead or alive '' and `` bring them on '' `` indicated to people that I was , you know , not a man of peace .
The Bushes have a hard time with the connective tissue between words and actions
In this case , the words , while dime-store Western , were not the problem
The actions were the problem
W. was really anxious for war
He felt that if he could change Middle East history , he could jump out of his father 's shadow forever
A Democratic lawmaker who saw the president in the Oval Office recently and urged him to bring the troops home from Iraq quickly recounted that W. got a stony look and replied that 41 had abandoned the Iraqis and thousands got slaughtered
`` I will never do that to them , '' 43 said
Sounds like Oedipal d j vu all over again
Of the many exciting things about Barack Obama 's election , one was the anticipation of a bracing dose of normality in the White House
America had been trapped for eight years with the Clintons ' marital dysfunction disastrously shaping national events and then trapped for another eight with the Bushes ' Oedipal dysfunction disastrously shaping international events
And before that , L.B.J. and Nixon had acted pretty nutty at times
President Obama was supposed to be a soothing change
He had a rough childhood
Michelle once told a friend that `` Barack spent so much time by himself that it was like he was raised by wolves .
But he seemed to have come through exceptionally well adjusted
`` His aides from the Senate , the presidential campaign , and the White House routinely described him with the same words : ` psychologically healthy , ' '' writes Jonathan Alter in `` The Promise , '' a chronicle of Obama 's first year in office
So it 's unnerving now to have yet another president elevating personal quirks into a management style
How can a man who was a dazzling enough politician to become the first black president at age 47 suddenly become so obdurately self-destructive about politics
President Obama 's bloodless quality about people and events , the emotional detachment that his aides said allowed him to see things more clearly , has instead obscured his vision
It has made him unable to understand things quickly on a visceral level and put him on the defensive in this spring of our discontent , failing to understand that Americans are upset that a series of greedy corporations have screwed over the little guy without enough fierce and immediate pushback from the president
`` Even though I 'm president of the United States , my power is not limitless , '' Obama , who has forced himself to ingest a load of gulf crab cakes , shrimp and crawfish tails , whinged to Grand Isle , La. , residents on Friday
`` So I ca n't dive down there and plug the hole
I ca n't suck it up with a straw .
Once more on Tuesday night , we were back to back-against-the-wall time
The president went for his fourth-quarter , Michael Jordan , down-to-the-wire , thrill shot in the Oval Office , his first such dramatic address to a nation sick about the slick
You know the president is drowning - in oil this time - when he uses the Oval Office
And do words really matter when the picture of oil gushing out of the well continues to fill the screen
As Obama prepared to go on air , a government panel of scientists again boosted its estimate of how much oil is belching into the besmirched gulf , raising it from 2.1 million gallons a day to roughly 2.5 million
The president acknowledged that the problems at the Minerals Management Service were deeper than he had known and `` the pace of reform was just too slow .
He admitted that `` there will be more oil and more damage before this siege is done .
He appointed a `` son of the gulf '' spill czar and a new guard dog at M.M.S. and tried to restore a sense of confident leadership - `` The one approach I will not accept is inaction '' - and compassion , reporting on the shrimpers and fishermen and their `` wrenching anxiety that their way of life may be lost .
He acted as if he was the boss of BP on the issue of compensation
And he called on us to pray
Testifying before Congress on Tuesday , Rex Tillerson , the chief of Exxon Mobil , conceded that the emphasis is on prevention because when `` these things '' happen , `` we 're not very well equipped to deal with them .
Robert Gibbs on Tuesday continued the White House effort to emote , saying on TV : `` It makes your blood boil .
But he misses the point
Nobody needs to see the president yelling or pounding the table
Ronald Reagan could convey command with a smile ; Clint Eastwood , with a whisper
Americans need to know the president cares so they can be sure he 's taking fast , muscular and proficient action
W. and Dick Cheney were too headlong , jumping off crazy cliffs and dragging the country - and the world - with them
President Obama is the opposite , often too hesitant to take the obvious action
He seems unable to muster the adrenalin necessary to go full bore until the crowd has waited and wailed and almost given up on him , but it 's a nerve-racking way to campaign and govern
`` On the one hand , you have BP , which sees a risky hole in the ground a couple miles under the sea surface and thinks if we take more risk , and cut some corners , we make millions more
In taking on more risk , they 're gambling with more than money , '' said Richard Wolffe , an Obama biographer
`` On the other hand , you have Obama , who is ambivalent about risk
What he does late is to embrace risk , like running for president , trebling troops in Afghanistan and health care
But in deferring the risk , he 's gambling with his authority and political capital .
By trying too hard to keep control , he ends up losing control
Even as he grows arugula in the White House vegetable garden , Barack Obama never again wants to be seen as the hoity-toity guy fretting over the price of arugula at Whole Foods
That is why the president ends up sending mixed signals on food
He clearly feels strongly about nutrition and fat
The child who looks a little chubby in that famous picture of himself with his long-lost father in Hawaii grew up to be extremely careful about eating and drinking in a healthy way
The willowy commander in chief urges out-of-shape and overweight aides to go to his Chicago trainer who now works part-time at the White House and even offers to treat especially recalcitrant cases
On a date night this spring with Michelle at the Georgetown restaurant Citronelle , the president showed how calorie-conscious he was when , over a three-hour meal , he managed the impossible feat of nibbling only one French fry
`` He wants to stay skinny , you know ?
chef Michel Richard mischievously told `` Extra '' afterward
On the campaign , Mr. Obama seemed an organic proselytizer for healthier eating , telling black audiences to stop serving their kids cold Popeyes chicken and `` give 'em some breakfast .
It was easy to imagine a scenario where the president and his body man , Reggie Love , would have their own early-morning TV show called `` Downward Facing Dawn , '' coaxing a reluctant nation into a regimen of yoga and yogurt
When he talked to the American Medical Association on Monday , the president again urged Americans to make their children `` step away from the video games and spend more time playing outside '' and cut `` down on all the junk food that 's fueling an epidemic of obesity .
He said he was trying to instill this lesson in his own daughters and at schools around the country
`` As some of you know , we started a White House vegetable garden , '' he noted
`` I say ` we ' generously , because Michelle 's done most of the work .
But often , when the cameras are rolling , Mr. Obama puts his organic tea aside and makes a show of heading for the nearest greasy spoon
He boosted the business of Ray 's Hell Burger in Arlington , Va. , after he took Joe Biden there in a monster motorcade for lunch and ordered a cheeseburger with Dijon mustard -LRB- a spicy detail that amused Republicans -RRB-
When Brian Williams did his day-at-the-White House special two weeks ago , the president took the anchor to a Five Guys burger joint
He ordered himself a cheeseburger and fries and , in an extravagant attempt to prove his meaty regular guydom , brought back $ 80 worth of burgers and fries in a greasy bag for White House staffers
-LRB- After a tour of the Sphinx in Egypt , the president evoked his love of red meat again , saying `` Five Guys was good
This is better . ''
Michelle sometimes takes her staff on impromptu lunch trips to Five Guys or other burger and barbeque spots
But Tuesday , when schoolchildren were harvesting crops in the White House vegetable garden -LRB- though not the Thomas Jefferson lettuce , which had gone to seed -RRB- , they were brushed back from fried food by Michelle and her associate chef , Sam Kass
`` This is a healthier version of fried chicken , '' the first lady , wearing orange jeans , said as the kids prepared their own baked chicken snack
Kass added : `` Breaded and baked is the new fried .
Michelle said she had wanted the organic garden as a way to underscore the need for better nutrition
`` Nearly a third of the children in this country are either overweight or obese , and a third will suffer from diabetes at some point in their lifetime , '' she said
`` In Hispanic and African-American communities , those numbers climb even higher so that nearly half of the children in those communities will suffer the same fate .
She said America has become so unhealthy because too many kids `` are not eating right and they 're not moving their bodies at all .
When she was growing up , she recalled that desserts and fast food were rare : `` It was a special treat
And we would beg to get it , and it was exciting if we drove into a fast-food place and got a hamburger
We were thrilled
It was like Christmas
... If we got pizza on a Friday night , that was a treat .
Mr. Obama ostentatiously treats himself to fries and burgers to beef up his average-Joe image -LRB- even though he 's anything but -RRB-
Yet maybe when Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer come next week to broadcast a special on health care from inside the White House , the president should forgo the photo-op of the grease-stained bovine bag and take the TV stars out for what he really wants and America really needs : some steamed fish with a side of snap peas
President Bush was in one of his oddly chipper moods when he arrived for dinner with Gordon Brown at 10 Downing Street on Sunday night
Maybe he was excited by the prospect of sharing some Gloucestershire beef , Yorkshire pudding and fruit trifle with a world leader more unpopular than he is
Maybe he was happy to be having dinner with Rupert Murdoch and a covey of British historians who might agree with his contention to London 's Observer that `` there 's no such thing as objective short-term history .
Just in case , though , the group dwelled on the 18th , 19th and 20th centuries and did n't talk about the 21st
And presumably , over the 1934 brandy that W. eschewed , the historian Simon Schama did not repeat his 2006 assessment that the president was an `` absolute -LRB- expletive -RRB- catastrophe '' or his analysis that long before Mr. Bush 's militant missionary work in the Middle East , Europe had regarded the moral rhetoric of America as a cover for self-interest
Maybe W. was buoyant because his motorcade evaded the protestors holding up signs that said `` War Criminal , '' and he was too far away to hear the withering scorn of a BBC correspondent stationed on Downing Street , warning that the British public would n't stand for it if the prime minister greeted the toxic president too warmly
Britain is still smarting about being cast as poodle to W. 's pit bull , and the correspondent sneeringly recalled `` the Colgate moment '' when Tony Blair and George Bush bonded over their use of the same toothpaste
Or perhaps after working with Torquemada Cheney all these years , W. simply feels more at home in a monarchy
At the end of dinner he posed under a portrait of Elizabeth I in the drawing room and gayly promised : `` This is going to be my White House Christmas card .
If Mr. Brown had any thought of promoting himself as the anti-poodle with some arm 's length body language , W. swiftly disabused him
He spread his wingspan to draw in Gordon and Sarah , and then clasped Gordon so heartily around the shoulders that the Brit was forced to grab W. 's waist in a shy embrace as they entered the building
As W. told The Observer : `` It 's convenient to say , you know , ` warmonger , ' ` religious zealot , ' ` poodle ' I mean , these are just words that people love to toss around foolishly .
Poppy Bush was often compared to Bertie Wooster , and W. seems to have found his own stiff-backed Jeeves
Mr. Brown agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan , put more sanctions on Iran and decide on Iraq troop withdrawals based on conditions on the ground
Quentin Letts pointed out in The Daily Mail that when W. touched Gordon , the prime minister would `` recoil like a novice nun at first and later smile in terror , '' and when W. said he had no problem with Brownie on Iraq , `` You could almost see Mr. Brown thinking : ` Oh , Gawd
There go another few thousand votes . '
Asked by The Observer reporter about W.M.D. in Iraq , W. replied : `` Still looking for them , '' sparking a strange moment of levity
Mr. Bush continued : `` We did n't realize , nor did anybody else , that Saddam Hussein felt like he needed to play like he had weapons of mass destruction
It may have been , however , that in his mind all this was just a bluff .
Yeah , who could have ever guessed that a wily , deceitful and debilitated Arab dictator might huff and puff , not wanting rivals in the neighborhood to know the weapons cupboard was bare
Maybe some of those psychologists specializing in boastful , malignant narcissists and Middle East cultural experts working in our $ 40 billion-a-year intelligence units should have been able to figure it out
The Daily Mail 's front page on Monday juxtaposed a picture of the Union Jack-draped coffins of five British paratroopers killed in Afghanistan , lined up on the tarmac before being flown home , and a picture of W. and Laura landing at Heathrow
Mr. Bush , who said he 's going to put a `` Freedom Institute '' in his presidential library , told reporters at a press conference with Mr. Brown that `` one of the things that I will leave behind is a multilateralism to deal with tyrants , so problems can be solved diplomatically .
W. confessed only to `` hopeless idealism '' on Iraq and Afghanistan
He said `` history will judge whether or not , you know , more troops were needed earlier , troops could have been positioned here better or not .
But going in , he said , was right despite the `` doubters .
`` There is some who say that perhaps freedom is not universal , '' he asserted , adding that he rejected as elitist the notion that `` maybe it 's only , you know , white-guy Methodists who are capable of self-government .
If there 's one thing W. and Cheney have proved , beyond a sliver of a shadow of a doubt , it 's that at least two white-guy Methodists are not capable of self-government
So now comes Scott McClellan , once the most loyal of the Texas Bushies , to reveal `` What Happened , '' as the title of his book promises , to turn W. from a genial , humble , bipartisan good ol' boy to a delusional , disconnected , arrogant , ideological flop
Although his analytical skills are extremely limited , the former White House press secretary Secret Service code name Matrix takes a stab at illuminating Junior 's bumpy and improbable boomerang journey from family black sheep and famous screw-up back to family black sheep and famous screw-up
How did W. start out wanting to restore honor and dignity to the White House and end up scraping all the honor and dignity off the White House
It turns out that our president is a one-man refutation of Malcolm Gladwell 's best seller `` Blink , '' about the value of trusting your gut
Every gut instinct he had was wildly off the mark and hideously damaging to all concerned
It seems that if you trust your gut without ever feeding your gut any facts or news or contrary opinions , if you keep your gut on a steady diet of grandiosity , ignorance , sycophants , and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches , those snap decisions can be ruinous
We already know What Happened , but it feels good to hear Scott say it
His conscience was spurred by hurt feelings
In Washington , it is rarely the geopolitical or human consequences that cause people to turn on leaders behaving immorally
The town is far more narcissistic and practical than that
The people who should be sounding the alarm for democracy 's sake , and the sake of all the young Americans losing lives and limbs , get truly outraged only when they are played for fools and fall guys , when their own reputations are at stake
It was not the fake casus belli that made Colin Powell 's blood boil
What really got Powell disgusted was that W. and Dick Cheney used him , tapping into his credibility to sell their trumped-up war ; that George Tenet failed to help him scrub his U.N. speech of all Cheney 's garbage ; and that W. showed him the door so the more malleable Condi could have his job
Tenet was privately worried about a war buildup not backed up by C.I.A. facts , but he only publicly sounded the alarm years later in a lucrative memoir fueled by payback , after Condi and Cheney tried to cast him as the fall guy on W.M.D. McClellan did not realize the value of a favorite maxim `` The truth shall set you free '' until he was hung out to dry by his bosses in the Valerie Plame affair , repeating the lies Karl Rove and Scooter Libby brazenly told him about not being the leakers
`` Clearly , '' McClellan says , sounding like the breast-heaving heroine of a Victorian romance , `` I had allowed myself to be deceived .
He felt `` something fall out of me into the abyss .
And that was even before `` the breaking point , '' when he learned the worst about his idol that the president who had denounced leaks about his warrantless surveillance program , who had promised to fire anyone leaking classified information about Plame , was himself the one who authorized Dick Cheney to let Scooter leak part of the top-secret National Intelligence Estimate
`` Yeah , I did , '' Mr. Bush told his sap of a press secretary on Air Force One
His tone , the stunned McClellan said , was `` as if discussing something no more important than a baseball score .
He recalled the first time that he had begun to suspect that W. might be just another dissembling pol : when he overheard his boss , during his 2000 bid , ludicrously telling a supporter that he could n't remember , from his wild partying days , if he had tried cocaine
`` He is n't the kind of person to flat-out lie , '' McClellan said , but added , `` I was witnessing Bush convincing himself to believe something that probably was not true .
He 'd see a lot more of it over the next six years before Bush tearfully booted him out
W. 's dwindling cadre hit back hard
In Stockholm , Condi labeled `` sometimes too accommodating '' by the author scoffed : `` The president was very clear about the reasons for going to war .
She 's right
He was very clear about it being because of W.M.D.
Then he was very clear about it being to rid the world of a tyrant
Then he was very clear about it being to spread democracy
When that did n't work out , he was very clear about it being that we ca n't leave because we ca n't leave
He was always wrong , but always very clear
Everything about the climax of the legal quest to overturn California 's ban on gay marriage was appropriately cinematic - even the month best to imagine two men atop a wedding cake or two women walking down the aisle
`` It may be appropriate that the case is coming to closing argument now , '' Chief Judge Vaughn Walker said with a twinkle
`` June is , after all , the month for weddings .
The Federal District Court trial that seems tailored for a made-for-TV movie features the remarkable odd-couple pairing of two lawyers who have already been depicted in a made-for-TV movie , `` Recount , '' about their rivalry in another historic trial , Bush v. Gore
The conservative Ted Olson now prides himself on being `` an honorary lesbian , '' and the liberal David Boies now prides himself on upbraiding Barack Obama for not pushing to give gays the same shot at marital bliss - and misery - that people like the president 's parents got when interracial marriage was legalized
Officiating from on high was the dapper and quirky , silver-haired , silver-tongued , silver-goateed Judge Walker , who would have been played in a 40s movie by Clifton Webb
The anti-Ito , Judge Walker moved the trial along without preening for the media , asking thought-provoking and occasionally droll questions of lawyers for both sides
Walker is something of a character who invites magicians to perform at the annual court conference and who once made a mail thief wear a sign that said : `` I have stolen mail
This is my punishment .
Heightening the dramatic possibilities , he is also , according to The San Francisco Chronicle , gay himself , which might give Prop 8 proponents ammunition to claim bias if he rules against them
Chad Griffin , the gay former Clinton aide who is the strategic mastermind of the legal battle against Prop 8 , is handsome , boyish and clever , right out of central casting with hip glasses and sharp suits
In his two-hours-plus closing argument Wednesday , Charles Cooper , the slim , white-haired lawyer arguing against same-sex marriage , evoked the Paul Newman character in `` The Verdict , '' a man who was out of his depth against a superior legal team
But Paul Newman was able to lift it in time to save his case
Cooper appeared not to have his heart in his endgame
He did n't even stay for the Q. and A. part of the news conference after court on Wednesday
Like he had somewhere more important to be in the middle of the afternoon following arguments on a landmark case
His close was so lame that if you did n't know better , you 'd think he was trying to throw the case
Maybe he was shaken by the fact that some of the defense witnesses had bailed , intimidated by the Boies deposition process
Another defense witness , David Blankenhorn , the president of the Institute for American Values , a group that studies marriage and families , inexplicably ended up helping the plaintiffs when he said that heterosexual couples have been busy `` deinstitutionalizing '' the institution of marriage , and that adoptive parents are as good as natural parents
He also said that `` we will be more American on the day we permit same-sex marriage '' and give gays human dignity
Cooper failed to reflect the fervor of the anti-gay-marriage proponents who frothed in 2008 , direly warning that marital parity would cause moral damage , hurting children , helping the devil and destroying civilization
He tepidly offered an apocalyptic warning : `` Without the marital relationship , Your Honor , society would come to an end .
He blamed `` irresponsible procreation '' - even though heterosexuals are the more likely perpetrators
At one point , Cooper was pressed by the judge , who said , `` I do n't mean to be flip , '' but went on to ask the lawyer what testimony in the case supports the proposition that the object of marriage is procreation
Cooper said he did n't need evidence of that point , surprising the judge , and argued that , even if that was wrong , Judge Walker should uphold the law because the people of California had voted for the same-sex-marriage ban
Walker seemed bemused , as he did through much of Cooper 's stumbling close
`` But the state does n't withhold the right to marriage to people who are unable to produce children of their own , '' the judge said
`` Are you suggesting the state should ?
Cooper said no , failing to offer any compelling argument for discriminating against same-sex couples
Olson was at the top of his game as he concluded the case and got a standing ovation from those watching the proceedings onscreen in the overflow room
`` And I submit , at the end of the day , '' he said , '' ' I do n't know ' and ' I do n't have to put any evidence , ' with all due respect to Mr. Cooper , does not cut it
It does not cut it when you are taking away the constitutional rights , basic human rights , and human decency from a large group of individuals .
The White House has two kinds of aides : The ones who prefer to think of their boss as gifted but human , and the ones who think their boss is on a date night with destiny
The first group thinks that when things go really well for President Obama that he 's benefiting from luck as well as skill
For instance , they suggest , if any one of the sharpshooters from the Navy Seals who killed the three Somali pirates holding the American captain had aimed a millimeter to the left , maybe the captain would have been killed , and the incident would have turned into a symbol of weakness as when Jimmy Carter 's attempt to free the hostages in Iran ended with a helicopter crash in the desert
And what if there had been another terrorist attack in America
Everything would be seen through a darker lens
The second group of aides are more caught up in the myth and magic , feeling that Mr. Obama summons the three-point swishes when he needs them ; that his popularity is not so fragile ; that the president 's unparalleled vision and buzzer-beating will can shape fate
Just so , there are some Americans who think the president got an excess of attention from an excitable news media for expeditiously executing a fly that was buzzing around his face during an interview with CNBC and the Times 's John Harwood
And there are others who see a mystical , metaphorical dimension to the way the president nonchalantly lasered in on the meddlesome insect after it ignored his admonition , `` Hey , get outta here .
Without even uncrossing his legs or lunging about , the Chill One caught it , crushed it and kicked it aside and then said to Harwood , `` Now , where were we ?
before returning to his point about regulatory reform
`` It 's like he 's got one of those Fly Terminator targeting systems in his eyes , '' marveled Jon Stewart
Maybe the president who collected Spider-Man comics as a kid could n't resist the age-old face-off with a fly
The moment had echoes of parables in which the ordinary one becomes the golden one
In `` The Karate Kid , '' a teenager whose father has died learns lessons about the body and spirit from his surrogate father and karate teacher , Mr. Miyagi
His lessons are about not going to the dark side , the importance of discipline , and catching flies
`` Man who catch fly with chopstick , '' Mr. Miyagi says , `` accomplish anything .
In the Grimms ' fairy tale , `` The Brave Little Tailor , '' a tailor brandishing a rag kills seven flies swarming around his jam-smeared bread
The little man admires his own bravery so much `` For joy his heart wagged like a lamb 's tail '' that he wants the whole world to know of it
So he stitches up a belt for himself embroidered with the legend `` Seven at one blow !
and saunters out
Protected by his legend , using brains rather than brawn , he dispatches two giants and captures a unicorn and a wild boar before winning a princess and living happily ever after as a king
The president did n't order up a `` One at one blow !
You do n't need such accessories in the era of YouTube viral videos
But he did admire his own ninja moves so much that he gave himself a shout-out : `` That was pretty impressive , was n't it
I got the sucker .
Then he solicited more snaps for what Harwood called his '' ` Make my day ' moment '' from his press secretary off camera : `` Whaddya think , Gibbs ?
After the interview was over , he continued his superfly moves by cleaning up the carcass with a napkin
The moment may have resonated so much because some Americans fear that President Obama is too prone to negotiation , comity and splitting the difference , that he could have been tougher on avaricious banks and vicious Iranian dictators
The `` shocking murder in the White House , '' as Stephen Colbert dubbed it , was a small moment
`` All they want is to be loved and to feed on our waste , '' Jeff `` The Fly '' Goldblum said in a dry defense of the exoskeletal creatures on the Colbert Report
But at least this moment did n't involve any talking or therapy or charm or compromise or seminars
`` The snuff aspect of it was psychologically useful for Obama , '' Harwood told me
`` He decided to take it out and he did take it out .
If only the president could be so brazen about pushing through gay rights and health care
Harwood was bemused about the serious issues in his interview getting swallowed by a bug
`` It will be the most noticed thing in my career , '' he conceded , `` but I 'm rolling with it .
If an American first lady , or would-be first lady , described herself as a `` tamer of men '' and had a `` man-eating '' past filled with naked pictures , Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton , sultry prone CD covers , breaking up marriages , bragging that she believes in polygamy and polyandry rather than monogamy , and having a son with a married philosopher whose father she had had an affair with , it would take more than an appearance on `` The View '' to sweeten her image
It 's hard to imagine the decibel level on Fox News if Michelle Obama put out a CD this summer , as Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is , with songs featuring lyrics like `` I am a child\/despite my 40 years\/despite my 30 lovers\/a child '' ; and this song , `` Ma came '' : `` You are my junk\/more deadly than Afghan heroin\/more dangerous than Colombian white
... \/ My guy , I roll him up and smoke him .
Or if Michelle gave an interview , as Carla did in a new book , `` La V ritable Histoire de Carla et Nicolas , '' revealing that she fell in love with her husband for his many fertile brains
`` I did n't expect someone so funny and so alive , '' she said , recalling their blind date at a dinner party
`` I was seduced by his physical appearance , his charm and his intelligence
He has five or six brains which are remarkably irrigated
`` I did n't go out with cretins before I met him
That 's not my style
But he is really , really quick .
One chapter of the book is called `` Le Diable s ` Habille en Carla , '' or `` The Devil Wears Carla .
And the most repeated anecdote is the one where Carla slyly teases the French justice minister , Rachida Dati , a Sarko prot g , as they pass by a bed in the lys e : `` You would have loved to occupy it , would n't you ?
But somehow the French who are `` polymorphously perverse , '' as Woody Allen admiringly called Diane Keaton in `` Annie Hall '' have become so enamored of their new first lady that they 're starting to like her husband more
At the funeral of Yves Saint Laurent in Paris , Sarkozy got some catcalls when he got out of his car , while Carla , a former model for the designer , who calls herself `` nothing more than a folk singer , '' got applause and oohs and aahs
`` Preceded by a sulfurous reputation , '' Le Journal du Dimanche reported , `` Carla Bruni has improbably succeeded in a country so traditionally attached to conventions : in less than six months , the third wife of Sarko has conquered , after that of the President , the heart of the French : 68 percent of them , according to our JDD poll , appreciate their new first lady .
In a recent survey in Le Figaro , the French president was back up at 37 to 41 percent favorables from a low of 32 percent last month
`` The president is better , '' a close adviser to the mercurial Sarko told a reporter
`` There is definitely a serenity in his life now , '' the French writer Olivier Royant told me
`` He has stopped behaving like a twit since the marriage , '' a veteran observer of European politics agreed
`` And unlike C cilia , who seemed like a self-conscious pill who hated being at the lys e , Carla is playing her role well
She is bien dans sa peau , happy in her own skin .
Intuitively aware of the media , she handles both the French and foreign press with a down-to-earth aplomb
She has said she will keep her personality `` while respecting the dignity of the position '' and take her job `` seriously .
She plans to write a diary , adding : `` I write in French and dream in Italian .
The magazine Le Point had a cover with Carla 's gleaming face and the headline `` La Pr sidente , '' with a picture inside of Sarko standing docilely behind his wife , as she sat at his desk and offered that assured feline gaze to the camera
Just as Carla charmed the Queen of England and Princes Charles and Philip with her demure French schoolgirl look , she charmed George and Laura Bush on their visit , inviting Laura 30 minutes early for a girls ' t te - - t te , and then sitting next to the American president and keeping him entertained with a spirited conversation in English , one of her three languages and sort of his one language
At a press availability the next day , W. interrupted his own boring observation about `` the importance of the Doha Round '' to smilingly tell his pal Sarko : `` It was a great pleasure to have been able to meet your wife
She 's a really smart , capable woman , and I can see why you married her
And I can see why she married you , too .
So this general with the background in intelligence who is supposed to conquer Afghanistan ca n't even figure out what Rolling Stone is
We 're not talking Guns & Ammo here ; we 're talking the antiwar hippie magazine
Military guys are rarely as smart as they think they are , and they 've never gotten over the fact that civilians run the military
Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his hard-bitten , smart-aleck aides nuked the president , vice president and other top advisers as wimps , losers and clowns in a Rolling Stone profile meant to polish the general 's image
It was a product of the warrior-god culture , four-star generals with their own public-relations teams , that came from Gen. David Petraeus
And the towel-snapping was intensified by the fact that McChrystal used to be a tough special-ops , under-cover-of-the-night , rules-don ` t-apply-to-us military guy
It was bad enough to infuriate even the placid president , who had already told McChrystal to keep his head down once after the infamous London speech , and who was left wondering where those military core values of loyalty , commitment and patriotism were
As he summoned his top commander in Afghanistan to explain himself , President Obama said that his general used `` poor judgment '' in the derisive way he spoke , and let his aides speak , to writer Michael Hastings
But are n't we relying on McChrystal 's good judgment , putting more lives and billions on the line , to get us out of our ghost war
It 's just another sign of the complete incoherence of Afghan policy
The people in charge are divided against each other
And the policy is divided against itself
We 're fighting a war against an enemy that we 're desperately trying to co-opt and win over in a country where Al Qaeda , which was supposed to be the enemy , is no longer based
Even our corrupt puppet does n't think we can prevail
As Dexter Filkins recently reported in The Times , Hamid Karzai told two former Afghan officials that he had lost faith in the Americans and was trying to strike his own deal with the Taliban and Pakistan
Afghanistan is more than the `` graveyard of empires .
It 's the mother of vicious circles
McChrystal 's defenders at the Pentagon were making the case Tuesday that the president and his men - -LRB- the McChrystal snipers spared Hillary -RRB- - must put aside their hurt feelings about being painted as weak sisters
Obama should not fire the serially insubordinate general , they reasoned , because that would undermine the mission in Afghanistan , and if that happens , then Obama would be further weakened
So the commander in chief can be bad-mouthed as weak by the military but then he ca n't punish the military because that would make him weak
It 's the same sort of pass-the-Advil vicious circle reasoning the military always uses
McChrystal publicly pressured Obama to do the surge , warning that without it , Afghanistan would be `` Chaos-istan .
But the president did do the surge and Afghanistan is Chaos-istan
The surge is n't working
But if it did start working , Hastings 's article suggests , the military might ask for a new surge next summer
McChrystal warns his troops about `` insurgent math '' - for each innocent you kill , you make 10 enemies
Yet we keep killing and making more enemies
The Taliban , McChrystal told Hastings , no longer has the initiative - `` but I do n't think we do , either .
After nine years , more than a thousand troops dead , and hundreds of billions spent that could have been put toward developing new forms of fuel so that all our miseries and all our fun does n't derive from oil , we 've fought our way to a stalemate
McChrystal painted a vicious circle around his commander in chief
As Stars and Stripes summed it up : `` Fire Gen. Stanley McChrystal and risk looking like he 's lost control of the war in Afghanistan
Or keep him and risk looking like he 's lost control of his generals .
The lean McChrystal , who was dubbed a Jedi warrior by Newsweek , prides himself on his Spartan style
He banned alcohol and Burger King from the Kabul headquarters compound and only eats one meal a day
But he has met his match in Afghan warriors , who have clobbered every foreign invader since Alexander the Great
The average Afghan fighter lives on grain , a bowl of rice , a bottle of water
How much does it cost by comparison to have a foreign soldier in Afghanistan
McChrystal never should have been hired for this job given the outrageous cover-up he participated in after the friendly fire death of Pat Tillman
He was lucky to keep the job after his `` Seven Days in May '' stunt in London last year when he openly lobbied and undercut the president on the surge
But with the latest sassing , and the continued Sisyphean nature of the surge he urged , McChrystal should offer his resignation
He should try subordination for a change
It 's hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly , unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month
Harry 's cloak of invisibility would be no match for Vice 's culture of invisibility
I 've always thought Cheney was way out there -- the most Voldemort-like official I 've run across
But even in my harshest musings about the vice president , I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law , not only above the president , but actually his own dark planet -- a separate entity from the White House
I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret
Still , it 's quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure , undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure , undisclosed location in the Constitution
Dr. No used to just blow off the public and Congress as he cooked up his shady schemes
Now , in a breathtaking act of arrant arrogance , he 's blowing off his own administration
Henry Waxman , the California congressman who looks like an accountant and bites like a pit bull , is making the most of Congress 's ability , at long last , to scrutinize Cheney 's chicanery
On Thursday , Mr. Waxman revealed that after four years of refusing to cooperate with the government unit that oversees classified documents , the vice president tried to shut down the unit rather than comply with the law ensuring that sensitive data is protected
The National Archives appealed to the Justice Department , but who knows how much justice there is at Justice , now that the White House has so blatantly politicized it
Cheney 's office denied doing anything wrong , but Cheney 's office is also denying it 's an office
Tricky Dick Deuce declared himself exempt from a rule that applies to everyone else in the executive branch , instructing the National Archives that the Office of the Vice President is not an '' entity within the executive branch '' and therefore is not subject to presidential executive orders .
It 's absurd , reflecting his view from the first day he got into office that laws do n't apply to him , '' Representative Waxman told me .
The irony is , he 's taking the position that he 's not part of the executive branch .
Ah , if only that were true
Then maybe W. would be able to close Gitmo , which Vice has insisted he not do
And Condi would n't have to worry every night that she 'll wake up to find crazy Dick bombing Iran , whispering to W. that they have to do it before that weak sister Hillary takes over .
Your decision to exempt your office from the president 's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk , '' Mr. Waxman , the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee , wrote to Cheney
Of course , it 's doubtful , now that Vice has done so much to put our national security at risk , that he 'll suddenly listen to reason
Cheney and Cheney 's Cheney , David Addington , his equally belligerent , ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff , have no shame
After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby , they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch
Cheney , they argue , is the president of the Senate , so he 's also part of the legislative branch
Vice is casting himself as a constitutional chimera , an extralegal creature with the body of a snake and the head of a sea monster
It 's a new level of gall , to avoid accountability by saying you 're part of a legislative branch that you 've spent six years trying to weaken
But gall is the specialty of Addington , who has done his best to give his boss the powers of a king
He was the main author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects , and he helped stonewall the 9\/11 commission
He led the fights supporting holding terrorism suspects without access to courts and against giving Congress and environmentalists access to information about the energy industry big shots who secretly advised Cheney on energy policy
Dana Perino , a White House press spokeswoman , had to go out on Friday and defend Cheney 's bizarre contention that he is his own government .
This is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate , '' she said
I love that Cheney was able to bully Colin Powell , Pentagon generals and George Tenet when drumming up his fake case for war , but when he tried to push around the little guys , the National Archive data collectors -- I 'm visualizing dedicated '' We the People '' wonky types with glasses and pocket protectors -- they pushed back
Archivists are the new macho heroes of Washington
Our president is positively monkish compared with Silvio Berlusconi , whose Vesuvial vices spurred a trio of women academics in Italy to write an `` Appeal to the First Ladies .
It urges Michelle Obama and other wives of world leaders to boycott next month 's G-8 summit in L'Aquila , Italy , to protest the Italian prime minister 's `` sexist '' and `` offensive '' manner toward women
One of the things the petitioners objected to , according to The Times of London , was Berlusconi 's attempt to put up actresses and showgirls as candidates in the European elections -LRB- not to mention as allegedly remunerated ornaments for wild parties at his posh villas -RRB-
His wife , Veronica Lario , a former actress who met him while she was starring topless in `` The Magnificent Cuckold '' and who is now divorcing him , has operatically upbraided him twice : once two years ago after he had a public flirtation with a TV starlet whom he later appointed as Minister of Equal Opportunities ; and again last month when Lario charged her randy hubby with `` consorting with minors '' after he went to the 18th birthday party of a model and gave her a diamond and gold necklace
Naturally , Berlusconi , who likes to be called `` Papi '' by his flock of chicks , upped the antics
The paparazzi splashed photos of topless babes or `` L'harem di Berlusconi , '' as they 're known and a buck naked ex-Czech prime minister romping at Berlusconi 's villa in Sardinia
And a comely 23-year-old starlet named Barbara Montereale told La Repubblica this week that she got paid by a hospital equipment vendor for going to the villa in January an incident now under police investigation
`` We played with a little puppy that Bush had given him as a present , '' she said
She claimed she went with another girl , an `` escort '' named Patrizia D'Addario , who told her that she had had sex with the 72-year-old prime minister and asked for a favor about a building project but never got it
Now a disillusioned D'Addario has released a secret recording she made in which Berlusconi 's voice is heard saying : `` Go and wait for me in the big bed .
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday night that Berlusconi , in an interview with the Italian society magazine Chi , which is owned by his holding company , denied that he had ever paid a woman to spend the night with him
`` I 've never understood what would be the satisfaction if there is n't the pleasure of conquest , '' he said , adding that he had `` no memory '' of D'Addario
Given Berlusconi 's louche ways , L'Aquila is a safe place for President Obama to indulge his lingering smoking habit
It 's interesting that someone with such daunting discipline ca n't apply his willpower to cigarettes
The day after he signed a historic tobacco bill , the president conceded at a White House news conference that he `` constantly '' struggles with his vice and falls off the wagon sometimes
He got testy with the McClatchy reporter who asked him about his bill and his habit , pointing out that the legislation was meant to stop `` the next generation of kids '' from smoking
Then he got even snippier with Major Garrett of Fox News , who referred to the president 's strong opening statement on Iran , noting : `` You said about Iran that you were ` appalled ' and ` outraged .
What took you so long to employ those words ?
The president protested that he had been consistent in trying not to let the White House and C.I.A. become foils that the Iranian government could blame
When CBS News 's Chip Reid later asked Mr. Obama if he was `` influenced at all by John McCain and Lindsey Graham accusing you of being timid and weak , '' the president grinned dismissively
But Mr. Obama regularly has to be cajoled by supporters and critics into using bolder rhetoric
It happened in his battle against Hillary during the campaign and with the A.I.G. bonuses and now Iran
Privately , he gets irritated at those who make him out to be a wimp just because he tends not to react dramatically or visibly to events
That does n't mean he 's not responding or that he 's not tough , he says ; it just means he 's not doing it on the timetable or at the decibel levels that some would prefer
Like the Bushes , he will point out , as he did at the press conference , he is the president and his critics are not
He also got prickly with NBC News 's Chuck Todd when Todd said the president had `` hinted '' that there would be consequences for a repressive Iran
`` Well , I 'm not hinting , '' Mr. Obama said
`` I think that when a young woman gets shot on the street when she gets out of her car , that 's a problem .
When Todd asked why he would n't spell out the consequences , the president shot back , `` I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle
I 'm not
O.K. ?
It was enough to make a guy sneak out to the Truman balcony for a smoke
`` Even if you never met him , you know this guy
He 's the guy at the country club with the beautiful date , holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by .
Actually , that sounds more like W. The cheap populism is really rich coming from Karl Rove
When was the last time he kicked back with a corncob pipe to watch professional wrestling
Rove is trying to spin his myths , as he used to do with such devastating effect , but it wo n't work this time
The absurd spectacle of rich white conservatives trying to paint Obama as a watercress sandwich with the crust cut off seems ugly and fake
Obama can be aloof and dismissive at times , and he 's certainly self-regarding , carrying the aura of the Ivy faculty club
But is n't that better than the aura of the country clubs that tried to keep out blacks
It 's ironic , and maybe inevitable , that the first African-American nominee comes across as a prince of privilege
He is , as Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic wrote , not the seed but the flower of the civil rights movement
Unlike W. , Obama does n't have a chip on his shoulder and he does n't make a lot of snarky remarks
He tries to stay on a positive keel and see things from the other person 's point of view
He 's not Richie Rich , saved time and again by Daddy 's influence and Daddy 's friends , the one who got waved into Yale and Harvard and cushy business deals , who drank too much and snickered at the intellectuals and gave them snide nicknames
Obama is the outsider who never really knew his dad and who grew up in modest circumstances , the kid who had to work hard to charm whites and build a life with blacks and step up to the smarty-pants set
He might be smoking , but it would be at a cafe , hunched over a New York Times , an Atlantic magazine , his MacBook and some organic fruit-flavored tea , listening to Bob Dylan 's `` Blood on the Tracks '' on his iPod
Rove was doing a variation on the old William Buckley line : `` I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone book than by the 2,000 members of the Harvard faculty .
Conservatives love playing this little game , acting as if the `` elite '' Democratic candidates are not in touch with people like themselves , even though the guys doing the attacking like Rove , Limbaugh , O'Reilly and Hannity are wealthy and cosseted
Have n't we had enough of this hypocritical comedy of people in the elite disowning their social status for political purposes
The Bushes had to move all the way to Texas from Greenwich to make their blue blood appear more red
Everyone who ever became president was in the elite one way or another , including Andrew Jackson
Rove and Co. are nervous because they see that Obama , in rejecting public financing , is not going to be a chump , like some past Democratic candidates
For some of Obama 's critics , it 's a breathtaking bit of fungible principles , as though Gandhi suddenly donned a Dolce & Gabbana , or Dolce & Mahatma , loincloth
But even as the Republicans limn him as John Kerry , as someone who is too haughty and too `` foreign , '' Obama is determined not to repeat what Kerry thinks was a big mistake : not having enough money to compete against the Republicans in 2004
Charlie Black crassly argued in Fortune that a terrorist attack would `` be a big advantage '' for John McCain
And what 's scary is , Black is the smartest adviser McCain 's got
It 's hard to believe that if Americans get attacked after all these years of getting strip-searched at the airport , they 're going to be filled with confidence at the performance of the Republicans on national security
And at least Obama wants to catch Osama and does n't think he 's getting his directions on war from `` a higher Father .
Rove 's mythmaking about Obama wo n't fly
If he means that Obama has brains , what 's wrong with that
If he means that Obama is successful , what 's wrong with that
If he means that Obama has education and intellectual sophistication , what 's wrong with that
Many of Obama 's traits are the traits that people in the population aspire to
It looks as if Rove is on the verge of realizing his dream of creating a permanent position for the Republicans
Unfortunately for him , it 's in the minority
The great cosmic joke would be to find out definitively that the advances we thought were blessings - from the hormones women pump into their bodies all their lives to the fancy phones people wait in line for all night - are really time bombs
Just as parents now tell their kids that , believe it or not , there was a time when nobody knew that cigarettes and tanning were bad for you , those kids may grow up to tell their kids that , believe it or not , there was a time when nobody knew how dangerous it was to hold your phone right next to your head and chat away for hours
We do n't yet really know the physical and psychological impact of being slaves to technology
We just know that technology is a narcotic
We 're living in the cloud , in a force field , so afraid of being disconnected and plunged into a world of silence and stillness that even if scientists told us our computers would make our arms fall off , we 'd probably keep typing
San Francisco just became the first city in the country to pass legislation making cellphone retailers display radiation levels
The city 's Board of Supervisors voted 10 to 1 in favor
The one against , the Democrat Sean Elsbernd , said afterward : `` It 's a slippery slope
I can go on Google right now and find you a study that says there 's a problem with the Starbucks you 're drinking .
Different phone models emit anywhere from 0.2 watts per kilogram of body tissue to 1.6 watts , the legal limit
The amount of radio frequency energy seeping into the body and brain is measured by a unit called the Specific Absorption Rate -LRB- SAR -RRB-
`` You see all these kids literally glued to their phones , '' Gavin Newsom , the mayor of San Francisco , told me
`` And candidly , my wife was pregnant and on her cellphone nonstop
So I dusted off some studies and started doing research
`` That 's when I discovered that companies who make cellphones are already required to disclose that information to the federal government , and that it exists but somewhere on someone 's Web page on the 88th page .
Why not underscore it , he thought , by alerting consumers at the store , putting the SAR level in the same font as the phone price
His alarmed advisers , accustomed to seeing the sleek Newsom diving into bold stands without calculating the potential blowback - as with gay marriage - told him to focus on jobs and the economy
`` They said : ` There you go again
They 're going to mock you
It 's going to be another sideshow , ' '' he recalled
But stroking his baby daughter 's soft head and reading new studies on the vulnerability of children 's thinner skulls to radiation , he persevered
One Swedish study that followed young people who began using cells as teenagers for 10 years calculated a 400 percent increase in brain tumors
But as Nathaniel Rich recently pointed out in Harper 's , studies about cellphones ' carcinogenic potential all contradict one another , including those involving children
When Newsom proposed the bill , telecommunications lobbyists went to the mattresses , as did hoteliers , who feared losing convention business
He said that lobbyists from Washington made it clear that they would invoke `` the nuclear option '' and come down `` like a ton of bricks .
`` This is tobacco money , oil money , '' he said
`` But these guys from D.C. do not know me because that has exactly the opposite effect
Shame on them , to threaten the city
It 's about as shortsighted as one could get in terms of a brand .
Months before the bill passed , he read me part of a letter that Marriott sent him : `` CTIA - The Wireless Association , which is scheduled to hold a major convention here in October 2010 , has already contacted us about canceling their event if the legislation moves forward
They also have told us that they are in contact with Apple , Cisco , Oracle and others who are heavily involved in the industry , as you know , about not holding future events in your city for the same reason .
Sure enough , when the bill passed Tuesday , CTIA issued a petulant statement that after 2010 , it would relocate its annual three-day fall exhibition , with 68,000 exhibitors and attendees and `` $ 80 million '' in business , away from San Francisco
`` Since our bill is relatively benign , '' Newsom said , `` it begs the question , why did they work so hard and spend so much money to kill it
I 've become more fearful , not less , because of their reaction
It 's like BP
Should n't they be doing whatever it takes to protect their global shareholders ?
So now we have Exhibit No. 1,085 illustrating the brazenness of Big Business
They should be sending Mayor Newsom a bottle of good California wine for caring about whether kids ' brains get fried , not leaving him worried about whether they 'll avenge themselves in his campaign for lieutenant governor
He 's resigned to that possibility , just as he is to his own addiction
`` I love my iPhone , '' he said cheerfully
As in all great affairs , Mark Sanford fell in love simultaneously with a woman and himself with the dashing new version of himself he saw in her molten eyes
In a weepy , gothic unraveling , the South Carolina governor gave a press conference illustrating how smitten he was , not only with his Argentine amante , but with his own tenderness , his own pathos and his own feminine side
He got into trouble as a man and tried to get out as a woman
He wanted to get his girlfriend a DVD of the movie `` The Holiday , '' presumably the Cameron Diaz-Kate Winslet chick flick about two women , one from L.A. and one from England , who trade homes and lives
He was fantasizing about catapulting himself into an exotic life where stimulus had nothing to do with budgets
With Maria , he was no longer the penny-pinching millionaire Mark , who used to sleep on a futon in his Congressional office and once treated two congressmen to movie refreshments by bringing back a Coke and three straws
No , he was someone altogether more fascinating : Marco , international man of mystery and suave god of sex and tango
Mark was the self-righteous , Bible-thumping prig who pressed for Bill Clinton 's impeachment ; Marco was the un-self-conscious Lothario , canoodling with Maria in Buenos Aires , throwing caution to the e-wind about their `` soul-mate feel , '' her tan lines , her curves , `` the erotic beauty of you holding yourself -LRB- or two magnificent parts of yourself -RRB- in the faded glow of night 's light .
Mark is a conservative railing against sinners ; Marco sins liberally
Mark opposes gay marriage as a threat to traditional marriage
Marco thinks nothing of risking his own traditional marriage , and celebrates transgressive relationships
He frets to Maria in e-mail that he sounds `` like the Thornbirds wherein I was always upset with Richard Chamberlain for not dropping his ambitions and running into Maggie 's arms .
Marco , the libertine , wonders how they will ever `` put the Genie back in the bottle .
And in the sort of Freudian slip that any solipsistic pol like Mark would adore , Maria protests in Spanglish : `` I do n't want to put the genius back in the bottle .
Marco is a sly scamp who found a sneaky way to make South Carolina taxpayers pay for a south-of-the-border romp with his mistress
Mark is so selfish he tried to enhance his presidential chances by resisting South Carolina 's share of President Obama 's $ 787 billion stimulus package , callously giving the back of his hand to the suffering state 's most vulnerable the jobless and poor and black students
Marco is generous , promising to send a memento of affection that Maria wants to keep by her bed
Mark hates lying
As he said of Bill 's dalliance with Monica , `` If you undermine trust in our system , you undermine everything .
Marco lies with brio , misleading his family , his lieutenant governor , his staff and his state about his whereabouts , even packing camping equipment to throw off the scent from South America
He told whoppers to his wife , a former investment banker who managed his campaigns and raises his four sons -LRB- solo on Father 's Day -RRB-
She put out a statement quoting Psalm 127 to snidely remind her besotted husband `` that sons are a gift from the Lord .
Jenny Sanford told The Associated Press on Friday that Mark had told her he needed time to be alone and write , so she was stunned to learn he was in Argentina on a `` Roman Holiday .
Before he left to `` write , '' she warned him not to skip off to the other woman
Mark , who disdains rascals , agreed that he would n't
Marco , who is a rascal , skipped off
Mark went back to work on Friday , giving his cabinet a lecture on personal responsibility and comparing himself to King David , who `` fell mightily ... in very , very significant ways but then picked up the pieces and built from there .
Actually , the one thing David did n't do after his adulterous fall was build , because he was forbidden by God to construct his dream temple in Jerusalem
Sanford should give his piety a rest
He told his cabinet that the Psalms taught him humility
-LRB- There 's a chance that a younger Argentine boyfriend of Maria 's also taught him humility , by jealously hacking into her e-mail account and leaking the governor 's missives .
Sanford can be truly humble only if he stops dictating to others , who also have desires and weaknesses , how to behave in their private lives
The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon Sanford , Gingrich , Limbaugh , Palin , Ensign , Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed stop being two-faced
Carmella Lewis , with her Hillary T-shirt and Hillary placard , came all the way from Denver to make sure there would be plenty of ambiguity , duality and ferocity in Unity
Just as Hillary was testing out the unfamiliar familiarity `` Barack and me '' Friday and talking about `` his grace and his grit , '' Carmella began loudly booing and waving her sign
`` We want Hillary !
screamed the 57-year-old retired ad saleswoman and Clinton delegate
`` It 's over , lady !
yelled some Obama supporters a few yards away
Standing between the Sharks and the Jets , David Axelrod took pity on an older friend of Carmella 's who was suffering from aridity in the Unity humidity
The chief Obama strategist fetched a glass of water and brought it to the woman , who was wearing five Hillary buttons
This amenity did not stop the disunity
Carmella and her friends continued to cry , `` Nobama !
`` We love you , Hillary !
and `` We need Hillary !
as Barack Obama sat onstage on a stool behind his former rival , his finger studiously at his lips
Carmella was not impressed with all the kissing , laughing and whispering that Hill and Bam were diligently doing for the cameras , so that the moment could produce , as Obama press aide Robert Gibbs put it on `` Larry King Live , '' `` a great picture .
When it was Obama 's turn to speak , Carmella announced loudly , `` I wish I had ear plugs .
Then , as Obama tried to ingratiate himself with the Hillary partisans in the crowd by saying that because of the New York senator , his daughters `` can take for granted that women can do anything that the boys can do and do it better and do it in heels , '' Carmella put her fingers in her ears
As Obama tried to curry favor with Hillary , looking over at her sensible , sturdy shoes and marveling , `` I still do n't know how she does it in heels , '' Carmella tore up a tissue and stuffed it in her ears
When Obama pandered with a line about how he would n't `` perpetuate a system in which women are paid less for the same work as men , '' she put her hands over her tissue-stuffed ears
`` Maybe she 'd like what she heard if she listened , '' sighed Axelrod
When Obama talked about moving beyond `` all the petty bickering , '' as Hillary robo-nodded at his side and CNN 's Candy Crowley applied pre-broadcast lipstick above her , Carmella glared at people applauding
Afterward , Carmella got her idol to autograph her sign , telling the smiling Hillary , `` You 're going to be the next president .
She told The Times that she and her friends were all voting for John McCain and that Hillary was just doing what she had to do
`` But I have a gut feeling , '' she said with macabre faith , `` that something 's going to happen so that she becomes the nominee .
Some people were mingling well on unity day
Hillary 's chic body woman Huma Abedin got along great with Obama 's charming body man Reggie Love ; the two , with their dates , shared a dinner the night before at a Georgetown hot spot
The Bamary press corps meshed effortlessly
The Hillary Fox producer nodded to the good old days by passing around a video mashup of the former foes ' greatest hits : Hillary mocking Obama , saying , `` Enough with the speeches and the big rallies !
and Obama saying , `` Shame on her !
after Hillary said , `` Shame on you , Barack Obama !
Reporters and photographers crept toward the front of the plane where the victor and the vanquished sat side by side , trying to analyze every smidgen of body language for amity and jollity
Endless hours were spent analyzing the shade of her pantsuit and his matching tie
Was it powder blue
Cornflower blue
Peacock blue
The new political allies engaged in what one Obama aide sanguinely described as `` comfortable , jovial small talk .
Obama told Hillary about using his Mac to keep in touch with his daughters , and she regaled him with tales of completely unidentifiable dishes you get served on overseas trips
They commiserated about the loss of privacy
They did not , however , commiserate about Bill Clinton , who is in a self-pitying meltdown about not being Elvis anymore , trying to shake down Obama for more more apologies for perceived snubs and more help paying off the $ 22 million Clinton debt
It 's hard to fathom why Obama should be mau-maued into paying off the debt that Hillary and Bill accrued attacking and undermining him , while mismanaging the campaign and their nearly quarter-billion-dollar war chest so horribly that one Hillaryland insider told The New Republic that it bordered on fraud
But the former president ca n't stand being a loser , so he 's taking it out on the winner
When it comes to Bill , there 's a lot of vanity but very little humility in Unity
It 's not a good narrative arc : The man who walked on water is now ensnared by a crisis under water
One little hole a mile down on the ocean floor , so deep it seems like hell spewing up its sulfurous smoke , has turned the thrilling saga of `` The One '' into the gurgling horror of `` The Abyss .
-LRB- Thank goodness James Cameron , the director of `` The Abyss , '' came to Washington Tuesday to help the administration figure out how to cap the BP well
What 's next
Sending down the Transformers and Megan Fox ?
With as much as 34 million gallons of oil inking the Gulf of Mexico , `` Yes we can '' has been downgraded to `` Will we ever ?
It 's impossible not to feel sorry for President Obama , pummeled by the cascading disasters , at home and abroad , unleashed by two war-mongering oil men - plus scary escalations by Israel , Iran and North Korea
-LRB- Dick Cheney 's dark influence is still belching like the well
BP just brought on a new public relations executive : Anne Womack-Kolton , who served as Cheney 's campaign press secretary in 2004 and worked in W. 's White House and at the Energy Department .
Obama wanted to be a transformative president and now the presidency is transforming him
Instead of buoyant , he seems put upon
Instead of the fairy dust of hopefulness , there 's the bitter draught of helplessness
His battle against water is taking on Biblical - even Job-like - proportions
Besides the roiling water below , the skies opened from above and gusting , lightning-streaked rains drowned the president 's plans to give a Memorial Day speech at the Lincoln cemetery near Chicago
On the evening news , pictures of the president standing under an umbrella shooing people off the soggy field were a sad contrast to the wildly sentimental Joe Biden presiding , hand on heart , over a sunny and moving Memorial Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery
After suffering more indignities - a S.U.V. in his motorcade blew a tire on I-55 outside of Chicago - a tired-looking Obama returned to Andrews Air Force Base at 7:30 Monday night and went to an area called the `` tactical fitness center '' to give his remarks to 150 or so subdued service members who had been rounded up by the White House advance team
As The Washington Post 's Anne Kornblut wryly wrote in her pool report : `` It has been years since President Obama attended a rally like the one that took place here Monday night : sparsely attended , thrown together at the last minute , involving people who were not expecting to be there
We 're partying like it 's Obama circa 2005 .
The oil wo n't stop flowing , but the magic has
Barack Obama is a guy who is accustomed to having stuff go right for him
He 's gotten a lot of breaks : two opponents in his U.S. Senate race in Illinois felled by personal scandals ; a mismanaged presidential campaign by Hillary Clinton ; an economic collapse that set the stage for a historic win , memorably described by the satiric Onion newspaper as `` Black Man Given Nation 's Worst Job .
Reporters grilled Robert Gibbs at his White House briefing on Tuesday about the president 's strange inability to convey passion over a historical environmental disaster
This was underscored by Obama 's perfunctory drop-by to a sanitized beach in Grand Isle , La.
Despite his recent ode about growing up near an ocean , he did n't bother to meet with the regular folks who have lost their seafaring livelihoods
After Gibbs asserted that his boss was `` enraged '' at BP , CBS News 's Chip Reid skeptically pressed : `` Have we really seen rage from the president on this
I think most people would say no. '' `` I 've seen rage from him , Chip , '' Gibbs insisted
`` I have .
Reid asked for an exact definition of what constitutes emotion for Obama : `` Can you describe it
Does he yell and scream
What does he do ?
Gibbs mentioned the words `` clenched jaw '' and the president 's admonition to `` plug the damn hole .
How does a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history lose control of his own narrative
In `` Dreams From My Father , '' Obama showed passion , lyricism , empathy and an exquisite understanding of character and psychological context - all the qualities that he has stubbornly resisted showing as president
It was a book that promised a president who could see into the hearts of other people
But there 's so much you do n't learn about candidates in campaigns , even when they seem completely exposed
This president has made it clear that he 's not comfortable outside whatever domain he 's defined
But unless he wants his story to be marred by a pattern of passivity , detachment , acquiescence and compromise , he 'd better seize control of the story line of his White House years
Woe-is-me is not an attractive narrative
As one general tried to reassure Congress that she respects the military , the other general tried to reassure Congress that the military respects civilians
The split-screen Obama nominees for huge , daunting jobs were accompanied by family
The solicitor general and the solicitous general , politically shrewd navigators adept at climbing the career ladder , are regarded as shoo-ins for an administration where little else is going smoothly
Over and over Tuesday , David Petraeus had to assure Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee that he supported the president 's timeline for starting to get out of Afghanistan
`` Do you agree with the president 's policy ?
Senator Carl Levin asked Petraeus
`` I do , '' the general replied
Levin pressed on , needing to hear more soothing subordination subsequent to the bonfire-of-the-vanities flameout of Gen. Stanley McChrystal 's Team America
`` Do you agree , '' the senator asked , `` that the setting of that July 2011 date to begin reductions signals urgency to Afghan leaders that they must more and more take responsibility for their country 's security , which is important for success of the mission in Afghanistan ?
`` I do , '' the general repeated respectfully
Like a child with a favorite bedtime story , Senator Jack Reed wanted to hear it again
`` You 're fully supportive of the president 's policy , including beginning a transition based upon the conditions on the ground in July of 2011 ?
Reed queried
`` Let me be very clear if I could , senator , '' Petraeus tried again
`` And not only did I say that I supported it , I said that I agreed with it .
Signaling that NATO allies would be treated with more respect than they were by McChrystal in the Rolling Stone article , Petraeus pledged an `` unshakeable commitment to teamwork '' with the allies
The Michael Hastings profile began with the open-to-a-fault four-star general in a four-star suite in Paris , there to sell his new war strategy to the NATO allies and , as the writer astutely observed , `` to keep up the fiction , in essence , that we actually have allies .
Preening with Spartan street cred , disdaining anything too `` Gucci , '' like restaurants with candles , McChrystal groused about having to go to some fancy dinner with a French minister - an occasion profanely mocked as `` gay '' by one of the aides in his insolent retinue
Petraeus began his testimony with an encomium to his retiring prot g
But besides the display of caustic disrespect for the president , his civilian advisers and the allies , the McChrystal profile exploded because it crystallized some wrenching questions : Does President Obama lay back too much at critical junctures , bending too much to Congress , corporations and generals
He looked good firing McChrystal , but those crisp moments need to come more often and more swiftly
With rising violence in Afghanistan , and rising doubts even among the brass and troops on the ground , is it time to drastically revise the strategy in Afghanistan
At what point does America lose moral authority by propping up a corrupt regime
As the allies pour billions in , some in Hamid Karzai 's inner circle , including his brother , may be transferring as much as a billion a year out to Dubai and elsewhere
Obama aides were happily aware that sending the ambitious Petraeus back to work on its Gordian knot would eliminate him from consideration for the 2012 presidential race
But choosing Petraeus means reupping with a fatally flawed policy , not revamping it
`` This is a contest of wills , '' Petraeus observed about the U.S.-Taliban nine-year standoff , freely admitting that we are stuck there `` for quite some time .
He conceded that `` we can not kill or capture our way out of an industrial-strength insurgency like that in Afghanistan .
But killing and courting an enemy at the same time seems more like a contradiction than a counterinsurgency
Across the TV screen and over at the Senate Judiciary Committee , Elena Kagan - who is supposed to be addressed as `` General Kagan '' - was waging her own battle to prove that she is not a radical , antimilitary pinko
`` You know , I respect - indeed , I revere - the military ; my father was a veteran , '' said Kagan , after Senator Jeff Sessions , a Republican of Alabama , grilled her about denying military recruiters equal access to the Harvard Law School 's office of career services because she considered the `` do n't ask , do n't tell '' policy abhorrent and discriminatory
When Sessions quizzed the Supreme Court nominee and former Harvard Law School dean about her treatment of `` those men and women who we send in harm 's way to serve our nation , '' she asserted that `` the military at all times during my deanship had full and good access .
Sessions rebutted that her remarks were `` unconnected to reality , '' while over at the Armed Services Committee , Petraeus did his best to make the case that our goals in Afghanistan are not unconnected to reality
`` Somebody , '' said a disgusted Senator Lindsey Graham , `` needs to get it straight , without a doubt , what the hell we 're going to do come July .
If Kagan was headed toward the land of First Mondays , Petraeus was headed toward the land of `` Who 's on first ?
`` It 's never going to end , '' sighed one Democrat who has been advising Hillary
`` We 're just moving to a new phase .
Barry has been trying to shake off Hillary and pivot for quite a long time now , but she has managed to keep her teeth in his ankle and raise serious doubts about his potency
Getting dragged across the finish line Tuesday night by Democrats who had had enough of the rapacious Clintons , who had decided , if it came to it , that they would rather lose with Obama than win with Hillary , the Illinois senator tried to celebrate at the St. Paul arena where Republicans will anoint John McCain in September
But even as Obama was trying to savor , Hillary was refusing to sever
Ignoring the attempts of Obama and his surrogates to graciously say how `` extraordinary '' she was as they showed her the exit , she and a self-pitying Bill continued to pull focus
Outside Baruch College , where she was to speak , her fierce feminist supporters screamed `` Denver
Denver !
Even as Obama got ready to come out on stage for his victory party , the Clinton campaign announced that it had won a Wyoming superdelegate and Terry McAuliffe introduced her at Baruch as `` the next president of the United States .
She gave a brief nod to Obama without conceding that he was the nominee before rushing through a variation on her stump speech
She clung to her fuzzy math about winning the popular vote , and in one last fudge she said : `` Thanks so much to South Dakota
You had the last word '' even though the Montana polls still had 25 minutes to go
`` What does Hillary want ?
she mused , in her most self-aware moment in some time
`` I will be making no decisions tonight , '' she concluded , asking fans to go to her Web site to share their thoughts
And , even though Democrats were no longer listening , Hillary 's camp radiated the message that Obama was a sucker who had played by the rules on Florida and Michigan , and then reached an appeasing compromise , and that such a weak sister could never handle Putin or I 'm - A-Dinner-Jacket
As he was reaching the magic number of delegates , she was devilishly stealing the spotlight
First , her camp vociferously denied an Associated Press report that she would concede and then , in a conference call with the New York delegation , she gave a green light to supporters to push for her to be on the ticket
Clintonologists know that Hillary is up to something , but they are n't sure what
Theory No. 1 is that it 's the Cassandra `` I told you so '' gambit : She believes intensely that he 's too black , too weak and too elitist with all his salmon and organic tea and steamed broccoli to beat her pal John McCain
But she has to pretend she 'll do `` whatever it takes , '' even accept the vice presidency , a job she 's already had and does n't want again , so that nobody will blame her when he loses on Nov. 4
Then she can power on to 2012
Theory No. 2 is that it 's a `` Bad stuff happens '' maneuver , exemplified in her gaffe about the R.F.K. assassination , that she figures that at least if she moves a few blocks from Embassy Row to the Naval Observatory , she 'll be a heartbeat away from the job she 's always wanted
Either way , by broadcasting that she 's open to being Obama 's running mate , she puts public pressure on him similar to the sort of pressure Walter Mondale was under from rampaging feminists when he put Geraldine Ferraro on the ticket
Mondale ended up seeming henpecked , as Obama would seem if he caved to the women who say they will write in Hillary 's name or vote for anti-choice McCain before they 'd vote for Obama
For months , Hillary has been trying to emasculate Obama with the sort of words and themes she has chosen , stirring up feminist anger by promoting the idea that the men were unfairly taking it away from the women , and covering up her own campaign mistakes with cries of sexism
Even his ability to finally clinch the historic nomination did not stop her in that pursuit
She did not bat her eyelashes at him and proclaim him Rhett Butler instead of Ashley Wilkes
She just urged her supporters to keep the dream alive , and talked privately about what she would settle for
She has told some Democrats recently that she wanted Obama to agree to allow a roll call vote , like days of yore , so that the delegates of states she won would cast the first ballot for her at the convention
She said she wanted that for her daughter
Obama supporters are worried that it 's a trick and she 'll somehow snatch away the nomination
Just as Hillary supporters have hardened toward him , many of Obama 's donors and fans have hardened against the Clintons , saying it would be disillusioning to see them on a ticket that 's supposed to be about fresh politics
`` It would be , '' said one influential Democrat , `` like finding out there 's no tooth fairy .
Ordinarily in life , extraordinary good looks are an advantage for men and women - and even babies
Not only do babies gaze longer at more comely adult faces , research tells us , but parents may gaze longer at more comely babies
A research team at the University of Alberta conducted a study at a supermarket and observed that parents gave more attention and supervision to their pretty ducklings
Aesthetic allure is evolutionary , after all
`` Like lots of animals , '' said Dr. Andrew Harrell , the team leader , `` we tend to parcel out our resources on the basis of value .
So it was unusual when a knockout in New York , Debrahlee Lorenzana , a 33-year-old single mother , filed suit against Citigroup , claiming that she was fired in August from the Citibank branch at the Chrysler Center for looking too sexy
`` Plaintiff was advised that as a result of the shape of her figure , '' her lawsuit reads , `` such clothes were purportedly ` too distracting ' for her male colleagues and supervisors to bear .
Late-night comedians and tabloids have had a field day
`` She Flaunted Her Assets , '' punned The New York Daily News
Last week 's Village Voice cover profile of Lorenzana , who grew up in Puerto Rico and moved to New York when she was 21 , raved about the bank officer 's charms : `` At five-foot-six and 125 pounds , with soft eyes and flawless bronze skin , she is J. Lo curves meets Jessica Simpson rack meets Audrey Hepburn elegance .
TV and tabloids ran pictures , taken by a photographer who works with her lawyer , showing Lorenzana in the pencil skirts , turtlenecks , tailored jackets and stilettos that she says made her bosses at the bank concentrate on the wrong kind of figures
`` She has to manage her wardrobe so these men can manage their libidos ?
said her lawyer , Jack Tuckner , adding that her bosses acted as immaturely as the boys on `` Wayne 's World .
On Thursday night , as she prepared to appear on the Monday morning shows , Lorenzana recalled that her supervisors obsessed over what she was wearing , `` saying things are too tight , you can not wear turtlenecks
Well , guess what
When you say my pants are too tight when they 're not , then you must have been staring at me
`` The reality is , I 'm a size 32 DD
I 'm very skinny , and then I have curves
So , of course , on my body , the turtleneck is going to make it more noticeable
But I 'm not showing cleavage
We wear jackets .
She said a co-worker who shopped with her and bought the same styles and designer brands never got in trouble , and neither did some tellers who wore low-cut tops , snug pants and hot boots
`` I said , ` You are discriminating to me , because of my body type , ' '' she said with a slight accent and a breathy voice
`` This is genetic
What am I supposed to do ?
Citigroup did n't return calls for comment on Friday
Lorenzana 's lawsuit says that her bosses told her that her female colleagues could wear what they liked because their `` general unattractiveness rendered moot their sartorial choices .
Her well-tailored clothes , on the other hand , emphasized what her lawyer calls her `` hourglass figure .
This case has caused such fascination because usually it 's the other way around
Attractive professors get better evaluations from their students , according to one study
A 2005 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis confirmed what seems apparent , from presidential races to executive boardrooms : Good-looking people and tall people get a `` beauty premium '' - an extra 5 percent an hour - while there is a `` plainness penalty '' of 9 percent in wages
A study that looked at men 's height as teenagers and their salaries later found they made $ 789 more a year for every extra inch of height
Meanwhile , obese women tend to get substantially lower wages than women of average weight
Although people laugh at the idea of a babe in the office being as maddening as Tantalus 's out-of-reach fruit , women do get penalized this way sometimes
A male friend once told me he was looking for an unattractive personal assistant so he would n't be tempted
And when I was hiring a Grace Kelly blonde as a researcher a few years ago , a male colleague asked me not to because it would be `` too distracting '' to him ; two girlfriends cautioned me not to because it would be depressing - and therefore , distracting - for me to work with someone so good looking
-LRB- It was n't .
`` Sometimes , honestly , I wish I did n't look the way I did , '' Lorenzana says , `` because people judge you right away
Other women have their guards up , they automatically categorize you as being conceited
I have to work three times as hard to prove that I earned this through my hard work
`` My life has been hard my whole entire life
People have this misconception that , ` Oh , you do well in your life because of your looks .
No , I am harassed .
Not only because , as first lady , she played the diverse roles of someone interested in China and someone interested in china
Not only because , as a presidential candidate , she morphed from Queen Elizabeth I to Norma Rae , as Newsweek put it
But because , through humiliation and pain , she has shown herself to be a skilled survivor
She said she embraces the old saying , `` Fake it till you make it .
After the roiling rollout of the Clinton administration , a sad and unnerved Hillary sought answers from self-help gurus like Jean Houston
`` Houston felt at one point that being Hillary was like being Mozart with his hands cut off , unable to play , '' Bob Woodward wrote
`` She felt that the first lady was going through a female crucifixion .
At critical junctures of her life , Hillary makes the same mistake
She comes on strong , showing an arrogant , abrasive side , gets brushed back , and then repackages herself in a more appealing way
It happened when she began as Arkansas ' first lady ; when she campaigned with Bill in ' 92 ; when she started as a `` two for the price of one '' first lady ; when she did health care ; and when she started her presidential campaign wearing an off-putting ermine robe of entitlement and presumption
And it happened when she lost the nomination , refused to admit it and , instead of congratulating Obama , wielded her female fan base as a bludgeon over him so she could once more share a presidency
Now , as she transforms herself into a team player , she must again fake it till she makes it
She still does n't believe Obama can win , but she knows she can move ahead only as a beguiler , not a begrudger
Meanwhile , she wants another power-sharing arrangement
She will help Obama be king , if he lets her be queen of the women
As The Times 's Jodi Kantor wrote Saturday , Hillary 's `` grieving '' voters `` say that she will remain their leader , that she has created a lasting female constituency , a women 's electoral movement unlike any other .
So , you may wonder : Will Hillary 's historic bid turn out to be good or bad for women
The Wall Street Journal reported back in March that some women were worried that `` the resistance to Senator Clinton may embolden some men to resist women 's efforts to share power with them in business , politics and elsewhere .
It 's a reasonable fear
Every fizzy triumph of feminism I have covered Geraldine Ferraro 's selection , the Anita Hill hearings , Hillary 's co-presidency ended up triggering awful backlashes
In the end , feminism sputtered out as a force
Hillary has brought back that old feminist religion , at least for now
She should not have pitted the women against the men
She did it to her detriment within her own campaign , where Patti Solis Doyle , the tyro campaign manager and self-styled `` queen bee '' of Hillaryland , battled with Bill 's `` White Boys , '' as they were known , and often left Bill feeling dissed
And Hillary did it to Obama 's detriment with her female fan base , stirring up such fury that some women are still vowing to jump to John McCain , even if it means voting against their self-interest
She should not have repeated the mistake she made after her health-care plan failed
Instead of simply admitting her own mistakes in judgment , she played the victim and blamed sexism
Of course , powerful women evoke sexism , and the attacks are more personal and slights can be grating
But it 's counterproductive to dwell on it , magnify it and exploit it during a campaign especially when you 're getting all that love from Joe Sixpack
I do n't believe Hillary 's campaign will cause a backlash
As long as her Denver Liberation Army does n't cause Obama to lose , it may well be good for women
When I interviewed scores of women after Ronald Reagan won the women 's vote in ' 84 , I was stunned at what I heard
Many working-class women said they did n't vote for Ferraro because they did n't feel capable of running the country , so how could she
Maybe women have seen enough male boo-boos in the last eight years to give them more confidence
Or maybe Hillary 's grit and gall allowed them to easily envision her cuffing generals and dictators
While studies continue to say that being taller and having a deeper voice can make you seem like a more credible leader , Hillary thrillingly proved herself the best debater and the toughest candidate while being shorter and having the higher voice
She did n't lose because she was a woman
She did n't lose because America is n't ready for a woman as president
She lost because of her own and her husband 's and Mark Penn 's fatal missteps
It was set up like a fantasy football league draft
The height , weight and performance statistics of the draftees were offered to decide who would make the cut and who would emerge as the No. 1 pick
But the players in this predatory game were not famous N.F.L. stars
They were unwitting girls about to start high school
A group of soon-to-be freshmen boys at Landon , an elite private grade school and high school for boys in the wealthy Washington suburb of Montgomery County , Md. , was drafting local girls
One team was called `` The Southside Slampigs , '' and one boy dubbed his team with crude street slang for drug-addicted prostitutes
The young woman who was the `` top pick '' was described by one of the boys in a team profile he put up online as `` sweet , outgoing , friendly , willing to get down and dirty and -LRB- expletive -RRB- party
Coming in at 90 pounds , 5 ' 2 and a bra size 34d .
She would be a special asset to the team , he noted , because her mother `` is quite the cougar herself .
Before they got caught last summer , the boys had planned an `` opening day party , '' complete with T-shirts , where the mission was to invite the drafted girls and , unbeknownst to them , score points by trying to rack up as many sexual encounters with the young women as possible
`` They evidently got points for first , second and third base , '' said one outraged father of a drafted girl
`` They were going to have parties and tally up the points , and money was going to be exchanged at the end of the season .
He said that the boys would also have earned points for `` schmoozing with the parents .
His daughter , he said , `` was very upset about it
She thought these guys were her friends
This is the way we teach boys to treat women , young ladies
You have enough to worry about as a 14 - or 15-year-old girl without having to worry about guys who are doing it as sport .
Another parent was equally appalled : `` I think the girls felt like they were getting targeted , that this was some big game
Talk about using people
It does n't get much worse than that .
Landon is where the sons of many prominent members of the community are sent to learn `` the code of character , '' where `` a Landon man '' is part of a `` true Brotherhood '' and is known for his good word , respect and honesty
The school 's Web site boasts about the Landon Civility Code ; boys are expected to `` work together to eliminate all forms of disrespect '' and `` respect one another and our surroundings in our decorum , appearance , and interactions .
The Washington suburban community of private school parents has also been reeling this spring from the tragedy involving former Landon student George Huguely V , a scion of the family that owned the lumber business that helped build the nation 's capital
Huguely , who was a University of Virginia lacrosse player , was charged in the brutal death of his sometime girlfriend , Yeardley Love , a lacrosse player on the university 's women 's team who also hailed from Maryland
The lovely young woman 's door was kicked in and her head was smashed over and over into the wall
The awful crime , chronicled on the cover of People with the headline `` Could She Have Been Saved
, '' raised haunting questions about why Huguely had not already been reported to authorities , even though other lacrosse players had seen him choke Love at a party and his circle knew that the athlete had attacked a sleeping teammate whom he suspected had kissed Love
Huguely had also been so out-of-control drunk , angry and racially abusive with a policewoman in 2008 that she had to Taser him
In The Washington Post , the sports columnist Sally Jenkins wrote about the swagger of young male athletes and the culture of silence that protects their thuggish locker-room behavior
`` His teammates and friends , the ones who watched him smash up windows and bottles and heard him rant about Love , '' she wrote
`` Why did n't they turn him in
... Why did they not treat Yeardley Love as their teammate , too ?
Some of the parents of girls drafted for the Landon sex teams think that the punishment for those culpable should have been greater , and the notification to parents should have been more thorough
Was the macho culture of silence in play
Jean Erstling , Landon 's director of communications , said she was `` aware of the incident '' but that `` student records including disciplinary infractions are confidential .
She said that `` Landon has an extensive ethics and character education program which includes as its key tenets respect and honesty
Civility toward women is definitely part of that education program .
Time for a curriculum overhaul
Young men everywhere must be taught , beyond platitudes , that young women are not prey
I was tempted to turn my abaya into a black masquerade cloak and sneak into Mecca , just hop over the Tropic of Cancer to the Red Sea and crash the ultimate heaven 's gate
Sir Richard Burton , the 19th-century British adventurer , translator of `` The Arabian Nights '' and the `` Kama Sutra '' and self-described `` amateur barbarian , '' was an illicit pilgrim to the sacred black granite cube
He wore Arab garb and infiltrated the holiest place in Islam , the Kaaba , the `` center of the Earth , '' as he called it , in the Saudi city where the Prophet Muhammad was born
But in the end , it seemed disrespectful , not to mention dangerous
So on my odyssey to Saudi Arabia , I tried to learn about the religion that smashed into the American consciousness on 9\/11 in a less sneaky way
And that 's when the paradox sunk in : It was nearly impossible for me to experience Islam in the cradle of Islam
You do n't have to be a Catholic to go to the Vatican
You do n't have to be Jewish to go to the Western Wall -LRB- although if you 're a woman , you 're squeezed into a slice of it at the side -RRB-
You do n't have to be Buddhist to hear the Dalai Lama speak and have your picture snapped with him afterward
A friend who often travels to Saudi Arabia for business said he thought that Medina , the site of Muhammad 's tomb , was beginning to `` loosen up '' for non-Muslims
-LRB- As the second holiest city in Islam , maybe they needed to try harder .
But the Saudis nixed a trip there
I assumed I at least could go to a mosque at prayer time , as long as I wore an abaya and hijab , took off my shoes , and stayed in the back in a cramped , segregated women 's section
The magnificent Blue Mosque in Istanbul , once the center of one of the greatest Muslim empires , is a huge tourist draw
But at the Jidda Hilton , I was told that non-Muslims could not visit mosques not even the one on the hotel grounds
A Saudi woman in Jidda told me that the best way to absorb Islam was to listen to the call for prayer while standing on the corniche by the Red Sea at sunset
That was indeed moving , but I did n't feel any better equipped to understand the complexities of Islam that even Saudis continually debate and where radical Islam fits in
Or to get elucidation on how , as Newsweek 's Fareed Zakaria put it , `` the veil is not the same as the suicide belt .
Could n't Mecca , I asked the royals , be opened to non-Muslims during the off-season
The phrase off-season , as it turns out , is not conducive to an interfaith dialogue
But could n't they build a center to promote Islamic understanding in Mecca or Medina
Saudis understandably have zero interest in outraging the rest of the Muslim world by letting members of other faiths observe their deeply private rituals and gawk at the parade of religious costumes fashioned from loose white sheets
-LRB- Osama bin Laden 's jihad , after all , began with anger about American troops being deployed to Saudi Arabia during the first gulf war , which he considered a profanity against sacred ground .
Still , I pressed on with Prince Saud al-Faisal
With his tinted aviator glasses and sometimes sly demeanor , the Saudi foreign minister has the air of a Hollywood mogul if moguls wore thobes
I noted that when 15 Saudi hijackers joined four more proponents of radical jihad and flew into the twin towers , Islam had been hijacked as well
He nodded
King Abdullah 's formal title is `` Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques .
And Saudis are very eager to remove the restrictions on visas and enhanced airport security measures slapped in place by America after 9\/11
So is n't there a way for Saudi Arabia to shed light on Islam and reclaim it from the radicals
`` Well , at least leave one place closed for the moment , '' he said , looking askance at the mere question
`` We only have Mecca now and Medina
Everything else is wide open now .
Wide open is not a description that applies to anything in Saudi Arabia
Besides , I said , there were objections when I tried to go to a mosque
`` Well , you know , it depends who you ask , '' he said
`` Somebody in the hotel who does n't want to run into trouble may tell you no.
Mecca is a special case
It 's written in the holy book that only Muslims can enter it because of an incident in the past where somebody desecrated the mosque in Mecca
`` But for other mosques to be entered , there is absolutely no reason why not
If you go to a mosque and you want to see the mosque and somebody prevents you , you can go to the emir of the region and ask to see the mosque and he will take you there .
Just call the emir
I bet he 's listed
In the end , I did see the hajj
When I got home , I went to the Imax theater at the Smithsonian and bought a ticket to `` Journey to Mecca .
I was surprised when the movie said that the Kaaba was built by `` Abraham , the father of the Jews '' a reminder that the faiths have a lot to learn from each other
Just when I thought my head would explode from trying to figure out delegate math , I 'm hit with call-girl math
The arithmetic of procuring a prostitute who is both experienced and inspirational is even more complicated than the arithmetic of procuring a president who is both experienced and inspirational
If you 're a frugal governor who does n't even like paying his political consultant bills , as opposed to an Arab sheik or a Vegas high roller , do you really need to shell out $ 4,300 , plus minibar expenses , to a shell company for two hours with a shady lady
Are n't there cheaper hooker hook-ups on Craigslist
It makes you wonder how sharp Eliot Spitzer 's pencil was on the state 's fiscal discipline
And how does it add up that Steamroller No. 1 suddenly morphs into Client No. 9 , a nom d'amour with the ring of an overpriced Gucci cologne for men , giving untold thousands for untold years to a prostitution ring that has hourly rates based on rating its girls on a diamond scale of 1 to 7 , with 7 being $ 3,100 , and above 7 in a special club for $ 5,500 and up
-LRB- A friend of mine who knows the ways of the wayward , explained that the flesh-peddlers no doubt had a shell game as well as a shell company : `` They say , ` You can have Jane
She 's $ 1,000 an hour
Or , you can have Tiffany for $ 5,000 an hour .
The client does n't know that Jane and Tiffany are the same girl
It 's not like clients are going to compare notes .
I paid $ 5,000 for Kristen
You only paid 1,000 for Chrissy ? ' '' -RRB-
If blood will have blood , as Shakespeare said in `` Macbeth , '' power will have sex
Some people took the saga of Eliot Ness in the boudoir , the old yarn of holier-than-thou caught in flagrante delicto , as a sign that a woman should be president
`` I would think the story about our esteemed governor is all the proof we need that we should have a woman as president , '' a woman I know said in an e-mail message
Another woman e-mailed the reverse to a friend : `` I hope this makes people think back to Monica Lewinsky
Can sex scandals be well timed ?
In modern times , you rarely see any men having to stand ashenly by their women
But in the past , women got tangled up with sex and power
When Bette Davis played Elizabeth I , she was always sending her lovers off to the Tower of London when they made eyes at her pretty ladies-in-waiting
Catherine the Great was hardly known for her restraint
And there were Agrippina and Cleopatra , of course
Hillary could not have been pleased to be in all the TV stand-by-your-man features , or to hear David Letterman 's Spitzer Top Ten list which included , `` I thought Bill Clinton legalized this years ago .
Lyndon Johnson once observed that the two things that make politicians more stupid than anything else are sex and envy
Even as Governor Spitzer struggled with the sex story on Tuesday , the Clinton campaign struggled with the envy story
Geraldine Ferraro , who helped Walter Mondale lose 49 states in 1984 , was clearly stung at what she considered Obama 's easy rise to celebrity and electoral success
Last Friday , Ms. Ferraro , who is on Hillary 's national finance committee , told The Daily Breeze , a small newspaper in Torrance , Calif. : `` If Obama was a white man , he would not be in this position
And if he was a woman -LRB- of any color -RRB- , he would not be in this position
He happens to be very lucky to be who he is
And the country is caught up in the concept .
Obama acknowledged when he arrived in the Senate that he got more attention , his big book deal and his celebrity , because he is not white
He was only the third black senator elected since Reconstruction
But as he campaigned here Tuesday , he was outraged at Ferraro 's comments
`` They are divisive , '' he said
`` I think anybody who understands the history of this country knows they are patently absurd .
Obama 's campaign strategist , David Axelrod , said that Ferraro should be removed from her campaign post , and that made her even more irritated
She told The Times on Tuesday night that she was `` livid , '' adding : `` Anytime you say anything to anybody about the Obama campaign , it immediately becomes a racist attack .
When Ferraro felt patronized by Mondale 's staff , she suggested that his aides `` should pretend every time they talk to me or even look at me that I 'm a gray-haired Southern gentleman , a senator from Texas .
Hillary would never have to pretend to be a man to get aides to respect her , proving that she has moved past gender in a way Ferraro never did
An opening at a hot new art gallery with men and women mingling and enjoying themselves
But in this case , part of the frisson was nerves
Would the marauding religious police see unmarried and some uncovered women talking freely with men in the merry crowd of 600 and stage a raid
It was an unlikely moment , SoHo comes to Saudi Arabia the first mixed exhibition anyone can remember in Riyadh , the stultifying capital of a country that bans any exhibition of skin , fun or romance
But the most astonishing part was that the Islamic purity enforcers failed to show up at Art Pure
`` I was worried , but the religious police just sort of disappeared , '' recalled Mounira Ajlani , the mother of Noura Bouzo , a 27-year-old artist featured at the exhibition who painted the saucy `` Saudi Bling .
`` It was very relaxed , very normal
Everyone was saying , ` Are we in Saudi Arabia ? '
Sarah , a young Saudi professional who was at the gallery that night , agreed : `` It was remarkable
You saw women covered from head to toe
You saw women uncovered
You saw men of all different classes come , and they were extremely comfortable , and everyone looked at the art and left .
Progress is measured by a sundial in this stunted desert kingdom
Sarah dryly refers to it as `` Saudi time .
As women nudge their way into the work force , they are still hampered by archaic tribal rules and patriarchal religious ones
An American Muslim working here says there are hard adjustments , like hearing men use the occasional epithet `` Dog '' to address her , and not being able to leave the airport coming home from a business trip because she has no husband or male relative to pick her up
She had to secure a letter from her employer stating that she could leave the airport on her own
When she wanted to buy a car , she had to use the subterfuge of having a male friend buy it for her , and even then , she ca n't drive it except in one of the exclusive compounds with looser rules
A recent article in The Arab News headlined `` Working Mothers in a Double Bind '' showed the growing pains of Saudi suffragettes
It told of a woman who secretly hired a cook to deliver meals and assuage her husband 's demand for home-cooked dinners
When her husband caught her , he divorced her and Saudi divorces are easy as long as you 're male
`` He forgot his promises and left me just because of food , '' said the woman , Huda
Saudi Arabia is in the throes of differentiating between cultural customs for women like wearing the abaya , not driving and not mixing with men and actual dictates of the Koran
Many Saudis stressed that their mothers did n't wear head scarves
`` Personally , I push the envelope , '' Sarah said
`` I do n't cover my hair .
If she is approached by the mutawa the religious police she 's willing to back chat
`` So if a guy is yelling at me , telling me to cover my hair , there 's something we say in Arabic that means , ` You really should n't be looking in the first place , ' '' she said
`` And actually , Islam argues that men should keep their gaze down
So you can argue back to the mutawa , if you know how to do it properly .
Sarah and others I talked to in the privileged , educated set preferred not to use their full names
Free speech can be costly
`` You ca n't push the envelope too much or you start alienating a part of our society , '' Sarah concedes , `` because a part of our society is very conservative , and you have to respect that .
It is feminism played in adagio
Young women talk about wanting abayas in pastels or made of yoga materials , being able to go out with a group of male and female friends to chic restaurants , and being able to score visas for visiting pals
`` We 're allowed to invite friends now , which is a big thing , '' Sarah said
`` We 're at the stage where you still have to pull some strings , but in four or five years ... '' Her friend Reema said that Americans are sometimes shocked to see Saudi women and realize `` we 're not cowering , we 're actually quite professional
Are there issues here
There is n't a place in the world that does n't have issues
`` I 'd like to live in a Saudi where the woman that chooses to cover from top-to-bottom is equally as respected as the woman who chooses not to cover her face , and people from the West can accept that it is a lifestyle choice , inasmuch as wearing a miniskirt or a long , flowing dress is a choice
I find a lot of people minimize the women 's cause in Saudi by how we dress , and that is actually offensive .
The dollar 's crumpling , the recession 's thundering , the Dow 's bungee-jumping and the world 's disapproving , yet George Bush has turned into Gene Kelly , tap dancing and singing in a one-man review called `` The Most Happy Fella .
`` I 'm coming to you as an optimistic fellow , '' he told the Economic Club of New York on Friday
His manner chortling and joshing was in odd juxtaposition to the Fed 's bailing out the imploding Bear Stearns and his own acknowledgment that `` our economy obviously is going through a tough time , '' that gas prices are spiking , and that folks `` are concerned about making their bills .
He began by laughingly calling the latest news on the economic meltdown `` a interesting moment '' and ended by saying that `` our energy policy has not been very wise '' and that there was `` no quick fix '' on gasp-inducing gas prices
`` You know , I guess the best way to describe government policy is like a person trying to drive a car in a rough patch , '' he said
`` If you ever get stuck in a situation like that , you know full well it 's important not to overcorrect , because when you overcorrect you end up in the ditch .
Dude , you 're already in the ditch
Boy George crashed the family station wagon into the globe and now the global economy
Yet the more terrified Americans get , the more bizarrely carefree he seems
The former oilman reacted with cocky ignorance a couple of weeks ago when a reporter informed him that gas was barreling toward $ 4 a gallon
In on-the-record sessions with reporters and more candid off-the-record ones he has seemed goofily happy in recent weeks , prickly no more but strangely liberated and ebullient
Even though he ordinarily hates being kept waiting , he made light of it while cooling his heels for John McCain , and did a soft shoe for the White House press
Wearing a cowboy hat , he warbled a comic Western ditty at the Gridiron Dinner a week ago alluding to Scooter Libby 's conviction , Saudis getting richer from our oil-guzzling , Brownie 's dismal Katrina performance , and Dick Cheney 's winsome habit of withholding documents
At a dinner on Wednesday , the man who is persona non grata on the campaign trail -LRB- except for closed fund-raisers -RRB- told morose Republican members of Congress that he was totally confident that `` we can retake the House '' and `` hold the White House .
`` I think 2008 is going to be a fabulous year for the Republican Party !
he said , sounding like Rachael Ray sprinkling paprika on goulash
That must have been news to House Republicans , who have no money , just lost the seat held by their former speaker , and are hemorrhaging incumbents as they head into a campaign marked by an incipient recession and an unpopular war
If only they could see things as the president does
Bush , who used his family connections to avoid Vietnam , told troops serving in Afghanistan on Thursday that he is `` a little envious '' of their adventure there , saying it was `` in some ways romantic .
Afghanistan is still roiling , as is Iraq , but W. is serene
`` Removing Saddam Hussein was the right decision early in my presidency , it is the right decision now , and it will be the right decision ever , '' he said , echoing that great American philosopher Dan Quayle , who once told Samoans , `` Happy campers you are , happy campers you have been and , as far as I am concerned , happy campers you will always be .
W. bragged to Republicans about his `` considered judgment '' in sending more troops to Iraq and again presented himself as an untroubled instrument of divine will
`` I believe there 's an Almighty , '' he said , `` and I believe a gift of that Almighty to every man , woman and child is freedom .
Although the president belittled the Democrats for their policy of `` retreat , '' his surge has been a temporary and expensive place-holder for what Americans want : a policy to get us out of Iraq
`` Has it allowed us to reduce troop levels to below where they were when it started ?
Michael Kinsley wrote recently
`` The answer is no. '' Gen. David Petraeus told The Washington Post last week that no one in the U.S. and Iraqi governments `` feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation .
Maybe the president is just putting on a good face to keep up American morale , the way Herbert Hoover did after the crash of ' 29 , when he continued to dress in a tuxedo for dinner
Or maybe the old Andover cheerleader really believes his own cheers , and that prosperity will turn up any time now , just like the W.M.D. in Iraq
Or perhaps it 's a Freudian trip
Now that he 's mucked up the world and the country , he can finally stop rebelling against his dad and relax in the certainty that the Bush name will forever be associated with crash-and-burn presidencies
Whatever the explanation , it 's plumb loco
So , Barack Obama can lose his temper without a teleprompter
And we have the supremely aggravating Bibi Netanyahu to thank for that
On St. Patrick 's Day , of all days , we would n't want to think that our president did not know how to pick his donnybrooks
The American government did unfortunately apologize to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi , who got mad when a State Department spokesman correctly observed that the Libyan leader does n't always make sense
But in the case of a defiant Israel , the White House has not yet retreated into its usual compromising crouch
Obama is so unpopular in Israel that he has nothing to lose by smacking our ally for its egregious treatment of the vice president
Joe Biden , the great champion of Israel , was humiliated when Israel used the occasion of his visit to defy America and announce a plan for 1,600 more homes in the disputed East Jerusalem area
Israeli conservatives figured the American Eagle was toothless given that Obama had already backed down once on settlements
But the president has a lot to gain with Arabs disillusioned by the failure of the pre-emptive Nobel Prize winner to make good on his vaunted Cairo promise to resolve the Palestinian issue
Besides , there is no love lost between the Israeli prime minister and Obama 's aides , Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod ever since Bibi obnoxiously labeled them `` self-hating Jews '' last summer
The president and his inner circle are appalled at Israel 's self-absorption and its failure to notice that America is not only protecting Israel from Iran , fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan , but also dealing with a miasma of horrible problems at home
And Israel insults the Obama administration over a domestic zoning issue that has nothing to do with its security
`` That 's not how you treat your best friend , '' said one Obama official
During the campaign , Obama told The Atlantic 's Jeffrey Goldberg that `` being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth , '' to save them from themselves when they mindlessly let settlement gluttony scuttle any chance of peace
After it was reported two weeks ago that Israel planned 600 other homes in East Jerusalem , Prince Saud al-Faisal , the Saudi foreign minister , warned me that Israel 's ultra-conservative religious groups were `` killing every option that comes out that has peace in its objective .
For the fundamentalist rabbis who run Israel 's working-class , ultra-Orthodox Sephardic Shas Party , the new houses represent earmarks
But it 's one thing to put earmarks in the budget and another to foment a crisis between Israel and its benefactor over them
`` It 's not entirely clear to me that the Shas Party knows who Joe Biden is or cares , '' Jeffrey Goldberg told me
`` They have very narrow theological interests that do n't conform to the theological interests of American Jews , '' he continued
`` The high-tech entrepreneurs of Tel Aviv relate to the Shas Party about as well as the Jews of the Upper West Side relate to the Tea Party
The Shas Party is not overly attuned to the American-Israel relationship or the peace process .
Goldberg also points out that `` what most right-wing Israelis do n't understand is that even American Jews especially the nearly 80 percent who voted for Obama disaggregate what is in the best interest of Israel from what is in the best interest of the settlers .
Obama knows that Jews no longer speak with one voice
That gives him enough room to keep the heat on Netanyahu
But the president 's smackdown also obscures the fact that the administration has no real strategy for peace and no impressive team below Hillary and Biden pushing for peace
Arab leaders groused to me that Obama has gotten so weighed down by problems at home that he has lost the thread of his promises abroad
In his Atlantic blog , Goldberg suggests that Obama 's ulterior motive is to drive out the ultra-conservatives and force a rupture in the governing coalition that will make it necessary for Netanyahu to take Tzipi Livni 's Kadima Party into his government , thus creating a `` stable , centrist coalition '' that could work for peace
Netanyahu is taking his time-out in an Israel where many citizens and columnists are embarrassed by his behavior
Yet Post-Biden , the government is acting petulant and is inviting construction on more new homes in northeast Jerusalem
Perhaps Bibi will have the good sense to realize the Biden insult was a bit more than `` regrettable , '' as he tepidly put it
He may remember that the two most important things to Israel should be a security doctrine that prevents a neighboring adversary from getting a nuclear weapon and cherishing the relationship with America rather than zoning and earmarks
The Iranian mullahs must be laughing at the Americans and Israelis arguing about who insulted whom , while they are busy screwing their nuclear bombs together
On St. Patrick 's Day , the president spoke a bit of Gaelic , dyed the White House fountains green and talked about his distant relatives in the tiny Irish town of Moneygall , aptly named since money and gall are the two topics now consuming him
But Mr. Obama is still having trouble summoning a suitable flash of Irish temper at the gall of the corrupt money magicians who continue to make our greenbacks disappear into their bottomless well
He 's got to lop off some heads
As he watches the fury of ordinary Americans bubble up at those who continue to plunder our economy , he should keep in mind one of my dad 's favorite Gaelic sayings : `` Never bolt the door with a boiled carrot .
His lofty team of economic rivals is looking more like a team of small forwards and shooting guards
At the White House on Monday , the president read reporters some tough talk from the teleprompter about the chuckleheads at A.I.G. , accusing them of `` recklessness and greed .
But it was his own boiled carrots who acted shocked at bonuses that they should have known were coming , and should have dismantled before handing A.I.G. another $ 30 billion two weeks ago
It is bad enough that the billions are being laundered through A.I.G. to the likes of bailout double-dippers Goldman Sachs , Citigroup and Bank of America , not to mention foreign banks
Mr. Obama belatedly tried to stop the tumbrels that began rolling toward the Potomac after Larry Summers went on Sunday talk shows to assert that there was nothing the administration could do about the blood-sucking insurance monstrosity 's venal payout
Summers , who inspires lusty dreams of A.I.G. tormentor Eliot Spitzer , asserted that the government `` can not just abrogate '' contracts with financial vampires
It seems as though it would be pretty easy to upend a bonus contract that must read something like : `` If you ruin the world economy , we 'll pay you an extra million .
As Andrew Cuomo pointed out on Tuesday , 11 of the A.I.G. executives who received retention bonuses of $ 1 million or more including one who received $ 4.6 million were not even retained
They 're no longer working at A.I.G. Bonuses were paid to 52 people who have left the company
At first , on the nutty bonuses , Team Obama thought it could get away with the same absurd argument used to justify the nearly $ 8 billion in unnecessary earmarks it allowed Congress to jam into this year 's overdue spending bill : It was written last year ; we 're just signing off on it ; we 'll do better in the future
What President Obama should have said to the blood-sucking bums at A.I.G. , many of them foreigners who were working at the louche London unit , was quite simple : `` We stopped the checks
They 're immoral
If you want Americans ' hard-earned cash as a reward for burning up their jobs , homes and savings , sue me .
He also should have saved a dollar a year and fired Ed Liddy
There must have been ways to avoid rewarding the perpetrators of our financial crisis and Liddy seems to have seriously explored none of them
Barney Frank told reporters : `` I think the time has come to exercise our ownership rights ... and then say as owner , ` No , I 'm not paying you the bonus
You did n't perform
You did n't live up to this contract . '
Cuomo , who seems far more intent on transparency than Mr. Obama , and Tim Geithner , the Treasury secretary who reluctantly signed off on the bonuses , issued subpoenas for the names of the bonus babies
Cuomo started an investigation of whether the payments were fraudulent because the company knew it did not have the funds to cover them
The president needs to brush back the arrogant , greedy creeps who kneecapped capitalism , rather than cosseting Wall Street for fear of looking like an avatar of socialism
Geithner , who comes from the cozy Wall Street club , and Liddy believe it 's best to stabilize the company and keep on board the same people who invented the risky financial tactics so they can unwind their own rotten spool
Is n't that like giving bonuses to the arsonists who started a fire because they alone know what kind of accelerants they used to start it
`` Their mythology starts with the false premise that these are irreplaceable geniuses , '' says Cuomo
Boiling mad that A.I.G. made more than 73 millionaires in the unit that felled the firm , Cuomo called the company 's counsel on Monday to demand that she stop payment on the checks
Cuomo was informed that the money had already been direct-deposited in the accounts of the derivative scoundrels with the push of a button
You could tell it was personal , that he had worked hard on it , all weekend and into the wee hours Tuesday
Overriding aides who objected to putting race center stage , he addressed a painful , difficult subject straightforwardly with a subtlety and decency rare in American politics
Certainly , Senator Obama was exercising sophisticated damage-control on his problem with Jeremiad Wright
But he did not pander as Mitt Romney did with his very challenging speech about Mormonism , or market-test his own convictions , as most politicians do
Unlike what the Clintons did to Lani Guinier , responding to her radical racial ideas by throwing her under the bus , Obama went to great pains to honor the human dimension of his relationship with his politically threatening `` old uncle , '' as he calls him
Displaying his multihued , crazy-quilted DNA , he talked about cringing when he heard the white grandmother who raised him use racial stereotypes and confess her fear of passing black men on the street
He tried to shine a light on that clannish place where grudges and grievances flourish
After racing from race for a year , he plowed in and took a stab at showing blacks what white resentment felt like and whites what black resentment felt like
-LRB- He was spot-on about my tribe of working-class Irish , the ones who have helped break his winning streak in New Hampshire and Ohio , and may do so in Pennsylvania .
He rightly struck back at right-wing hysteria-mongers
`` Talk-show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism , '' he said , `` while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism .
Obama 's warning about race in America was redolent of Eugene O'Neill 's observation about Ireland : `` There is no present or future , '' O'Neill said , `` only the past happening over and over again .
His speech was pitched to superdelegates queasy about his spiritual guide 's Malcolm X-ism , the virulent racial pride , the separatism , the deep suspicion of America and the white man the very things that Obama 's `` post-racial '' identity was supposed to have transcended
The candidate may have staunched the bleeding , but he did not heal the wounds
His na ve and willful refusal to come to terms earlier with the Rev. Wright 's anti-American , anti-white and pro-Farrakhan sentiments echoing his na ve and willful refusal to come to terms earlier with the ramifications of his friendship with sleazy fund-raiser Tony Rezko will not be forgotten because of one unforgettable speech
But then , the most intriguing thing about the speech in the National Constitution Center here , near the statues of the founding fathers who signed the document declaring that `` all men are created equal , '' was not even the part about black and white
It was the new color that Obama unexpectedly wore : gray
The black and white plaguing the Obama camp was not only about skin color
Facing up to his dubious behavior toward his explosive friends , he had his first rude introduction in his political career to ambivalence , ambiguity and complexity
Obama did not surrender his pedestal willingly
But he was finally confronted by a problem that neither his charm nor his grandiosity would solve
He now admits that he had heard the Rev. Wright make `` controversial '' remarks in church , and that he had a `` lapse of judgment '' when he let the much-investigated Rezko curry favor by buying the plot of land next to his and selling a slice back so Obama could have a bigger yard
Newly alert to the perils of not seeming patriotic enough , he ended a speech in Pennsylvania the other morning with `` God bless America !
A little disenchantment with Obama could turn out to be a good thing
Too much idealism can blind a leader to reality as surely as too much ideology can
Up until now , Obama and his worshipers have set it up so that he must be so admirable and ideal and perfect and everything we 've ever wanted that any kind of blemish even a parking ticket was regarded as a major failing
With the Clintons , we expect them to be cheesy on ethics , so no one is ever surprised when they are
But Saint Obama played the politics of character to an absurd extent
For 14 months , his argument for leading the world has been himself his exquisitely globalized self
He should be congratulated on the disappearance of the pedestal
Leaders do n't need to be messiahs
Gray is a welcome relief from black and white
`` Hey , 43 , it 's 44
How 's retirement
You 're biking around the new neighborhood
Buying a nightlight for the bathroom
Ca n't be too careful
I hear you 're working your way through a book Dick Cheney gave you on your Kindle
So Vice is still assigning your reading
Sounds like a full plate
No wonder there was no time to watch my address to Congress
`` It must be a relief to tune out altogether
Still , you might have noticed we 're sort of busy in Washington
That 's why I 'm calling , actually
I 'm ending your stupid war .
Mission Relinquished
The contrasting images were pretty astounding : W. and Laura back in Texas , puttering around the new hood , borrowing chairs from the Secret Service next door to have a big dinner party , oblivious to the shrieks of pain , anger , shock and fear around the country , while Barack Obama engaged in a Sisyphean struggle to push the huge boulder of grief left behind by Bush up the hill
What can the disavowed dauphin possibly be thinking as Professor Obama strides up to the blackboard to erase everything W. stood for , while giving us crisp lectures about how we must get more educated , more equitable , more realistic , more responsible and more reasonable
Mr. Obama may not be able to exit Iraq expeditiously ; as Tom Ricks , the respected military correspondent and author of `` The Gamble , '' points out , this is the sixth plan he has covered that attempts to get U.S. forces out of Iraq
But on Friday , the new president did exit from the inane and pernicious W. era of cartoon villains , simplistic linear thinking , and black-and-white cowboy bluster
`` We will not let the pursuit of the perfect stand in the way of achievable goals , '' Mr. Obama said , surrounded by Marines in the gym at Camp Lejeune
W. 's strategy was inspired by his insecurity
He has acknowledged that he went to war based on body language , without a full-throated debate or analysis ; there was just a vibe coming from the general direction of the Pentagon and the vice president 's office that it was a good thing to do
His only real goal was to prove he was tough
The confident and unsentimental Mr. Obama , by contrast , has redefined the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan around endgames
`` Until we have a clear strategy , we 're not going to have a clear exit strategy , '' he told Jim Lehrer on Friday about Afghanistan , noting that he had ordered a `` head-to-toe , soup-to-nuts '' review of the mission there , so America could get out quickly without risking that the country once more becomes a staging area for terrorist attacks against us
Mr. Obama called W. on Friday to give him a heads-up about the repudiation on Iraq
Robert Gibbs said the call was not at all contentious
But in the Lehrer interview , the president compared America to a big tanker that needed to `` start moving in a better trajectory so that five years , 10 years down the road you can say , you know what , because of good decisions now our kids are safer , more secure , more prosperous , more unified than they were before .
This analogy turns W. into the Exxon Valdez
Mr. Ricks predicted that W. 's snake-bit war may yet swallow up Mr. Obama , that America will be in Iraq for many years to come , and that in the end , we will be the losers
What emerges will be an Iraq that `` is not a democracy , not an American ally , and run by a strongman , probably tougher , smarter and more adept than Saddam Hussein '' and who is , ironically , `` an even worse guy , '' Ricks told Keith Olbermann
The new commander in chief has the nerves of a riverboat gambler and , on the humongous budget and stimulus package , he and Rahmbo Emanuel are liberally applying the Rahm doctrine : Take advantage of a crisis to grab an opportunity
Even the Republican John Thune seemed impressed at the administration 's brazenness , telling The Times 's Carl Hulse , `` They 're really swinging for the fences .
It is a moment of so many giant , cascading perils , with so many mind - boggling numbers and cautionary codicils , that it makes your brain hurt
No one , including the new president himself , can possibly know if his risky bets will pay off
`` This is a human enterprise , '' he told Lehrer
`` It 's not going to be flawless .
Speaking of the Enterprise , Mr. Obama has a bit of Mr. Spock in him -LRB- and not just the funny ears -RRB-
He has a Vulcan-like logic and detachment
Any mere mortal who had to tell liberals that our obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan are far from over and tell Republicans that he has a $ 3.6 trillion budget would probably have tears running down his face
Angry nuns have been calling Congressman Bart Stupak 's office to complain about his dismissive comments on their bravura decision to make a literal Hail Mary pass , break with Catholic bishops and endorse the health care bill
As a Catholic schoolboy , the Michigan Democrat had his share of nuns who rapped his knuckles when he misbehaved , like the time he crashed a kickball through the school window
So , of course , he 's having some acid flashbacks , but he told me , `` They 're not printable even in The New York Times .
Like that other troublemaking Bart -LRB- Simpson -RRB- , Stupak , who wants to kill the health care bill because he thinks the language on abortion funding is not restrictive enough , should have to write on the blackboard a hundred times : `` I will listen closely when the nuns tell me I am wrong
I will not be an obstinate lawmaker .
Stupak got in hot holy water when he told Fox News , `` When I 'm drafting right-to-life language , I do n't call up nuns .
He followed that with more scorn for sisters , telling Chris Matthews that the nuns were not influential because they rarely try to influence which makes no sense and because `` they 're not the recognized spokesperson for the Catholic Church .
He listens to the bishops , he said , and antiabortion groups
We might have to bang Bart 's head into a blackboard a few times before he realizes that in a moral tug-of-war between the sisters and the bishops , you have to go with the gals
The nuns are giving the Democrats cover
As Bob Casey , an abortion opponent who helped negotiate the abortion language in the Senate bill , observed , quoting Scripture : `` They care for ` the least , the last and the lost .
And they know health care .
On Friday , Tim Ryan , an antiabortion Democrat from Ohio , took to the House floor to say he had been influenced by the nuns to vote for the bill
`` You say this is pro-abortion , '' he said to Republicans , and yet `` you have 59,000 Catholic nuns from across the country endorsing this bill , 600 Catholic hospitals , 1,400 Catholic nursing homes endorsing this bill .
For decades , the nuns did the bidding of the priests , cleaned up their messes , and watched as their male superiors let a perverted stain spread over the entire church , a stain that has now even reached the Holy See
It seemed that the nuns were strangely silent , either because they suspected but had no proof the `` Doubt '' syndrome or because they had no one to tell but male bosses protecting one another in that repugnant and hypocritical old-boys ' network
Their goodness was rewarded with a stunning slap from the ber-conservative Pope Benedict XVI
The Vatican is conducting two inquisitions into the `` quality of life '' of American nuns , trying to knock any independence or modernity out of them
The witch hunt has sparked the nuns to have a voice at last
Vulnerable children were not protected by the male hierarchy of the church , which treated sexual abuse as a failure of character rather than a crime
The men were so arrogant it never occurred to them that they should be accountable to the secular world
In their warped thinking , it was better to let children suffer than to call the authorities , embarrass the church and risk diminished power
Now the bishops think that it 's better to deprive poor people of good health care than to let the church look like it 's going soft on abortion
Under the semantic dodge of ideological purity , the bishops also are doing the bidding of the Republicans , trying to kill the bill and weaken the president
But the nuns are right when they say that `` the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions '' and that its protection of pregnant women is the `` real pro-life stance .
The nuns stepped up to support true Catholic dogma , making sure poor people get proper health care
-LRB- Which would lead to fewer abortions anyway .
The men running the church seem oblivious to the fact that , with the ranks of priests and sisters dwindling , they ca n't afford to alienate the nuns who make their schools and hospitals run smoothly
And now , just as he 's finally issuing a pastoral letter about the Irish clerical child abuse , the pope himself has been ensnared in the international scandal , with a psychiatrist in Germany saying that an archdiocese that Benedict led at the time ignored warnings in the 1980s that a priest accused of sexually abusing boys had to be `` kept away from working with children .
Because Pope Benedict has addressed the sex scandal belatedly and sparsely , stonewalling on the skeleton in his German closet , he has lost authority to speak about the issue consuming his church
The only internal investigation he has undertaken with alacrity , for heaven 's sake , is the one bullying American nuns
But there was Michelle on Friday , the first day of spring , with a bunch of fifth graders , digging a veggie garden on the South Lawn
She told The Times there would not be beets , because her husband does n't like them , but there would be arugula
And she promised that the entire Obama family , including the president , would go out and pull weeds , `` whether they like it or not .
The tableau of Michelle Obama hoisting a pitchfork on Friday with her sinewy arms and warning that the commander in chief would be commandeered into yard work left me wondering if the wrong Obama is in the Oval
It 's a time in America 's history where we need less smooth jazz and more martial brass
Barack Obama prides himself on consensus , soothing warring sides into agreement
But the fury directed at the robber barons by the robbed blind in America has been getting hotter , not cooler
And that 's because the president and his Treasury secretary have been coddling the Wall Street elite , fretting that if they curtail executives ' pay and perks too much , if they make the negotiations with those who siphoned our 401 -LRB- k -RRB- 's too tough , the spoiled Sherman McCoys will run away , the rescue plan will fail and the markets will wither
-LRB- Now that Mr. Obama has made $ 8,605,429 on his books including $ 500,000 for letting his memoir be condensed into a kids ' book maybe he 's lost touch with his hole-in-the-shoe , hole-in-the-Datsun , have-not roots .
The shafters of the universe have been treated with such kid gloves that they remain obnoxiously oblivious
Vikram `` Pandit the Bandit '' at Citigroup , which received $ 50 billion in bailout money , is pulling a Thain , spending $ 10 million to renovate his Park Avenue offices , complete with a Sub-Zero refrigerator and premium millwork -LRB- whatever that is -RRB-
Fannie Mae , the mortgage finance behemoth that had $ 59 billion in losses last year when the government was forced to take it over , and since has asked for $ 15 billion in taxpayer money , brazenly intends to give $ 1 million apiece in retention bonuses to four top executives , even though the word retention in a depression is pure Ionesco
Freddie Mac , which has sought $ 45 billion in aid , has yet to disclose its planned bonuses
Asked by Jay Leno why our loans to Wall Street have n't trickled down to Main Street , President Obama conceded that the banks `` have n't started lending it yet .
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner , who grew up as a Republican and was head of the New York Fed for five years , sees things from the point of view of that wellspring of masters of the universe , Goldman Sachs
-LRB- His Treasury chief of staff was a Goldman lobbyist , who fought then-Senator Obama 's attempt to curb executive compensation just as Geithner has done within the administration .
At the New York Fed , Geithner helped preside over the A.I.G. bailout in September
But in October , it was Andrew Cuomo , the New York attorney general , who had to threaten to sue unless A.I.G. canceled $ 160 million in planned expenses for conferences and a $ 600 million bonus pool
Virtually unnoticed amid the bonus imbroglio was A.I.G. 's grudging disclosure that it had funneled $ 93 billion more than half its federal money to date to its high-flying insurees , including Goldman Sachs , Merrill Lynch and a group of European banks
Goldman Sachs separately got $ 10 billion in bailout money last year , but recently asserted snootily that it 's doing well enough and does n't want our money because of the restrictions attached
Yet as Goldman sneers at the federal money at the front door , it 's taking delivery of billions in no-strings federal money through the back door
Can we taxpayers deduct the difference
Our gift to Goldman demonstrates why the government 's headless and heedless bailout of A.I.G. is so wrong
And why are we bailing out foreign banks , including a couple of French ones and UBS , a Swiss bank currently tussling with the I.R.S. because it refuses to hand over the names of thousands of U.S. tax-dodgers
The issue is how much we must pay to preserve financial stability over all , not how much one company promised to pay
At this point , A.I.G. seems to be the only party paying face value on toxic derivatives
Ed Liddy was put in charge of an essentially bankrupt company , but he never drove a hard bargain on bonuses or counterparty debts
He honored contracts made by an organization that had become a fraudulent scheme
He could have told the leeches inside the company and out that the world had utterly changed , so the contracts would too as Michelle would say , `` whether they like it or not .
It is a tribute to Hillary Clinton that even though , rationally , political soothsayers think she can no longer win , irrationally , they wonder how she will pull it off
It 's impossible to imagine The Terminator , as a former aide calls her , giving up
Unless every circuit is out , she 'll regenerate enough to claw her way out of the grave , crawl through the Rezko Memorial Lawn and up Obama 's wall , hurl her torso into the house and brutally haunt his dreams
`` It 's like one of those movies where you think you know the end , but then you watch with your fingers over your eyes , '' said one leading Democrat
Hillary got a boost from the wackadoodle Jeremiah Wright
As a top pol noted , the Reverend turned Obama in the minds of some working-class and crossover white voters from `` a Harvard law graduate into a South Side Black Panther .
Obama blunted the ugliness of Wright 's YouTube `` greatest hits '' with his elegant and bold speech on race
But how will he get the genie back into the bottle
Pressed about race on a Philly radio sports show , where he wanted to talk basketball , he called his grandmother `` a typical white person , who , if she sees somebody on the street that she does n't know , well there 's a reaction that 's in our experiences that wo n't go away and can sometimes come out in the wrong way .
Obama might be right , but he should stay away from the phrase `` typical white person '' because typically white people do n't like to be reminded of their prejudices
It also undermines Obama 's feel-good appeal in which whites are allowed to transcend race because the candidate himself has transcended race
Even swaddled in flags , Obama is vulnerable on the issue of patriotism
He 's right that you do n't have to wear a flag pin to be patriotic , and that Republicans have coarsely exploited patriotism for ideological ends while failing to do truly patriotic things , like giving our troops the right armor and the proper care at Walter Reed
But Republicans are salivating over Reverend Wright 's `` God damn America '' imprecation and his post-9 \/ 11 `` America 's chickens coming home to roost '' crack , combined with Michelle Obama 's aggrieved line about belatedly feeling really proud of her country
On Friday in Charlotte , N.C. , Bill Clinton , the man who once thanked an R.O.T.C. recruiter `` for saving me from the draft '' during Vietnam , sounded like Sean Hannity without the finesse
Extolling John McCain as `` an honorable man , '' and talking about McCain 's friendship with his wife , the former president told veterans : `` I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country
And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues , instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics .
Some people consider the Clintons to be the `` stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics .
Tony McPeak , a former Air Force chief of staff and an Obama adviser , accused Hillary 's hatchet husband of McCarthyism
After the Hillary camp lost and trashed Bill Richardson and was outmaneuvered by the Obama forces on mulligans in Michigan and Florida , Hillary 's hopes dwindled down to the superdelegates
If Jimmy Carter , Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi are the dealmakers , it wo n't take Hercule Poirot to figure out who had knives out for Hillary in this `` Murder on the Orient Express .
Carter , who felt he was not treated with a lot of respect by the Clintons when they were in the White House , favors Obama
`` The Clintons will be there when they need you , '' said a Carter friend
Al Gore blames Bill Clinton 's trysts with Monica for losing him the White House
He resented sharing the vice presidency with Hillary and sharing the donors and attention with her when she ran for Senate as he ran for president
`` There 's no love between him and Hillary , '' said one former Clintonista
`` It was like Mitterrand with his wife and girlfriend
They were always competing for the affection of the big guy .
Like Carter and Gore , Nancy Pelosi was appalled by Bill 's escapades with Monica
And , as The Times 's Carl Hulse wrote , the Speaker has been viewed as `` putting her thumb on the scale for Mr. Obama '' in recent weeks
As a leading China basher , the San Francisco pol tangled bitterly with President Clinton over his pursuit of a free-trade agreement with China , once charging him with papering over China 's horrible record on human rights
And she has been put off by the abrasive ways of some top Hillary people
If Hillary 's fate falls into the hands of Jimmy , Al and Nancy , the Clinton chickens may come home to roost
Holy cow , they were saying to themselves
We 're not total wimps
We do n't have to sit around and let ourselves be slapped silly by Republican bullies and Tea Party scaremongers
We can actually get something done if we suck it up and find a way to pull together
One minute they were legislative losers , squabbling and scrambling for the off-ramps
The next they were history-makers , sharing chest bumps and goose bumps at the White House
How had the lofty president and the wily speaker suddenly steered them off Jimmy Carter Highway and onto F.D.R. Drive
One gleeful and relieved White House aide called the bill-signing ceremony in the East Room , packed with Democratic lawmakers snapping pictures and acting like obstreperous children , `` an Old Spice moment .
`` You could see it in their faces , '' he said
`` It was kind of like that Old Spice ad where the guy smacked himself on the cheeks and said , ` Wow , that feels good !
It was like they smacked themselves on the cheeks and said , ` You are a member of Congress and now you can start doing things
Wow , that feels good ! '
David Axelrod agreed : `` It was incredibly moving to be in that room today
This was such an emotional high that I actually saw congressmen hugging senators
People are so used to low expectations around here that the idea that you could do something big and meaningful is exhilarating .
The Democrats held hands , held their breath and jumped over the cliff not that it was a radical bill
And , mirabile dictu , nothing awful happened
The markets went up
The polls went up
Their confidence went up
John McCain threatened Democrats , telling an Arizona radio affiliate that `` there will be no cooperation for the rest of the year '' from Republicans
So much for `` Country First .
-LRB- He 's so clueless that he came on the Senate floor and said , `` Let 's stop this legislation , and let 's start from the beginning . ''
But David Frum , the former W. speechwriter , conceded that in trying to turn health care into Obama 's Waterloo a replay of the Clintons ' disaster in 1994 Republicans may have made it their own Waterloo
`` We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement , and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat , '' Frum wrote on his blog , adding : `` Conservative talkers on Fox and talk radio had whipped the Republican voting base into such a frenzy that deal-making was rendered impossible
How do you negotiate with somebody who wants to murder your grandmother ?
Some base members of the Republican base showed themselves as the racist Neanderthals they are
Protesters outside the Capitol on Saturday called two black congressmen , the civil rights hero John Lewis of Georgia and Andre Carson of Indiana , a racial epithet as they walked by
Another , Representative Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri , was called that epithet and got spit on
Barney Frank of Massachusetts was called an anti-gay slur
The anti-abortion Democrat Bart Stupak was called a `` baby killer '' by Texas Republican Representative Randy Neugebauer , who says he 's had a `` tremendous outpouring '' of support for his outburst
It was disgusting
And for the Democrats who had battled each other through every twist and turn of health care , it was unifying
Senator Al Franken , who had blown up at Axelrod after Obama held a televised session with Senate Democrats in February , arguing that the president was n't fighting hard enough or strategizing well enough , sent Axelrod a congratulatory note after the bill passed
`` You 're welcome , '' Franken wrote
He added an asterisk : `` Joke
I used to be in comedy .
Only a week ago , Fred Hiatt , The Washington Post 's editorial page editor , had written that Obama did not seem happy in his job , that he projected `` weariness and duty '' instead of the `` jauntiness '' of F.D.R. and J.F.K. But Tuesday , the president was joyous , and that infectious smile so sparsely offered over the last two years lit up the East Room
Many Democratic lawmakers and Obama supporters were frustrated at the president 's failure to show more spine earlier
As Representative Louise Slaughter told The Times in February , `` I would n't mind seeing a little more toughness here or there .
Until now , Obama has gotten irritated at those who cast Washington affairs in Manichean terms of strength or weakness and red or blue
He wanted to reason , to compromise , to float in his ivory tower
But at long last , when push came to shove , he shoved -LRB- and let Nancy push -RRB-
He treated politics not as an intellectual exercise , but a political one
He realized that sometimes you ca n't rise above it
You have to sink down into it
You have to stop being cerebral and get your hands dirty
You can fight fear with power
The Chicago pol in the Oval has had to learn one of the great American truths : You 've got to slap the bully in the face
He 's a consensus-building `` warrior , '' Axelrod boasted to Charlie Rose
The president , who has been reading Edmund Morris 's `` The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt , '' has always spoken with a soft voice
Now he 's wielded the big stick
As Barack Obama was floating in the pool with his daughters the last few days in St. Thomas , some Clinton disciples were floating the idea of St. Hillary as his vice president
She ca n't win without him , said one Hillary adviser , and he ca n't win without her
They 're stuck with each other
It 's one of my favorite movie formulas , driving the dynamics in such classics as `` A Few Good Men , '' `` The Big Easy '' and `` Guys and Dolls '' : Charming , glib guy spars and quarrels with no-nonsense , driven girl , until they team up in the last reel
He spices up her life , and she stiffens his spine
And soon they hear the pitter-patter of little superdelegate feet , who are thrilled not to be pulled in two directions anymore
And everybody 's happy
Or are they
A couple of weeks ago , when Hill and Bill mentioned the possibility of a joint ticket , it was an attempt to undermine Obama and urge voters and superdelegates to put Hillary on top ; the implication was that this was the only way Democrats could have both their stars , and besides , it was her turn
The precocious boy wonder had plenty of time
But with the math not in her favor , her options running out , Bill Richardson running out and her filigreed narrative of dodging bullets in Bosnia and securing peace in Northern Ireland unraveling , could Hillary actually think the vice presidency is the best she 'll do
One Hillary pal said she would n't want to go back to a Senate full of lawmakers who 'd abandoned her for Obama
And even if she could get to be majority leader , would it be much fun working with Nancy Pelosi , whose distaste for the Clintons has led her to subtly maneuver for Obama
Maybe The Terminator is thinking : if she could just get her pump in the door
Dick Cheney , after all , was able to run the White House and the world from the vice president 's residence , calling every shot while serving under a less experienced and younger president
And Observatory Circle is just up the street from where Hillary now lives
But , aside from Barack and Michelle Obama 's certain resistance , would it fly
Many Hillary voters are hardening against Obama , and more and more Obama fans are getting turned off by the idea of dragging down the Obama brand with Clinton dysfunction
`` No drama , vote Obama '' placards and T-shirts are popping up at Obama rallies , and one of his military advisers dubbed him `` No Shock Barack .
It 's hard to imagine that after spending her whole life playing second-fiddle to a superstar pol , Hillary wants to do it again
She 's been vice president
Could the veep talk be a red herring
A ploy designed to distract attention from the Clintons ' real endgame
Even some Clinton loyalists are wondering aloud if the win-at-all-costs strategy of Hillary and Bill which continued Tuesday when Hillary tried to drag Rev. Wright back into the spotlight is designed to rough up Obama so badly and leave the party so riven that Obama will lose in November to John McCain
If McCain only served one term , Hillary would have one last shot
On Election Day in 2012 , she 'd be 65
Why else would Hillary suggest that McCain would be a better commander in chief than Obama , and why else would Bill imply that Obama was less patriotic and attended by more static than McCain
Why else would Phil Singer , a Hillary spokesman , say in a conference call with reporters on Tuesday that Obama was trying to disenfranchise the voters of Florida and Michigan
`` When it comes to voting , Senator Obama has turned the audacity of hope into the audacity of nope , '' he said , adding , `` There 's a basic reality here , which is we could have avoided the entire George W. Bush presidency if we had counted votes in Florida .
So is Singer making the case that Obama is as anti-democratic as W. was when he snatched Florida from Al Gore
Some top Democrats are increasingly worried that the Clintons ' divide-and-conquer strategy is nihilistic : Hillary or no democrat
-LRB- Or , as one Democrat described it to ABC 's Jake Tapper : Hillary is going for `` the Tonya Harding option '' if she ca n't get the gold , kneecap her rival .
After all , the Clintons think of themselves as The Democratic Party
When Bill and Dick Morris triangulated during the first term , it was what was best for Bill , not the party
In 1996 , when Bill turned the White House into Motel 1600 for fund-raisers , it was more about his re-election than the re-elections of his fellow Democrats in Congress ; in 2000 , the White House focused its energies more on Hillary 's Senate win than Al Gore 's presidential run
And even Clinton supporters know that Bill does not want to be replaced as the first black president , especially by a black president with enough magic to possibly eclipse him in the history books
The Catholic Church can never recover as long as its Holy Shepherd is seen as a black sheep in the ever-darkening sex abuse scandal
Now we learn the sickening news that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger , nicknamed `` God 's Rottweiler '' when he was the church 's enforcer on matters of faith and sin , ignored repeated warnings and looked away in the case of the Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy , a Wisconsin priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys
The church has been tone deaf and dumb on the scandal for so long that it 's shocking , but not surprising , to learn from The Times 's Laurie Goodstein that a group of deaf former students spent 30 years trying to get church leaders to pay attention
`` Victims give similar accounts of Father Murphy 's pulling down their pants and touching them in his office , his car , his mother 's country house , on class excursions and fund-raising trips and in their dormitory beds at night , '' Goodstein wrote
`` Arthur Budzinski said he was first molested when he went to Father Murphy for confession when he was about 12 , in 1960 .
It was only when the sanctity of the confessional was breached that an archbishop in Wisconsin -LRB- who later had to resign when it turned out he used church money to pay off a male lover -RRB- wrote to Cardinal Ratzinger at the Vatican to request that Father Murphy be defrocked
The cardinal did not answer
The archbishop wrote to a different Vatican official , but Father Murphy appealed to Cardinal Ratzinger for leniency and got it , partly because of the church 's statute of limitations
Since when does sin have a statute of limitations
The pope is in too deep
He has proved himself anything but infallible
And now he claims he was uninformed on the matter of an infamous German pedophile priest
A spokesman for the Munich archdiocese said on Friday that Ratzinger , running the diocese three decades ago , would not have read the memo sent to him about Father Peter Hullermann 's getting cycled back into work with children because between 700 to 1,000 memos go to the archbishop each year
Let 's see
That 's two or three memos a day
And Ratzinger was renowned at the Vatican for poring through voluminous , recondite theological treatises
Because he did not defrock the demented Father Murphy , it 's time to bring in the frocks
Pope Benedict has continued the church 's ban on female priests and is adamant against priests ' having wives
He has started two investigations of American nuns to check on their `` quality of life '' code for seeing if they 've grown too independent
As a cardinal he wrote a Vatican document urging women to be submissive partners and not take on adversarial roles toward men
But the completely paternalistic and autocratic culture of Il Papa led to an insular , exclusionary system that failed to police itself , and that became a corrosive shelter for secrets and shame
If the church could throw open its stained glass windows and let in some air , invite women to be priests , nuns to be more emancipated and priests to marry , if it could banish criminal priests and end the sordid culture of men protecting men who attack children , it might survive
It could be an encouraging sign of humility and repentance , a surrender of arrogance , both moving and meaningful
Cardinal Ratzinger devoted his Vatican career to rooting out any hint of what he considered deviance
The problem is , he was obsessed with enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy and somehow missed the graver danger to the most vulnerable members of the flock
The sin-crazed `` Rottweiler '' was so consumed with sexual mores issuing constant instructions on chastity , contraception , abortion that he did n't make time for curbing sexual abuse by priests who were supposed to pray with , not prey on , their young charges
American bishops have gotten politically militant in recent years , opposing the health care bill because its language on abortion was n't vehement enough , and punishing Catholic politicians who favor abortion rights and stem cell research
They should spend as much time guarding the kids already under their care as they do championing the rights of those who are n't yet born
Decade after decade , the church hid its sordid crimes , enabling the collared perpetrators instead of letting the police collar them
In the case of the infamous German priest , one diocese official hinted that his problem could be fixed by transferring him to teach at a girls ' school
Either they figured that he would not be tempted by the female sex , or worse , the church was even less concerned about putting little girls at risk
The nuns have historically cleaned up the messes of priests
And this is a historic mess
Benedict should go home to Bavaria
And the cardinals should send the white smoke up the chimney , proclaiming `` Habemus Mama .
As international lunacy goes , it was hard to beat the pope saying that condoms spread AIDS
But Brazil 's president , known simply as Lula , gave it his best shot
At a press conference Thursday in Brasilia with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain who has a talent for getting himself into dicey spots Lula started off coughing from some cheese bread he 'd wolfed down
Then he suddenly turned accusatory
`` This crisis was caused by the irrational behavior of white people with blue eyes , who before the crisis appeared to know everything and now demonstrate that they know nothing , '' charged the brown-eyed , bearded socialist president
As the brown-eyed Brown grew a whiter shade of pale , Lula hammered the obvious point that the poor of the world were suffering in the global crash because of the misdeeds of the rich
`` I do not know any black or indigenous bankers , '' said Lula
He also told CNN he would press this theme at the G-20 meeting in London this week
He says his past as a poor , hungry , unemployed lathe operator gives him special insight
`` I lived in houses that were flooded by water , '' he said , adding , `` Sometimes , I had to fight over space with rats and cockroaches , and waste would come in when it flooded .
The `` Lula lulu '' by the `` Brazil nut , '' as The New York Post dubbed it , became big news just as President Obama met at the White House with Vikram Pandit and a cadre of white-bread bankers who have taken the bailout some of whom , like Jamie Dimon , have distinctly blue eyes
And it is true , of course , that the upper-crust , underwhelming Anglo-Saxon leaders who allowed America 's financial markets to morph into louche casinos , George W. Bush and Dick Cheney , were very , very white men with blue eyes
As the Who sang : `` No one knows what it 's like to be the bad man , to be the sad man behind blue eyes
No one knows what it 's like to be hated , to be fated to telling only lies .
Every time Cheney looks into the camera with those ice-blue eyes and says President Obama is making us less safe , it sounds as if he 's secretly hoping we do get attacked just to prove his point that Obama is weak , even if he has to go up in smoke , too
-LRB- When I double-checked the color of Cheney 's eyes , his daughter Liz Cheney jokingly e-mailed back , `` Sorry , but that information is classified . ''
Before President Obama , whose brown eyes are opaque when you look into them , presidents have been more known for blue eyes
The ones with brown eyes , Richard Nixon and L.B.J. , came a cropper
Throughout history , whether it 's images of Jesus that do n't look Middle Eastern or Barbies who do n't look ethnic , blue eyes and white skin have often been painted as the ideal
The cerulean-eyed Paul Newman once wryly predicted his epitaph : `` Here lies Paul Newman , who died a failure because his eyes turned brown .
Surveys show that people with blue eyes are considered more intelligent , attractive and sociable
A 2007 University of Louisville study concluded that people with blue eyes were better planners and strategic thinkers superior at things like golf , cross-country running and preparing for exams while people with brown eyes had better reflexes , making them good at hockey and football
Lula 's rant underscored an ancient rivalry
When I was little , growing up in a house that prominently displayed a blue-eyed Jesus and a blue-eyed J.F.K. , I felt my brown eyes were far less attractive than my brothers ' blue ones
I obsessed on it so much , cutting out a picture of a beautiful brown-eyed model and keeping it in my scrapbook , that my mother finally reassured me : `` You look at blue eyes
You look into brown eyes .
Later , of course , there would be the thrill of Van Morrison serenading a `` Brown-Eyed Girl .
Before Barack Obama , when I interviewed the brown-eyed sons of immigrants who were thinking of running for president , Mario Cuomo and Colin Powell , they seemed torn about taking the big plunge , given how far they had come in relation to their dads
I asked Governor Cuomo if he was leaving the field to `` the privileged blue-eyed WASPs '' like Bush senior and Dan Quayle who felt entitled and never worried about their worthiness
Barack Obama and his family have already had a profound effect on the culture in terms of what is beautiful and marketable
Black faces are popping up in all kinds of ads now wearing straw boaters and other prepster outfits in Ralph Lauren ads
With Michelle urging students to aim for A 's and the president promising to make school `` cool , '' brown eyes may finally and rightfully overtake blue as the windows of winners
Channeling her inner Cheney , Hillary Clinton dropped a fear bomb , as Michelle Obama might call it , implying in a new ad that if her opponent is elected , your angelic , innocent , sleeping children could die in a terrorist attack
Only she has the wise head to go nuclear , should that Strangelovian phone call from a power-mad Putin come into the White House at 3 a.m.
Her ad shows how composed she would be at the dread moment when she picks up the phone
Her nuke look is feminine , in a tailored camel-colored jacket and gold necklace , yet serious , in Tina Fey black reading glasses
It 's hard to discern the message of the ad
The scariest thing is not the persistently ringing phone but an Andrea Yates-looking mother who 's creeping up on the sleeping babes in the dark
The point ca n't be that Hillary is superior to Obama in international crisis management , because she 's done no more of it than he has
She 's only done domestic crisis management , cleaning up after Frisky Bill
Is the message that Hillary is Ready on Night One
That she wo n't have to waste any time if she 's rousted out of bed in the wee hours , because she 's wearing a pantsuit under her pantsuit
-LRB- Or is it just , as Wesley Clark said during an appearance with her in Waco on Friday , that Hillary 's `` been in the White House when the tough decisions were made
I guess you 've been at the bedside when that phone rang at 3 a.m. '' -RRB- It 's rather Mommie Dearest for the first serious female contender to try to give the kiddies nightmares
How maternal is that
But since her nightmare is losing , she does n't mind scaring the pj 's off of little Jimmy and Johnny
Obambi-No-More briskly dismissed Hillary 's attempt to cast him as a global ing nue
`` Senator Clinton may not be aware , but we already had a red phone moment , '' he said at an outdoor rally here , with the crowd of 8,000 booing at the mention of Hillary 's ad
`` It was the decision to invade Iraq
Senator Clinton picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer
And John McCain picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer
And George Bush picked up the phone and gave the wrong answer .
#NAME?
He wants to put in a hoops court .
On `` Nightline '' last week , Hillary once more wallowed in gender inequities , asserting that it 's harder for her to run than her opponent a black man with an exotic name that most Americans had n't even heard a year ago
`` Every so often I just wish that it were a little more of an even playing field , '' she said , `` but , you know , I play on whatever field is out there .
Is that how she would deal with dictators , by playing the refs and going before the U.N. to demand : `` How come you 're not asking Ahmadinejad these questions first ?
Tangled in her own victimhood , she snipped to Cynthia McFadden that Obama had written in his book that `` he 's a blank screen and people of widely different views project what they want to believe onto him .
She said voters were projecting their hopes onto that blank screen even though `` he just has n't been around long enough .
In the next breath , asked about the women who feel sorry for her , she said : `` I think a lot of women project their own feelings and their lives on to me , and they see how hard this is
It 's hard
It 's hard being a woman out there .
So projection is bad with Obama but good with her
On a conference call Friday with Hillary 's ever-more-hysterical male strategists , Slate 's John Dickerson asked exactly when she had been tested in a foreign policy crisis
After a silence long enough to knit a sweater in , as the Web site The Hotline put it , Mark Penn cited `` her work on the Armed Services Committee .
Hillary 's boys pout that the press should find some dirt on Obama before time runs out
Their once fearsome campaign is now reduced to whining that Obama did not hold any substantive hearings of his Subcommittee on European Affairs
What 's next
Bitterly complaining that he missed a quorum call
Hillary keeps trying to dismiss Obama 's appeal as emotional , something that can be overcome with enough mental discipline
But behind that ethereal presence he 's a wonky lawyer , just like Hillary
He reads The Times and Philip Roth and talks about the fine points of Medicare Part B in a way W. never could have when he first ran for president
-LRB- Or now .
Hillary 's visceral attacks will not work
And the Republicans ' visceral attacks on the Obamas ' patriotism , and their usual attempt to make the Democrat seem foreign -LRB- Hussein , Hussein , Hussein !
, may not have the same traction
The president took the country to war on his gut , exploited our fears and played the patriotism card to advance his political agenda
This time , Americans may prefer cerebral arguments to visceral ones
What a refreshing change reality would be
And whether we can take a flier on this skinny guy with the strange name and braided ancestry to help us get it back
Bernard Kouchner , the foreign minister of France and a strong supporter of the United States , recently observed that President Bush has done such a number on our image in the world that no one will be able to restore the luster
`` I think the magic is over , '' he said
Pas si vite , mon vieux
In terms of style , the Obamas could give Carla Bruni-Sarkozy a run for her euros
And at least Obama is not in a fantasy world on Iraq , as W. and John McCain are , insisting it 's improving while we see it exploding
Many voters decided last week to stick with Obama despite his less-than-convincing explanations about the Rev. Wright even as many soured on Hillary , casting her as Lady Voldemort
Democrats are coming around to the point Jay Rockefeller made 10 days ago after introducing Obama in West Virginia : `` Democrats always make a mistake by nominating people who know everything on earth there is to know about public policy
I introduced both Al Gore and John Kerry at their rallies
They knew all the policies , but people did n't connect with them
You do n't get elected president if people do n't like you .
Despite Bill Clinton 's saying it was `` a bunch of bull '' that his wife should drop out , Democrats are trying to sneak up on Hillary , throw a burlap sack over her head , carry her off the field and stick her in a Saddam spider hole until after the Denver convention
One Obama adviser moaned that the race was `` beginning to feel like a hostage crisis '' and would probably go on for another month to six weeks
And Obama said that the `` God , when will this be over ?
primary season was like `` a good movie that lasted about a half an hour too long .
Hillary sunnily riposted that she likes long movies
Her favorite as a girl was `` The Wizard of Oz , '' so surely she spots the `` Surrender Dorothy '' sign in the sky and the bad portent of the ladies of `` The View '' burbling to Obama about how sexy he is
But who knows
Obama and Bob Casey talking March Madness to the patrons of Sharky 's sports cafe in Latrobe , Pa. , on Friday night seemed demographically clever
But it is always when Hillary is pushed back by the boys that women help hoist her up
Obama , like the preternaturally gifted young heroes in mythical tales , is still learning to channel his force
He can ensorcell when he has to , and he has viral appeal
Who else could alchemize a nuanced 40-minute speech on race into must-see YouTube viewing for 20-year-olds
But at several crucial points in the last year , he held back when he should have poured on , leaving his nemesis around to damage him further
Obama has social engineering plans as ambitious , in their own way , as the Bush administration 's failed social engineering plans to change the psyche of America and the Middle East
`` I think the president needs to use the bully pulpit to change our culture , '' he said Thursday , talking energy at a $ 1,000-a-plate fund-raiser in Manhattan
`` We are a wasteful culture
It 's always been that way because of our history
We do everything big .
He wants to make government `` cool '' again
He wants to banish the red-blue culture of conflict on TV and in Washington
And he wants to make the country healthier , thinner and smarter
`` I want our students learning art and music and science and poetry , '' he says , in a crowd-pleasing line
Using his preacher voice , he urged a black audience in Beaumont , Tex. , to be better parents , to put away chips and cold Popeyes for breakfast , and to turn off the TV and video games
`` Buy a little desk or put that child at the kitchen table , '' he instructed
`` Watch them do their homework .
It 's not certain that Obama could bring about an American renaissance
As the L.A. entertainment lawyer Nancy McCullough , who was on the Harvard Law Review with Obama , told Vanity Fair 's Todd Purdum , he tended to wallow in words
She said he was so intent on letting everyone have a say that `` I actually would have been happier for him to say sometimes , ` This is how we 're doing this , and shut up ! '
The pollster Peter Hart says the central questions are : `` Is Hillary honest ?
and `` Is Obama safe ?
Her foreign affairs plumping-up has hurt her , while his exotic and unorthodox narrative stirs doubt
`` If I were to produce a spot for Obama , '' Hart said , `` I would take 100 photographs of everything that he does with his children and wife that could range from Halloween to a picnic to everything we identify with as part of American life so people could say , ' I relate to that , I understand it . '
But , for now , Obama might want to leave the Trinity church photos out of the montage
Complete with crown-of-thorns imagery , the church has started an Easter public relations blitz defending a pope who went along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church 's reputation rather than abused and sometimes disabled and disadvantaged children
The church gave up its credibility for Lent
Holy Thursday and Good Friday are now becoming Cover-Up Thursday and Blame-Others Friday
This week of special confessions and penance services is unfolding as the pope resists pressure from Catholics around the globe for his own confession and penance about the cascade of child sexual abuse cases that were ignored , even by a German diocese and Vatican office he ran
If church fund-raising and contributions dry up , Benedict 's P.R. handlers may yet have to stage a photo-op where he steps out of the priest 's side of the confessional and enters the side where the rest of his fallible flock goes
Or maybe 30-second spots defending the pope with Benedict 's voice intoning at the end : `` I am infallible , and I approve this message .
Canon 1404 states that `` The First See is judged by no one .
But Jesus , Mary and Joseph , as my dad used to say
Somebody has to tell the First See when it 's blind and mute to deaf children in America and Italy
The Vatican is surprised to find itself in this sort of trouble
Officials there could have easily known what was going on all along ; archbishops visiting Rome gossip like a sewing circle
The cynical Vatican just did n't want to deal with it
And now the church continues to hide behind its mystique
Putting down the catechism , it picked up the Washington P.R. handbook for political sins
First : Declare any new revelation old and unimportant
At Palm Sunday Mass at St. Patrick 's , Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York bemoaned that the `` recent tidal wave of headlines about abuse of minors by some few priests , this time in Ireland , Germany , and a re-run of an old story from Wisconsin , has knocked us to our knees once again .
A few priests
At this point , it feels like an international battalion
A re-run of an old story
So sorry to remind you , Archbishop , that one priest , Father Lawrence Murphy , who showed no remorse and suffered no punishment from `` Rottweiler '' Ratzinger , abused as many as 200 deaf children in Wisconsin
Archbishop Dolan compared the pope to Jesus , saying he was `` now suffering some of the same unjust accusations , shouts of the mob , and scourging at the pillar , '' and `` being daily crowned with thorns by groundless innuendo .
Second : Blame somebody else even if it 's this pope 's popular predecessor , on the fast track to sainthood
Vienna 's Cardinal Christoph Sch nborn defended Pope Benedict this week , saying that then-Cardinal Ratzinger 's attempt in 1995 to investigate the former archbishop of Vienna for allegedly molesting youths in a monastery was barred by advisers close to Pope John Paul II
Third : Say black is white
In his blog , Archbishop Dolan blasted church critics while stating : `` The Church needs criticism ; we want it ; we welcome it ; we do a good bit of it ourselves , '' adding : `` We do not expect any special treatment
... so bring it on .
Fourth : Demonize gays , as Karl Rove did in 2004
In an ad in The Times on Tuesday , Bill Donohue , the Catholic League president , offered this illumination : `` The Times continues to editorialize about the ` pedophilia crisis , ' when all along it 's been a homosexual crisis
Eighty percent of the victims of priestly sexual abuse are male and most of them are post-pubescent
While homosexuality does not cause predatory behavior , and most gay priests are not molesters , most of the molesters have been gay .
Donohue is still talking about the problem as an indiscretion rather than a crime
If it mostly involves men and boys , that 's partly because priests for many years had unquestioned access to boys
Fifth : Blame the victims
`` Fr
Lawrence Murphy apparently began his predatory behavior in Wisconsin in the 1950s , '' Donohue protested , `` yet the victims ' families never contacted the police until the mid-1970s .
Sixth : Throw gorilla dust
Donohue asserts that `` the common response of all organizations , secular as well as religious , '' to abuse cases `` was to access therapy and reinstate the patient .
Where in heaven 's name does that information come from
It 's absurd
And finally , seventh : Use the Cheney omnipotence defense , most famously employed in the Valerie Plame case
Vice President Cheney claimed that his lofty position meant that the very act of spilling a secret , even with dastardly intent , declassified it
Vatican lawyers will argue in negligence cases brought by abuse victims that the pope has immunity as a head of state and that bishops who allowed an abuse culture , endlessly recirculating like dirty fountain water , were not Vatican employees
Maybe they worked for Enron
But the wild thing was that the minister was Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia an absolute Muslim monarchy ruling over one of the most religiously and socially intolerant places on earth and the country he deemed too `` religiously determined '' and regressive was the democracy of Israel
`` We are breaking away from the shackles of the past , '' the prince said , sitting in his sprawling , glinting ranch house with its stable of Arabian horses and one oversized white bunny
`` We are moving in the direction of a liberal society
What is happening in Israel is the opposite ; you are moving into a more religiously oriented culture and into a more religiously determined politics and to a very extreme sense of nationhood , '' which was coming `` to a boiling point .
`` The religious institutions in Israel are stymieing every effort at peace , '' said the prince , wearing a black-and-gold robe and tinted glasses
Israel is a secular society that some say is growing less secular with religious militants and the chief rabbinate that would like to impose a harsh and exclusive interpretation of Judaism upon the entire society
Ultra-Orthodox rabbis are fighting off the Jewish women who want to conduct their own prayer services at the Western Wall
-LRB- In Orthodox synagogues , some men still say a morning prayer thanking God for not making them women .
The word progressive , of course , is highly relative when it comes to Saudi Arabia
-LRB- Wahhabism , anyone ?
But after spending 10 days here , I can confirm that , at their own galactically glacial pace , they are chipping away at gender apartheid and cultural repression
There 's still plenty of draconian pandemonium
Days before I arrived , the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice cracked down with a Valentine 's Day massacre , banning red roses and teddy bears and raiding shops at any flash of crimson
Islamic scholars declared the holiday a sin because it promoted `` immoral relations '' between unmarried men and women
Yet by the Saudis ' premodern standards , the 85-year-old King Abdullah , with a harem of wives , is a social revolutionary
The kingdom just announced a new law that will allow female lawyers to appear in court for the first time , if only for female clients on family cases
Last month , the king appointed the first woman to the council of ministers
Last year , he opened the first co-ed university
He has encouraged housing developments with architecture that allows families , and boys and girls within families , to communicate more freely
Young Saudi women whom I interviewed said that the popular king has relaxed the grip of the bullying mutawa , the bearded religious police officers who patrol the streets ready to throw you in the clink at the first sign of fun or skin
Their low point came in 2002 when they notoriously stopped teenage girls without head scarves from fleeing a fire at a school in Mecca ; 15 girls died
Two years ago , they arrested an American woman living here while she was sitting in a Starbucks with her male business partner , even though she was in a curtained booth in the `` family '' section designated for men and women
`` It is not allowed for any woman to travel alone and sit with a strange man and talk and laugh and drink coffee together like they are married , '' the religious police said
The attempts at more tolerance are belated baby steps to the outside world but in this veiled , curtained and obscured fortress , they are '60s - style cataclysmic social changes
Last week , Sheik Abdul Rahman al-Barrak , a pugnacious cleric , shocked Saudis by issuing a fatwa against those who facilitate the mixing of men and women
Given that such a fatwa clearly would include the king , Prince Saud dismissed it
`` I think the trend for reform is set , and there is no looking back , '' he told me
`` Clerics who every now and then come with statements in the opposite direction are releasing frustration rather than believing that they can stop the trend and turn back the clock .
I said that women I talked to were sanguine that they 'd be allowed to drive in the next few years
`` I hope so , '' he murmured , suggesting I bring an international driver 's license on my next visit
I asked if technology Saudis love their cells , Berries and computers , and Bluetooth flirting is rampant in malls would pry open the obsessively private kingdom
`` Privacy in the modern world is a relative term , '' he replied
`` How can you have privacy when you have the computer , Twitter and all the others
It is just part of the complications and difficulties of modern life .
-LRB- He and the king have never Twittered .
People now , he mused , sounding like a Saudi Garbo , just `` have to worry about how to be alone .
There was a bit of King Lear in the scene on the Senate floor , a stormy , solitary John McCain on `` this great stage of fools , '' as the Bard wrote , railing against both parties and the president in fiery speeches and rapid-fire tweets
`` He 's mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf , a horse 's health , a boy 's love , or a whore 's oath , '' the Fool told Lear
And he 's truly mad that trusts in the promise of a presidential candidate to quell earmarks
The 72-year-old senator who seemed hopelessly 20th century when he confessed during the campaign that he did n't know how to use a computer or send an e-mail has now mastered the latest technology fad , twittering up a twizzard to tweak his former rival
Before the Senate resoundingly defeated a McCain amendment on Tuesday that would have shorn 9,000 earmarks worth $ 7.7 billion from the $ 410 billion spending bill , the Arizona senator twittered lists of offensive bipartisan pork , including : $ 2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York
`` quick peel me a grape , '' McCain twittered
$ 1.7 million for a honey bee factory in Weslaco , Tex.
$ 1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa
$ 1 million for Mormon cricket control in Utah
`` Is that the species of cricket or a game played by the brits ?
McCain tweeted
$ 819,000 for catfish genetics research in Alabama
$ 650,000 for beaver management in North Carolina and Mississippi
$ 951,500 for Sustainable Las Vegas
-LRB- McCain , a devotee of Vegas and gambling , must really be against earmarks if he does n't want to `` sustain '' Vegas .
$ 2 million `` for the promotion of astronomy '' in Hawaii , as McCain twittered , `` because nothing says new jobs for average Americans like investing in astronomy .
$ 167,000 for the Autry National Center for the American West in Los Angeles
`` Hopefully for a Back in the Saddle Again exhibit , '' McCain tweeted sarcastically
$ 238,000 for the Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii
`` During these tough economic times with Americans out of work , '' McCain twittered
$ 200,000 for a tattoo removal violence outreach program to help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past
`` REALLY ?
McCain twittered
$ 209,000 to improve blueberry production and efficiency in Georgia
`` When do we turn off the spigots ?
Senator McCain said in his cri de coeur on the Senate floor
`` Have n't we learned anything
Bills like this jeopardize our future .
In one of his disturbing spells of passivity , President Obama decided not to fight Congress and live up to his own no-earmark pledge from the campaign
He 's been lecturing us on the need to prune away frills while the economy fizzles
He was slated to make a speech on `` wasteful spending '' on Wednesday
`` You know , there are times where you can afford to redecorate your house and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding its foundation , '' he said recently about the `` hard choices '' we must make
Yet he did not ask Congress to sacrifice and make hard choices ; he let it do a lot of frivolous redecorating in its budget
He reckons he 'll need Congress for more ambitious projects , like health care , and when he goes back to wheedle more bailout billions , given that A.I.G. and G.M. and our other corporate protectorates are burning through our money faster than we can print it and borrow it from the ever-more-alarmed Chinese
Team Obama sounds hollow , chanting that `` the status quo is not acceptable , '' even while conceding that the president is accepting the status quo by signing a budget festooned with pork
Obama spinners insist it was `` a leftover budget .
But Iraq was leftover , too , and the president 's trying to end that
This is the first pork-filled budget from a new president who promised to go through the budget `` line by line '' and cut pork
On `` Face the Nation '' on Sunday , Obama 's chief of staff , Rahm Emanuel , dismissed the bill as `` last year 's business , '' because most of it was written last year
But given how angry Americans are , watching their future go up in smoke , the bloated bill counts as this year 's business
It includes $ 38.4 million of earmarks sponsored or co-sponsored by President Obama 's labor secretary , Hilda Solis ; $ 109 million Hillary Clinton signed on to ; and $ 31.2 million in earmarks sought by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood with colleagues
-LRB- Even Barack Obama was listed as one of the co-sponsors of a $ 7.7 million pet project for Tribally Controlled Postsecondary Vocational Institutions until he got his name taken off last week .
And then there are the 16 earmarks worth $ 8.5 million that Emanuel put into the bill when he was a congressman , including money for streets in Chicago suburbs and a Chicago planetarium
Blame it on the stars , Rahm , or on old business
But as Shakespeare wrote in `` Lear '' : `` This is the excellent foppery of the world , that , when we are sick in fortune often the surfeits of our own behavior we make guilty of our own disasters , the sun , the moon , and the stars .
Some women in their 30s , 40s and early-50s who favor Barack Obama have a phrase to describe what they do n't like about Hillary Clinton : Shoulder-pad feminism
They feel that women have moved past that men-are-pigs , woe-is-me , sisters-must-stick-together , pantsuits-are-powerful era that Hillary 's campaign has lately revived with a vengeance
And they do n't like Gloria Steinem and other old-school feminists trying to impose gender discipline and a call to order on the sisters
As a woman I know put it : `` Hillary does n't make it look like fun to be a woman
And her ` I-have-been-victimized ' campaign is depressing .
But Hillary carried on the padded shoulders of the older women in Texas , Ohio and Rhode Island who loved her `` I Will Survive '' rallying cry that `` I am a little older and I have earned every wrinkle on my face '' has been saved to fight another day
Exit polls have showed that fans of Hillary who once said they would be happy with Obama if Hillary dropped out were hardening in their opposition to him , while Obama voters were not so harsh about her
Three Hillary volunteers , older women from Boston , approached a New York Times reporter in an Austin , Tex. , parking lot on Tuesday to vent that Hillary has n't gotten a fair shake from the press
They said that they used to like Obama but now ca n't stand him because they think he has been cocky and disrespectful to Hillary
As Hillary , remarkably and cleverly , put Obama on the defensive about a real estate deal , health care and Nafta , her campaign ratcheted up the retro battle of the sexes when they sent Dianne Feinstein onto the Fox News Sunday-morning talk show to promote the idea that Hillary should not be forced out , regardless of the results of Tuesday 's primaries , simply because she 's a woman
`` For those of us that are part of ' a woman need not apply ' generation that goes back to the time I went out to get my first job following college and a year of graduate work , this is an extraordinarily critical race , '' the senator said
With Obama saying the hour is upon us to elect a black man and Hillary saying the hour is upon us to elect a woman , the Democratic primary has become the ultimate nightmare of liberal identity politics
All the victimizations go tripping over each other and colliding , a competition of historical guilts
People will have to choose which of America 's sins are greater , and which stain will have to be removed first
Is misogyny worse than racism , or is racism worse than misogyny
As it turns out , making history is actually a way of being imprisoned by history
It 's all about the past
Will America 's racial past be expunged or America 's sexist past be expunged
As Ali Gallagher , a white Hillary volunteer in Austin told The Washington Post 's Krissah Williams : `` A friend of mine , a black man , said to me , ` My ancestors came to this country in chains ; I 'm voting for Barack .
I told him , ` Well , my sisters came here in chains and on their periods ; I 'm voting for Hillary . '
And meanwhile , the conventional white man sits on the Republican side and enjoys the spectacle of the Democrats ' identity pileup and victim lock
Just as Michelle Obama urged blacks to support her husband , many shoulder-pad feminists are growing more fierce in charging that women who let Obama leapfrog over Hillary are traitors
Julie Acevedo , a precinct captain for Obama in Austin , noticed that things were getting uglier on Friday , during the early voting , when she `` saw some very angry women just stomping by us to go vote for Hillary
They cut us off when we tried to talk about Barack
`` I 'm 46 , '' Ms. Acevedo , a fund-raiser for state politicians , said Tuesday night
`` Maybe I missed it by a few years , but I do n't know why these women are so fueled by such hostility and think other women are misogynists if they do n't vote for Hillary
It 's insulting and disturbing .
She said that if Obama definitively outpaces Hillary , she will work to `` heal the wounds '' and woo back women who are now angry at him
Watching Bill Clinton greet but not address the Big Dog has been muzzled an excited group of students at Texas State University in San Marcos on Tuesday , 19-year-old Allison Krolczyk said she was leaning toward Obama and felt no gender guilt about voting for him
`` Not at all , '' she said
`` I think they 're both pretty amazing .
The crowd held up their camera phones to capture the former president , in his bright orange tie and orange-brown ostrich cowboy boots
`` We love you , Bill !
yelled one boy
`` You did a good job , except for Monica .
Governor Brown Redux - The Iceman Melteth Brown has a vague sense that there was a meltdown with a TV star
But the former Governor Moonbeam is now Governor Laser Beam ; the only meltdown he cares about is California 's , with its $ 26.6 billion budget shortfall
`` There 's only one game in my life , '' he tells me , as we split Southwest Airlines peanuts and a turkey and cheese sandwich in a hotel at the corner of Disneyland Drive and Magic Way , where he has come to address a police convention
If you want to dish on tiger blood and Adonis DNA , go elsewhere
In the fantastic , monastic world of Jerry Brown , the talk veers toward Wittgenstein , the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and preventing the collapse of the American empire
`` We 've got to hunker down , '' he says
`` We 've got to get more discipline
We do n't have a lot of time , and we 're an aging white society for the most part , and we need to get our act together .
The shock of dark hair is gone , but Jerry Brown is still Jerry Brown
The prickliness , bluntness , questioning , calculating
That against-the-grain attitude ; disdain for materialism , emptiness and politics as usual ; that Jesuit-Buddhist outlook
And yet , Jerry Brown is very different
The Howard Beale rants have become amiable riffs
Instead of tossing off insults , as when he called the Clintons the Bonnie and Clyde of American politics , he offers dry wit
He is less coiled
`` I 'm very happy , '' he says , adding with a grin , `` I have a wife .
In the old days , he tried to get people to accept their limits when they did n't think there were limits ; now that they 've learned the hard way that there are , his gospel sells well
Once , he baked in existential estrangement , opportunistically tilting at authority figures - challenging the leaders of his party and bristling at the large shadow of his charming Irish Catholic dad , Pat Brown , California 's governor in the '60s
He knows there were sins of arrogance
`` The first time , most of the legislators were all older than me , '' recalls the governor , who is trim and energetic at 72
`` I was on the warpath against corruption , and the politicians took it like I was against them , which to some extent - '' He trails off , then picks up : `` I thought I knew a lot , but obviously 30 years later , I know a hell of a lot more .
On his first tour as governor , Brown was labeled a `` nonracist George Wallace in a pinstripe suit '' by The Times 's Anthony Lewis
In The Times Magazine , Richard Reeves noted that Brown was popular only with people who did not know him
The governor still has deep ambition , but it 's no longer cold and destructive
It 's warm and constructive
It 's now anchored in the West , not drawn to the White House
`` I have a greater focus here on Sacramento , '' he told reporters recently , `` so I 'm not burdened with this , you know , looking out there toward the East .
Once a priest-like bachelor and loner whose only visible attachment was to power , Brown now seems almost cuddly
At an Oscar lunch at the Beverly Hills mansion of Diane Von Furstenberg and Barry Diller , Brown and his wife , 52-year-old Anne Gust Brown , stood by the fire chatting with other guests
Anne did not know she was coming to the lunch and had nothing to wear , so Brown swept her off to the store of his old friend Von Furstenberg and helped her pick out three frocks
He reminisced about how he had conspired with Von Furstenberg to design his wife 's wedding dress
Was this , I wondered , the same guy who sometimes showed up in the '70s with mismatched shoes
His clever and charming wife , who served as top campaign adviser and is now de facto chief of staff , is a huge improvement over his '90s Sancho Panza , Jacques Barzaghi , who wore a black beret and made strange comments like : `` We are not disorganized
Our campaign transcends understanding .
`` Salaam aleikum , '' he said , offering the traditional Arabic greeting `` Peace be upon you '' at the start of his Cairo speech last year
The address of the first American president with Muslim roots was a bravura attempt to leech out the poison between the Islamic and Western worlds , and revive the moribund Middle East peace talks
But now , many disillusioned Muslims are echoing the all-talk , no-action refrain first popularized by the woman who became secretary of state
`` He said all the right words in his speech , '' said Prince Saud al-Faisal , the Saudi foreign minister
`` But the implementation took traditional roads .
Privately , other highly placed princes in the family oil business groused louder
`` Things are worse now than before , '' asserted one , `` because our hopes were so high after Cairo .
Actually , the president did n't say all the right words in his speech
He created an obstacle for himself by demanding that Israel stop expanding settlements when it was not going to do so even though it should and when that was n't the most important condition to Arabs
Now Obama seems ineffectual , as Israel pushes ahead on 600 more new homes in East Jerusalem , where the Palestinians want their capital , despite the White House protest in November about 900 other houses that Israel plans to put up there
I asked Prince Saud if he thinks America has less influence over Israel than it used to
`` You 're asking me about something that has tickled our imagination , '' he replied
`` If the settlements are illegitimate , the least you would expect is that the aid the United States gives to Israel would cut that part that is going to build settlements
Israel is getting away without implementing the Geneva Convention as an occupying authority
Now if it were somewhere else , in Burma or somewhere like that , hell would be raised .
It 's probably a sign of progress that Prince Saud calls it `` a border dispute .
Unless it 's just his understated way
He also refers to `` the 9\/11 incident '' and alludes to the Holocaust obliquely as `` World War II .
Despite repeated attacks by Arab states and Arab and Iranian-backed militant groups , and a call for Israel 's destruction by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran , Prince Saud suggested that Israel might be overreacting about security because of `` World War II '' and that this prevented a peace deal
`` There are no troops arrayed on the border of Israel waiting for the moment to say , ` Attack Israel , ' '' the prince said
`` Nobody is going to fight them and threaten their peace
But they did n't accept that
So it makes one wonder , what does Israel want ?
If anyone deserves to be paranoid , of course , it 's Israel
But Israel ca n't be paranoid because paranoia is the mistaken perception that people are out to get you
Asked about the possibility that Israel could attack Iran with its new drones , Prince Saud said dryly : `` Talk about changing lifestyle
I think this would change lifestyles at once , forcibly .
Hillary Clinton was in the region recently , warning that Iran was `` moving toward a military dictatorship '' and could trigger a nuclear arms race
`` God help us if we see countries with atomic weapons in the Middle East , '' said Prince Saud
`` The way to resolve this is through the United Nations .
Good luck
Clinton 's request that Syria begin to move away from the relationship with Iran and stop supporting Hezbollah was rebuffed 10 days ago when Ahmadinejad and the Syrian president , Bashar al-Assad held a news conference underscoring their ties
Ahmadinejad advised America to stop interfering , pack up and leave the region
The blustery Iranian president has threatened to bar airlines that use the term `` Arabian Gulf '' instead of `` Persian Gulf '' from Iranian airspace
He stamped `` Persian Gulf '' on the Islamic Solidarity Games ' logo and medals , spurring the Arab states to call off the Muslim Olympics
Prince Saud had been frank enough to confess to Hillary that camels were ugly , so I wondered if he 'd say the same about Ahmadinejad 's crazy rants
`` It achieves no objective , '' he agreed , `` and just creates tensions .
He said America would have to focus on social and economic problems in Afghanistan , since the war can not be won only militarily `` unless you want to bring down the Himalayas .
He opened the door to the possibility that the kingdom might help the Afghan president , Hamid Karzai , persuade Taliban militants to switch sides
I wondered how he felt about Senator Russ Feingold 's contention that America needs to treat Al Qaeda as an international network rather than striving for a country-by-country eradication
He demurred , saying , `` There is nothing wrong with keeping the terrorists on the run .
Journalists are never supposed to start a piece with a scene in a taxi because it signals either laziness about gathering facts or a tendency to embroider facts
Nonetheless , I 'm going to
David Brooks and I were sharing a cab to the British Embassy the other day to meet with Gordon Brown
The dour prime minister was a blithe spirit despite a mutinous British press corps that was whingeing about the president snubbing the prime minister
First , President Obama sent back the bust of Winston Churchill that Tony Blair lent to W. ; then the White House downgraded the `` special relationship '' to a `` special partnership .
The Rose Garden press conference where Mr. Brown was going to stand `` podium-to-podium with the Messiah , '' as one British scribe dryly put it , was demoted to a `` press availability '' in the Oval
Then the president offered a lame present of DVDs including `` Psycho '' in return for the prime minister 's cool gift of a pen holder made from the wood of the Victorian antislave vessel H.M.S. Gannet
Critics wondered if the brusqueness was because , as Mr. Obama wrote in `` Dreams From My Father , '' his grandfather was beaten by British colonial troops in Kenya
The press also conjured paranoia that the president 's `` Lady MacBeth '' had been behind the clipped treatment because , as James Delingpole snipped in a Telegraph blog , `` Her broad-brush view of history associates Brits with the wicked white global hegemony responsible for the slave trade .
The British tabloids carped that , while Sarah Brown gave the Obama girls Top Shop dresses and necklaces , a `` solipsistic '' Michelle merely gave the Brown boys models of Marine One
-LRB- Step it up , Desir e -RRB-
As blue chips turn into penny stocks , Wall Street seems less like a symbol of America 's macho capitalism and more like that famous Jane Austen character Mrs. Bennet , a flibbertigibbet always anxious about getting richer and her `` poor nerves .
The president tried to urge Americans to man-up and buy stocks
In a Times interview on Friday , he further advised us not to `` suddenly stuff money '' in our mattresses
Wall Street is weak and jittery , rejecting the vague and laconic courtship of Timothy Geithner
G.M. is verging on bankruptcy , and A.I.G. should be
Americans are confused and fretful
President Obama admitted in his Times interview that the United States is not winning the war in Afghanistan , even as he denied and then called back 90 minutes later to really deny that he 's a socialist
Let 's face it : The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama 's sculpted biceps
Her husband urges bold action , but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh , Bernie Madoff and all the corporate creeps who ripped off America
In the taxi , when I asked David Brooks about her amazing arms , he indicated it was time for her to cover up
`` She 's made her point , '' he said
`` Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning .
I 'd seen the plaint echoed elsewhere
`` Someone should tell Michelle to mix up her wardrobe and cover up from time to time , '' Sandra McElwaine wrote last week on The Daily Beast
Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality
Too much preening signals that you 're not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements
David was not smitten by the V-neck , sleeveless eggplant dress Michelle wore at her husband 's address to Congress the one that caused one Republican congressman to whisper to another , `` Babe .
He said the policy crowd here would consider the dress ostentatious
`` Washington is sensually avoidant
The wonks here like brains
She should not be known for her physical presence , for one body part .
David brought up the Obamas ' obsession with their workouts
`` Sometimes I think half the reason Obama ran for president is so Michelle would have a platform to show off her biceps .
During the campaign , there was talk in the Obama ranks that Michelle should stop wearing sleeveless dresses , because her muscles , combined with her potent personality , made her daunting
She ignored that talk , thank heavens
I love the designer-to-J
Crew glamour
Combined with her workaday visits to soup kitchens , inner-city schools and meetings with military families , Michelle 's flair is our depression 's answer to Ginger Rogers gliding around in feathers and lam
Her arms , and her complete confidence in her skin , are a reminder that Americans can do anything if they put their minds to it
Unlike Hillary , who chafed at the loathed job of first lady , and Laura , who for long stretches disappeared into the helpmeet role , Michelle has soared every day , expanding the job to show us what can be accomplished by a generous spirit , a confident nature and a well-disciplined body
I also have no doubt she can talk cap-and-trade with ease and panache
Sexy Ruses to Stop Forgetting to Remember By the time you get to the end of this column , your brain will have physically changed
You will either be on the Curve of Forgetting or the Path to the Memory Palace
Joshua Foer 's book `` Moonwalking With Einstein : The Art and Science of Remembering Everything '' - just published and already No. 3 on the Amazon.com best-seller list - is both fun and reassuring
All it takes to have a better memory , he contends , are a few tricks and a good erotic imagination
The 28-year-old author , who got a $ 1.2 million advance and a movie option , honed his mnemonic skills in the basement of his parents ' house
He is the youngest of the famous trio of literary Foer brothers , so accomplished so soon that they give the hypercompetitive Emanuel brothers a run for their money
Esther Foer , the president of a public relations firm whose parents were Holocaust survivors and who was in a displaced-persons camp in Germany early in her childhood , and Albert Foer , a think-tank president , encouraged their sons over family dinners at their home here in Washington
The New Republic 's Franklin Foer told The New York Observer that the nightly conversation featured `` its share of current events and historical discussion , and , you know , analysis of French symbolism ... but also its share of fart jokes .
Even in his early 20s , Joshua Foer was forgetting to remember a lot , given `` the superficiality of our reading '' and our `` Sisyphean task to try to stay on top of the ever-growing mountain of words loosed upon the world each day .
Things slipped his mind - from when to use `` its '' and `` it 's '' to his girlfriend 's birthday to his plethora of passwords
`` I 'm not sure if I know more than four phone numbers by heart , '' he says , citing a Trinity College Dublin survey showing that a third of Brits under 30 ca n't remember their own home land-line number
`` Our gadgets have eliminated the need to remember such things anymore .
He notes that `` with our blogs and tweets , digital cameras , and unlimited-gigabyte e-mail archives , participation in the online culture now means creating a trail of always present , ever searchable , unforgetting external memories that only grows as one ages .
Mark Twain once wrote the first letter of topics that he wanted to cover in a lecture on his fingernails
Soon we may be able to get Google on our fingernails to retrieve forgotten facts at a dinner party
But what about internal memories
The experts claim that people of all ages can improve with technique , persistence , concentration and creativity
Foer set out to learn how to goose up the 3-pound mass of 100 billion neurons on his spine and ended up winning the 2006 United States Memory Championship in New York
The basis of memory techniques is that the brain remembers visual imagery better than numbers , and erotic , exotic and exciting imagery best
So Foer asserts that you have to `` take the kinds of memories our brains are n't good at holding on to and transform them into the kinds of memories our brains were built for .
Brains formed in the hunter-gatherer era are now trying to excel in the tweeting-blogging era
`` When forming images , it helps to have a dirty mind , '' Foer writes
`` Evolution has programmed our brains to find two things particularly interesting , and therefore memorable : jokes and sex - and especially , it seems , jokes about sex .
He notes that Peter of Ravenna , author of the most famous memory textbook of the 15th century , said `` if you wish to remember quickly , dispose the images of the most beautiful virgins into memory places .
Memory grand master Ed Cooke , a young Brit who claims to have an average recall , teaches Foer some strategies
If you have a list to remember , you put the items in a path throughout a familiar place , like your childhood home
Imagine a person performing an action on an object
And try to throw in something lewd or bizarre
If you need to remember to get cottage cheese , Ed tells Josh , picture a tub of cottage cheese at the front door and visualize Claudia Schiffer swimming in it
Ed coaches him in a system of memorizing a deck of cards in under two minutes that uses both familiar old memories and thrilling new pictures
Foer said his images devolved into `` a handful of titillating acts that are still illegal in a few Southern states , and a handful of others that probably ought to be .
The technique , he writes , `` invariably meant inserting family members into scenes so raunchy I feared I was upgrading my memory at the expense of tormenting my subconscious
The indecent acts my own grandmother had to commit in the service of my remembering the eight of hearts are truly unspeakable -LRB- if not , as I might have previously guessed , unimaginable -RRB-
`` I explained my predicament to Ed
He knew it well .
I eventually had to excise my mother from my deck , ' he said .
I recommend you do the same . '
I was covered in barbecue sauce , somewhere over Texas , when Barack Obama loped down the aisle of the plane to chat with reporters
I felt guilty , because I had been covering his speeches urging parents to make their kids give up chips and Popeyes
I had n't yet come to grips with the notion of giving up Popeyes when Obama slender , chewing Nicorette and perfectly groomed in his crisp white shirt came upon me
I was splattered with so much red sauce it could have been a scene from `` Saw IV .
Not only on my face and hands but all over the candidate 's picture in the U.S. News & World Report I was reading
`` It 's on my ear , '' he complained , looking down at the magazine
Feeling cocky after 11 straight wins , he called me `` MoDowd '' and tweaked me for my many columns suggesting he would need to toughen up to beat the Clinton machine
`` She 's trying to give me hair on my chest , '' he said mockingly , plucking at his shirt
After losing Texas , Ohio , Rhode Island and his mojo , and getting whipsawed around by Hillary and his own chuckleheaded coterie of advisers , he will now have to come to grips with something he has always skittered away from : You ca n't be elected president unless you prove you 're tough
Hillary 's undeniably tough , as even admiring conservatives admit
The Wall Street Journal op-ed page dubbed her Ma Barker , saying she had tapped into the angst of blue-collar women who know they have to ignore their `` moping '' men and `` suck it up and hold the house together .
Ma Clinton knows where Obambi 's soft spots are ; she knows he likes being petted on his pedestal , that he 's unnerved by her , and that he can never fully accept how shameless she is
What could be more shameless than suggesting to Democrats that John McCain would make a better commander in chief than Obama
The Obama campaign seems na ve when it keeps reacting with hurt feelings and play-by-the-rules protestations to the Clinton modus vivendi of grabbing the slightest slip and ripping it open
Hillary 's kneecapper Howard Wolfson compares the goo-goo Obama campaign to Ken Starr with a straight face
The superdelegates are watching to see if Obama can stiffen his backbone
After seeing their candidates lose races they should have won in 2000 and 2004 because they flinched at Republican political waterboarding , Democrats do not want to watch the bully swipe their lollipop a third time
Obama 's multiculturalism is a selling point with many Democrats
But his impassioned egghead advisers have made his campaign seem not only out of his control , but effete and vaguely foreign the same unflattering light that doomed Michael Dukakis and John Kerry
First , his University of Chicago economics adviser , Austan Goolsbee , took it upon himself to reassure Canadian officials that Obama was hard on Nafta only to court the economic populist vote
In a meeting in Chicago , a memo from the Canadian consulate noted , `` Goolsbee said he has always been impressed with Canada , sharing his experiences which have included trips to Montreal and Toronto as part of the Yale debate team and visits to Vancouver with his wife .
While we 've seen book tours that set up a presidential run , we 've never seen one that tore one down
That is , until Samantha Power the Dublin-born Harvard expert on human rights who drily refers to herself as `` genocide chick '' hit London to promote her new book
Power , a foreign policy adviser to Obama , told The Scotsman that Hillary was `` a monster '' and the BBC that Obama 's Iraq withdrawal plan was merely a `` best-case scenario .
-LRB- She 's now resigned .
Ma Clinton pounced , telling reporters in Mississippi , `` He keeps telling people one thing , while his campaign tells people abroad something else .
Hillary successfully recast herself in Ohio as a beer-drinking former waitress
Only after last week 's reversals did the Obama camp raise a louder ruckus about her tax returns
Obviously , Ms. Night Shift does not want to reveal the details of the fortune that Bill Clinton has made , sometimes through dubious associations
It has taken Obama a year to start seriously rebutting Hillary 's risible claim that she has far more national security experience than he does
Having a first lady tea in Belfast is not equivalent to bringing peace to Northern Ireland
Obama sounded whiny after his losses , chastising reporters on his plane for asking him hard questions about Goolsbee and Antonin Rezko
Privately , his people conceded that he had n't been as fierce about winning as Hillary , once more playing rope-a-dope
He 's now learned what Hillary learned in Iowa : You ca n't cruise to victory on a coronation strategy
If he thinks Hillary has cut him down to size lately , he 'd better imagine what his life would be like as the Clintons ' vice president
Instead of swooping in to figure out the dimensionality and logarithms to rescue the world from red matter , as Spock does in J. J. Abrams 's dazzling new `` Star Trek , '' I imagined Spock rescuing read matter for the world
Newspapers are an `` endangered species , '' as John Kerry called us in a Senate hearing last week , just as the Vulcans are in the new prequel
I know Barack Spock likes newspapers
An aide told me during the campaign that Mr. Obama would get cranky if he did n't have some time set aside during the day to read The New York Times
And it was clear from his very first news conference , when I began covering his long-shot bid for the White House and he began referring to stories he had read in The Times , that Mr. Obama 's supple mind was nourished by news and books
You knew he would never inspire alarm as W. did , that if Condi walked too far away or his notes blew off the lectern , he 'd be utterly lost
Once , during his campaign trip to Europe , Mr. Obama told me that he had briefly sold subscriptions to The New York Times when he was at Columbia University to help pay for school , but confessed he was n't very good at it
I said that if he won the presidency , he 'd be pretty busy , but that maybe he could find time to sell a few more subscriptions
It would really help us out in the current business crunch
He gave me that wry Spock look
In the `` Star Trek '' prequel , Spock 's father tells him , `` You will always be a child of two worlds , '' urging him not to keep such a tight vise on his emotions
And Spandexy Old Spock , known as Spock Prime , tells his younger self : `` Put aside logic
Do what feels right .
Mr. Obama is also a control freak who learned to temper , if not purge , all emotion
But as a young man of mixed blood , he was more adept than Young Spock at learning to adjust his two sides to charm both worlds , and to balance his cerebral air with his talent for evoking intense emotion
Just as President Spock pledged to make hope and government cool again , Mr. Abrams said he wanted his movie to make optimism cool again
Commanding his own unwieldy starship of blended species , with Cheney , Limbaugh and other pitiless Borg aliens firing phasers from all sides , Mr. Obama has certainly invoked Mr. Spock 's Vulcan philosophy of `` Infinite diversity in infinite combinations .
And he even recruited some impulsive Rahmulen muscle for his Utopia
Many other corporations are being coddled by the president
But , as Robert Gibbs correctly pointed out the other day , a government beam-up for newspapers is not logical
One of the things Young Spock has to learn in the movie is the difference between what is morally praiseworthy and what is morally obligatory
Newspapers do a praiseworthy job of trying to keep the dark side at bay , by shining sun on it
But society may not consider us obligatory , as we 're finding out
Senator Kerry 's hearing tried to determine , in a metaphor that was whipped to death , whether there was any way to shut the barn door now that the ink-stained horse has gotten out into the virtual pasture -LRB- making readers pay for content now that they 've gotten used to getting it free online -RRB-
David Simon , the creator of `` The Wire , '' who worked for 13 years as a Baltimore Sun reporter , testified that `` high-end journalism is dying , '' and when that happens , and no one is manning the cop shops and zoning boards , America will enter `` a halcyon era for state and local political corruption .
He said he thought the horse could be lured back into the barn
`` I work in television now , '' he said , `` and no American , for the first 30 years of television , paid anything for their rabbit ears
Now they pay $ 60 , $ 70 a month for better content .
Newspapers no longer know how to live long and prosper
It 's enough to make a Vulcan weep
Kirk out
After 15 months of fighting her off , as she veered wildly from bully to victim , as she brandished any ice pick at hand , whether racial , sexual , mathematical or marital -LRB- in the form of her Vesuvian husband -RRB- , Obama must decide the most efficacious means of doing to Hillary what she has been trying to do to him : putting her in her place
Her last resort is to continue to press the `` Psssst he 's a black man '' tactic
She insisted to USAToday , after the North Carolina and Indiana slide , that she has a broader base , citing an Associated Press article `` that found how Senator Obama 's support among working , hard-working Americans , white Americans , is weakening again , and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me .
So how does Obama repay Hillary for running a campaign designed both to unman him and brand him as an unelectable black
Is the most ingenious way to turn the screw by not choosing her as his running mate , or by choosing her
It is , verily , a sticky wicket
One top Hillary supporter who is black warns that , despite the giddy dreams of some punch-drunk Democrats , a fusion ticket could backfire because `` Americans ca n't handle too much change at once .
But should Obama ignore that caution and appease Hillary fans by putting her on the ticket
As president , he could announce that , because Dick Cheney abused the powers of his office so grievously , taking the title `` Vice '' literally , he intends to shrink the vice presidency back to its `` bucket of warm spit '' Constitutional prerogatives presiding over the Senate and taking over if the president goes under anesthesia
He might also neglect to give Bill -LRB- whose acronym would be SLOTUS , Second Lad of the United States -RRB- full White House access
Aside from the delight Bill would get from living at the Naval Observatory and having a huge telescope to window-peep with , there would n't be much joy in Hillaryland
The lady-in-waiting would be surrounded by Obama disciples who disdained her for fighting dirty
And she would be miserable holding up the train of the young prince who usurped her dream , derailing the post-nup she had with Bill to trade places
As de facto veep for Bill , she had enough leverage over him , due to his shenanigans , to co-opt huge chunks of policy and personnel decisions
But in a return engagement with Obama at the top , could she really wake up every day in the back seat and wish him well , or would she just be plotting
-LRB- Fourteen vice presidents have ascended , after all .
Would n't she be , in Monty Python parlance , the Trojan Rabbit behind the gates
On a positive note , maybe she could bring back all that stuff she pilfered on her way out
Obama 's other option , laid out by Teddy Kennedy on Friday , is to go with someone who would n't be a big dark cloud over his sunshiny new politics
Teddy told Bloomberg 's Al Hunt that Obama should choose a partner `` in tune with his appeal for the nobler aspirations of the American people .
That would be smart for another reason : Hillary has a strange , unnerving effect on Obama , and whenever he is around her , he 's unable to do his best
Probably , it 's because she 's furious , always shaking his hand off her arm , ignoring him , giving him the evil eye and emasculating him , and the Golden One is not used to such rough treatment
In the last few days , as Hillary has deflated and Obama and the Democrats have dashed for daylight , he has been more like his old self , flashing his all-is-right-with-the-world smile on the cover of Time , joshing and charming Democrats and Republicans as he wooed superdelegates on the House floor , taking on James Carville for insulting his manhood
`` James Carville is well known for spouting off his mouth without always knowing what he 's talking about , '' he told Terry Moran on `` Nightline .
Obama will never be at his best around Hillary ; she drains him of his magical powers
She 's Jane Jinx to him
It 's a similar syndrome to the one Katharine Hepburn 's star athlete and her supercilious fianc have in `` Pat and Mike .
The fianc is always belittling Hepburn , so whenever he 's in the stands , her tennis and golf go kerflooey
Finally , her manager , played by Spencer Tracy , asks the fianc to stay away from big matches , explaining , `` You are the wrong jockey for this chick .
`` You know , except when you 're around , we got a very valuable piece of property here , '' he says , later adding , `` When you 're around , she 's no good , she 's dead , see ?
The best way Obama can punish Hillary is to reward himself
He 's no good around her , see
The question for the Obama White House is not whether it can grow to appreciate the caped capo who runs Afghanistan
-LRB- President Obama ca n't stand him .
The question is whether Karzai will fall for all the guff they 're throwing at him
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley McChrystal were paraded into the White House press room to pretend as though their dispute about the efficacy of the surge , given Karzai 's serious flaws as a partner , has been put to rest
-LRB- It has n't .
The administration crooned a reassuring lullaby to the colicky Karzai : that it has a long-term commitment in Afghanistan -LRB- it does n't -RRB- and an endgame there -LRB- it does n't -RRB- and that it knows that the upcoming Kandahar offensive will work -LRB- it does n't -RRB-
Asked by a reporter about the change from sticks to carrots , Richard Holbrooke , the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan who has had contentious sessions with Karzai , replied : `` No , I certainly do n't think it 's changed .
-LRB- It has .
For their part , the Afghans promise to work on stemming corruption and stopping the poppy trade
-LRB- They wo n't .
The administration is trying to delay the inconvenient truth that Karzai wants reconciliation with Taliban leaders ; this makes the U.S. cringe , thinking of Mullah Omar and other 9\/11 killers
Like a lover who has learned from bitter experience that his fickle mistress responds better to sweets than rants , the administration has abruptly switched from nagging the corrupt Afghan president to nuzzling him
On Tuesday evening , Karzai was honored at a starry State Department reception along with his ministers - or at least the ones he could get into the country
He did n't bring his brother , the C.I.A. pal and drug lord , or other especially sleazy government officials
President Obama , who last month was threatening to rescind the invitation to the maddening dandy , will have an Oval Office meeting and East Room press conference with Karzai on Wednesday
The Afghan leader was also due to be feted Wednesday night at a private dinner at the home of Vice President Biden , who once stalked out of a Karzai supper at the palace in Kabul when the Afghan president claimed there was no corruption , and got furious again last month when Karzai said he would join the Taliban if foreign interference continued
-LRB- Translation : Stop upbraiding me , Obama , you 're stuck with me .
On Thursday , Karzai is slated to get a special treat - a long , intimate walk in a Georgetown garden with Hillary Clinton - the one person in the administration who prides herself on getting along with him
Romantic strolls through gardens , the administration has decided , are the best way to move the corrupt coxcomb to its point of view
Last October , when Karzai was trying to purloin the election with a million illegal votes , John Kerry persuaded him to agree to a runoff by taking a long walk through rosebushes and the presidential mosque on the palace grounds in Kabul
Both Kerry and Hillary bonded with Karzai by confiding how they , too , had felt very wounded by a bruising election experience
`` Sometimes there are tough things , '' Kerry told the Afghan leader
Yeah , like if you had to steal an election twice
The Taliban in Pakistan is training jihadis to attack New York , belying again W. 's chuckleheaded contention that we have to wage war against terrorists abroad so we do n't have to face them at home
Our battles meant to diminish enemies replenish them
The inept Times Square bomber was infuriated by U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan
The Pentagon , the public and administration allies are all expressing frustration with Afghanistan
A majority in a new ABC News\/Washington Post poll says Afghanistan is not worth the cost
A report by the Center for American Progress run by John Podesta , Bill Clinton 's chief of staff who helped lead the Obama transition , faulted the administration , saying it `` has not yet outlined a clear plan for transferring control to the Afghan state or sufficiently prioritized the reforms needed to ensure that it can one day stand on its own .
A Pentagon report also shows that General McChrystal 's boast that he could wheel `` a government in a box '' into Marja was premature
The Pentagon said there had been `` some success in clearing insurgents from their strongholds '' but `` progress in introducing governance and development to these areas to move toward hold and build operations has been slow
`` The insurgents ' tactic of re-infiltrating the cleared areas to perform executions has played a role in dissuading locals from siding with the Afghan government , which has complicated efforts to introduce effective governance .
A walk in the garden , it 's not
When Bush 41 was ramping up to the Gulf War , assembling a coalition to fight Saddam , Jimmy Carter sent a letter to members of the U.N. Security Council urging them not to rush into conflict without further exploring a negotiated solution
The first President Bush and other Republicans in Washington considered this treasonous , a former president trying to thwart a sitting one , lobbying foreign diplomats to oppose his own country on a war resolution
In 2002 , when Bush Junior was ramping up to his war against Saddam , Al Gore made a speech trying to slow down that war resolution , pointing out that pivoting from Osama to Saddam for no reason , initiating `` pre-emptive '' war , and blowing off our allies would undermine the war on terror
Charles Krauthammer called Gore 's speech `` a disgrace .
Michael Kelly , his fellow Washington Post columnist , called it `` vile '' and `` contemptible .
Newt Gingrich said that the former vice president asserting that W. was making America less safe was `` well outside the mark of an appropriate debate .
`` I think the president should be doing what he thinks is best as commander in chief , '' Gingrich said flatly
Now , however , Gingrich backs Dick Cheney when he asserts that President Obama has made America less safe
Asked by Bob Schieffer on Sunday how America could torture when it made a mockery of our ideals , Cheney blithely gave an answer that surely would have been labeled treasonous by Rush Limbaugh , if a Democratic ex-vice president had said it about a Republican president
`` Well , then you 'd have to say that , in effect , we 're prepared to sacrifice American lives rather than run an intelligent interrogation program that would provide us the information we need to protect America , '' Doomsday Dick said
Cheney has replaced Sarah Palin as Rogue Diva
Just as Jeb Bush and other Republicans are trying to get kinder and gentler , Cheney has popped out of his dungeon , scary organ music blaring , to carry on his nasty campaign of fear and loathing
The man who never talked is now the man who wo n't shut up
The man who would n't list his office in the federal jobs directory , who had the vice president 's residence blocked on Google Earth , who went to the Supreme Court to keep from revealing which energy executives helped him write the nation 's energy policy , is now endlessly yelping about how President Obama is holding back documents that should be made public
Cheney , who had five deferments himself to get out of going to Vietnam , would rather follow a blowhard entertainer who has had three divorces and a drug problem -LRB- who also avoided Vietnam -RRB- than a four-star general who spent his life serving his country
`` Bush 41 cares about decorum and protocol , '' said an official in Bush I. `` I 'm sure he does n't appreciate Cheney acting out
He is giving the whole party a black eye just as Jeb is out there trying to renew the party .
Cheney unleashed , egged on by the combative Lynne and Liz , is pretty much the same as Cheney underground : He 's batty , and he thinks he was the president
W. admired Cheney 's brass -LRB- he used another word -RRB- but grew increasingly skeptical of him , the more he learned about foreign policy himself , and the more he got pulled into a diplomatic mode by Condi in the second term
There were even reports of W. doing a funny Cheney imitation and that it dawned on him that Cheney and Rummy represented a scofflaw , paranoid Nixon cell within his White House
`` Toward the end , 43 was just as confused as anybody about what makes Cheney tick , '' said a Bush family loyalist
Cheney 's numskull ideas he still loves torture -LRB- dubbed `` 13th-century '' stuff by Bob Woodward -RRB- , Gitmo and scaring the bejesus out of Americans are not only fixed , they 're jejune
He has no coherent foreign policy viewpoint
He still does n't fathom that his brutish invasion of Iraq unbalanced that part of the world , empowered Iran and was a force multiplier for Muslims who hate America
He left our ports unsecured , our food supply unsafe , the Taliban rising and Osama on the loose
No matter if or when terrorists attack here and they 're on their own timetable , not a partisan red\/blue state timetable Cheney will be deemed the primary one who made America more vulnerable
W. 's dark surrogate father is trying to pull the G.O.P. into a black hole of zealotry , just as the sensible brother who lost his future to the scamp brother is trying to get his career back on track
When Cheney was in the first Bush administration , he was odd man out
Poppy , James Baker , Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell corralled Cheney 's `` Genghis Khan '' side , as it was known , and his `` rough streak .
Cheney did n't care for Powell even then
But with W. , `` Back Seat '' Cheney 's Secret Service name in the Ford administration clambered up front
Then he totaled the car
And no amount of yapping on TV is going to change that when history is written
Mining that antipathy , the New York senator has been working hard to get the hard-working white voters of hardscrabble Appalachia so she can show that a black man ca n't yet be elected president
Obama breezed through West Virginia , the state he could n't charm even wearing a flag pin and promising to invest in `` clean coal .
Fast Barry shot some pool Monday afternoon at Schultzie 's Billiards in South Charleston , including prophetically sinking an eight-ball in the pocket , and then fled from Hillary territory to pursue white , blue-collar workers in battleground states and convince them not to vote for John McBush
Obama is acting the diffident debutante , pretending not to care that he was given a raspberry by a state he will need in the fall
He was dismissed not only by the voters Hillary usually gets , but was also edged out in blocs that usually prefer him the under-30 set , college graduates and affluent voters
Interviews with West Virginians leaving the polls showed some profound weaknesses that could haunt the Illinois senator in the fall
More than half said they would be dissatisfied if Obama was the nominee
Half believe he shares the views of the Rev. Wright , and more than half said he does not share their values
More than half also said that he is not honest and trustworthy
Just under half of the Clinton voters said they would not support Obama in the fall
Obama may have started the primary season with an inspiring win in 94-percent-white Iowa , but he is winding it up with a resounding loss in 94-percent-white West Virginia
`` As the song says , ` Almost heaven , ' '' Hillary said at her Charleston victory party , hailing herself as `` the strongest candidate , '' the one who can win swing states , and urging again that Michigan and Florida votes be counted
`` You know I never give up , '' she said , with a W.-strength denial of reality
Two in 10 white voters said race was important in how they voted , and more than 8 of 10 of these went for Hillary
This echoes an article in The Washington Post on Tuesday that chronicled the racism that some Obama volunteers found in Indiana and Pennsylvania
The story quoted Victoria Switzer , a retired social studies teacher , who could take only one night on an Obama phone bank in the nearly all-white Susquehanna County , Pa. : `` One caller , Switzer remembers , said he could n't possibly vote for Obama and concluded : ` Hang that darky from a tree ! '
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote about complaints of racism after a bar in Marietta , Ga. , began selling an Obama 2008 T-shirt with a picture of Curious George peeling a banana
Charlie Peters , the legendary former editor of the liberal Washington Monthly who ran Jack Kennedy 's campaign in Kanawha County , W. Va. , said Obama should study how J.F.K. managed to win there despite raging anti-Catholicism
-LRB- My father , in West Virginia once on business , found his car had been flipped over by some locals furious about a sign on it supporting the first Catholic Democratic nominee , Al Smith .
`` The point of West Virginia in 1960 is that you can change attitudes , '' Peters , an Obama supporter , said on Tuesday evening
`` But if you do n't act to change them , he could lose West Virginia and I think he could lose the country
`` He has to change those perceptions of the people who think he could actually agree with the Rev. Wright .
J.F.K. bought affection in West Virginia
`` The boss of Logan County said 35 , '' Peters recalled
`` He meant $ 3,500 , but Kennedy thought it was $ 35,000 , so he gave him $ 35,000
They put out all this money and they carried the precincts .
-LRB- Hillary has been using street money more than Obama , though it is unclear how much it has helped .
West Virginia loved F.D.R. `` because the Depression had been very tough for them and F.D.R. was kind to them , '' Peters said
-LRB- On my father 's trip , he was threatened by a man who asked him about `` rumors '' that President Roosevelt was in a wheelchair and threatened to thrash any man who said so
My dad , a detective who served on protective details for F.D.R. , assured the ruffian that Roosevelt was `` a fine , athletic man . ''
So the campaign brought down F.D.R. Jr. , Peters recounted , to `` say it 's O.K. to vote for this Catholic .
Because West Virginia had a lot of veterans , they distributed a little tabloid emphasizing J.F.K. 's war record , including a Reader 's Digest piece about his heroism in the Pacific
And finally , there was the beguiling Kennedy wit and smile
`` Kennedy turned out to be this engaging person , '' Peters said , `` especially with young people , and children talked to their parents .
Peters says Obama needs imagination and a `` tremendous effort '' to dispel bias in West Virginia , and quickly , `` because once it 's set in concrete , you 'll have a hell of a time .
This week , when the president first told me he 'd chosen Elena Kagan to serve on the Supreme Court , I could n't help but smile
I met her 20 years ago , when she took a break from teaching school and chasing guys to join my staff in the Senate , and even back then , it was easy to picture her in a black robe
Of course , Elena prefers to see herself in something frillier , because she 's a girl 's girl
Just try dragging her out of La Perla
And I 'm sure , under those robes , she 'll be rocking some Juicy Couture jeans and Christian Louboutin suede boudoir slides
Did I sound gay there for a minute
Well , I 'm not
And neither is Elena Kagan
She went to Harvard , not Smith
It 's Elena , not Ellen
She barely drives , much less a Subaru
She 's never been spotted at Home Depot or the Meow Mix bar
And she does n't have Ani DiFranco on her iPod
I recall how upset she was a few years ago when she got muscled into playing softball by some friends
She hates the game , absolutely HATES it
She cried and cried - like a fragile , adorable little girl
She said the only thing worse was when she was forced to compete in the L.P.G.A. celebrity-lawyer classic
She never watches the Rachel Maddow show
By 9 p.m. , Elena 's usually snuggled up in bed in a lacy peach peignoir , scrawling `` Mrs. George Clooney '' in the margins of Blackstone 's Commentaries
Do n't bother trying to get her out for dinner on a Monday night when `` Dancing With the Stars '' is on
Her heart belongs to Maksim Chmerkovskiy 's abs
Ignore those wicked whispers about her sexual orientation
I can not categorically assure you that she never flirted with another young woman when she was at Princeton
But I can categorically assure you that if she did , it would only have been to impress the cute guy in her Philosophy 101 seminar
Elena dated some of Eliot Spitzer 's friends at Princeton because her real ambition was to be `` The Good Wife .
But now she 's ready to settle for being The Supreme Justice
Elena is anything but a history-making , barrier-breaking , proud , strong , happy gay woman
She 's a garden-variety , sad , scary , single , childless career woman who ca n't get a man because she 's too smart , works too much and refuses to settle
You may have trouble at first seeing the zesty legal powerhouse who described herself as `` a famously excellent teacher '' as a pathetic loser with men
But just check out the Ben Smith interview in Politico with Sarah Walzer , Elena 's roommate in a mouse - infested apartment while they were at Harvard Law
Sarah says Elena was obsessed with all `` the usual girl talk stuff '' and that they conspired about how to get a guy 's attention , how to lure a guy to dinner , how to find a guy in a new city and how to avoid intimidating a man with your brains and confidence
`` It 's an ongoing challenge for very smart women , '' Walzer said
`` There are not very many men who would choose women who are smarter than they are .
Yeah , there are n't too many guys like Barack and me who do n't see it as a problem
Elena is flat-out brilliant , but even she has lapses of jurisprudence
When she worked for me on Capitol Hill , she came up with a scheme to do a calendar of Senate studs
The criticism that she has no paper trail is unfair
Check out Ms. Left 's prodigious paper trail looking for Mr. Right on Match.com
Even Justice Thurgood Marshall had to chastise Elena once when she was clerking for him
`` Shorty , '' he told her , `` you 've got to stop leaving early for mani-pedis .
Behind her brisk , no-nonsense exterior , Elena Kagan is a man-hungry babe from Manhattan like Carrie Bradshaw -LRB- and definitely not like Cynthia Nixon -RRB-
She 's been talking for months about going to the first matinee of the new `` Sex and the City '' movie
Give that Cosmo girl a Cosmo and watch out
One last thing I 'd like to straighten out : Elena did n't invite conservatives like Antonin Scalia to come visit at Harvard because she 's a conciliator
She just thinks Republican men are more dishy
When she made a courtesy call on Scott Brown the other day , she told him he was a hottie with a smokin ' little body
As our solicitor general , she 's had some notable tangles with Chief Justice John Roberts over briefs
But it 's just sexual tension
Please give us your support to put this extraordinary - and extraordinarily straight - nominee in the judicial nunnery with Sonia : http://my.barackobama.com/supportkagan Trust me - the only secret Elena has is Victoria 's
Vice President Joe Biden
CORRECTION APPENDED Dick Cheney has done many dastardly things
But presiding over policies so saturnine that they ended up putting the liberal speaker from San Francisco on the hot seat about torture may be one of his proudest achievements
Nancy Pelosi 's bad week of blithering responses about why she did nothing after being briefed on torture has given Republicans one of their happiest -- and harpy-est -- weeks in a long time
They relished casting Pelosi as contemptible for not fighting harder to stop their contemptible depredations against the Constitution
That 's Cheneyesque chutzpah
The stylish grandmother acted like a stammering child caught red-handed , refusing to admit any fault and pointing the finger at a convenient scapegoat
She charged the C.I.A. with misleading Congress , which is sort of like saying the butler did it , or accusing a generic thuggish-looking guy in a knit cap with gang tattoos to distract from your sin
Although the briefing was classified , she could have slugged it out privately with Bush officials
But she was busy trying to be the first woman to lead a major party
And very few watchdogs -- in the Democratic Party or the press -- were pushing back against the Bush horde in 2002 and 2003 , when magazines were gushing about W. and Cheney as conquering heroes
Leon Panetta , the new C.I.A. chief , who is Pelosi 's friend and former Democratic House colleague from California , slapped her on Friday , saying that the agency briefers were truthful
And Jon Stewart ribbed that the glossily groomed speaker was just another '' Miss California U.S.A. who 's also been revealing a little too much of herself .
It 's discomfiting to think that the woman who 's making Joe Biden seem suave is second in line to the presidency
Of course , a lot of the hoo-ha around Pelosi makes it sound as if she knew stuff that no one else had any inkling of , when in fact the entire world had a pretty good idea of what was happening
The Bushies plied their dark arts in broad daylight
Besides , the question of what Pelosi knew or did n't , or when she did or did n't know , is irrelevant to how W. and Cheney broke the law and authorized torture
Philip Zelikow , who was State Department counselor for Condi Rice and executive director of the 9\/11 Commission , testified last week before Congress that torture was '' a collective failure and it was a mistake , '' perhaps '' a disastrous one .
After 9\/11 , he recalled , '' the tough , gritty world of ` the field ' worked its way into the consciousness of the nation 's leaders , '' adding that the cultural '' divide between the world of secretive , bearded operators in the field coming from their 3 a.m. meetings at safe houses , and the world of Washington policy makers in their wood-paneled suites '' led the policy makers to become too deferential to C.I.A. operatives , and miss the fact that even the operatives disagreed among themselves about torture
Ali Soufan , the ex-F.B.I. agent who flatly calls torture '' ineffective , '' helped get valuable information from Abu Zubaydah , an important Al Qaeda prisoner , simply by outwitting him
Torture , he told Congress , is designed to force the subject to submit '' through humiliation and cruelty '' and '' see the interrogator as the master who controls his pain .
It 's a good description of the bullying approach Cheney and Rummy applied to the globe , and the Arab world
But as Soufan noted , when you try to force compliance rather than elicit cooperation , it 's prone to backfire
The more telling news last week was yet another suggestion about Cheney 's reverse-engineering the Iraq war
Robert Windrem , a former NBC News investigative producer , reported on The Daily Beast that in April 2003 , after the invasion of Baghdad , the U.S. arrested a top officer in Saddam 's security force
Even though this man was an old-fashioned P.O.W. , someone in Vice 's orbit reportedly suggested that the interrogations were too gentle and that waterboarding might elicit information about the fantasized connection between Osama and Saddam
In The Washington Note , a political and foreign policy blog , Col. Lawrence Wilkerson , Colin Powell 's former chief of staff at State , wrote that the '' harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 ... was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and Al Qaeda .
More and more the timeline is raising the question of why , if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks , it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq
I used to agree with President Obama , that it was better to keep moving and focus on our myriad problems than wallow in the darkness of the past
But now I want a full accounting
I want to know every awful act committed in the name of self-defense and patriotism
Even if it only makes one ambitious congresswoman pay more attention in some future briefing about some future secret technique that is '' uniquely '' designed to protect us , it will be worth it
Correction : May 18 , 2009 , Monday Maureen Dowd 's column on Sunday , about torture , failed to attribute a paragraph about the timeline for prisoner abuse to Josh Marshall 's blog at Talking Points Memo
A corrected version appears online at nytimes.com/opinion
Single carries a connotation of eligibility and possibility , while unmarried has that dreaded over-the-hill , out-of-luck , you-are-finished , no-chance implication
An aroma of mothballs and perpetual aunt
Men , generally more favored by nature as they age , can be single at all ages
But often , for women , once you 're 40 or 50 , or simply beyond childbearing age , you 're no longer single
You 're unmarried - meaning it is n't your choice to be alone
There are post-50 exceptions
Consider celebrity examples : Samantha in `` Sex and the City , '' Dana Delany , Susan Sarandon and Madonna are seen as sexily single
But if you have a bit of a weight problem , a bad haircut , a schlumpy wardrobe , the assumption is that you 're undesirable , unwanted - and unmarried
White House officials were so eager to squash any speculation that Elena Kagan was gay that they have ended up in a pre-feminist fugue , going with sad unmarried rather than fun single , spinning that she 's a spinster
You 'd think that they could come up with a more inspiring narrative than old maid for a woman who may become the youngest Supreme Court justice on the bench
In the initial accounts about Kagan , she seemed to have an appealing swagger , posing as a judge for her yearbook , bragging about what a `` famously excellent teacher '' she was , bantering with the Supreme Court justices as solicitor general , smoking cigars , drinking beer and playing poker
And she had an endearingly ditzy streak : One friend told how she would get so consumed with work , she sometimes parked her car and left it running all night
But there were also the whispers - is she or is n't she
- and the guys in the White House got all defensive , protesting too much that she is n't
If roughly one out of nine Americans is gay , why should n't one out of nine Supreme Court justices be
After all , President Obama has quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes as saying that `` it is experience that can give a person a common touch and a sense of compassion ; an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live .
Kagan has told a friend in the West Wing that she is not gay , just lonely
Even so , that does n't mean her sherpas in the White House , in their frantic drive to dismiss the gay rumors , should be spinning a narrative around that most hoary of stereotypes : a smart , ambitious woman who threw herself into her work , could n't find a guy , threw up her hands , and threw herself further into her work - and in the process went from single to unmarried
It 's inexplicable , given that this should be Kagan 's hour of triumph as potentially only the fourth woman ever to serve on the highest court
And it 's a pathetic contrast to another big news story in Washington - the resignation of Representative Mark Souder , Republican of Indiana , a goober who preaches sex-abstinence and could n't abstain from sex
The conservative Christian lawmaker is both morally and physically repellent
But he effortlessly benefits from Henry Kissinger 's dictum about power being an aphrodisiac
He had an affair with a younger babe who worked for his district office - `` part time , '' he ludicrously stressed
They had assignations in state parks and boat launches , and in a particularly delicious bit of hypocrisy , the pretty mistress even interviewed him on a promotional video about the importance of abstinence
Another case of a family-values politician thinking he knows what 's good for everybody else but exempting himself
For some reason , Kagan 's depressing narrative is even more depressing because it 's cast in the past tense , as if , at 50 , Kagan has resigned herself to a cloistered , asexual existence ruling in cases that touch on the private lives of all Americans
It 's a disturbing echo of those Harvard Business School students who said on `` 60 Minutes '' a few years ago that they had hid the fact that they went to Harvard from guys they met because it was the kiss of death with men who were threatened by more successful women
`` The H-bomb , '' they called it
Why is there this underlying assumption that Kagan has missed the boat
Why could n't she be eager to come to Washington to check out the Obama-era geek-chic bachelors , maybe get set up on a date by Michelle Obama , maybe host some single ladies fiestas with Sonia Sotomayor , maybe even sign up for JDate with a new and improved job status
Dick and Rummy are at Cafe Milano in Georgetown , holding court
The ma tre d' fawns
Waiters hover
Tourists snap pics on their digital cameras
Cable chatterers stop by to ingratiate themselves
It is n't so much that Dick and Rummy are back
It 's that they never left
They had no intention of turning America 's national security over to the Boy Wonder
The two best infighters in Washington history were n't yielding turf to a bunch of peach-fuzz pinkos who side with terrorists
Let W. work out at the S.M.U. gym in Dallas , waiting for history to redeem him ; Dick and Rummy are leaning forward into history , as they always do
Cheney is tawny with TV makeup ; there 's no point taking it off
The gigs are nonstop , and he has a big Obama-bashing speech Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute
`` That was funny when you were on Fox and Neil Cavuto called you Obama 's ` ball and Cheney , ' '' Rummy grins , taking a gulp of his brunello
Dick grunts , raising a fork of his Risotto Gucci with roasted free-range quail
`` The punks thought they could roll over us , '' Vice mutters
`` Nobody puts Baby in a corner .
Eyeing the quail , Rummy shakes his head
`` Can you believe the nerve of that dadburn whippersnapper at the press dinner , saying your memoir would be called ` How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People ?
Whatever happened to the great White House tradition of giving respect to your predecessors ?
Dick is looking over at himself on the TV behind the bar , where Fox is doing a segment about how Republicans on the Sunday talk shows praised him for his shock-and-awe campaign against Obama
`` I ca n't believe how easy it was to bring Obama into line , '' Rummy says , gnawing on Gorgonzola
`` We would n't have needed waterboarding if everybody cracked like a peanut
It was even easier than getting the bit into Junior 's mouth
Way simpler than if we 'd had to contend with McCain
In the end , the right guy won .
Dick is surprised , too , but who can tell
`` You 're running national security now and everyone knows it , '' Rummy says
`` You got Obama to do an about-face on the torture photos
He 's using our old line about how it would endanger the troops
He 's keeping our military tribunals
His Justice Department invoked our state secrets privilege to try to get that lawsuit on torture and rendition dismissed
He 's trying to stop any sort of truth commission , thank goodness
He 's got his own surge going in Afghanistan
He 's withdrawing from Iraq more slowly
He 's extended our secret incursions over the Afghan border into Pakistan .
Dick smiles on one side of his face
`` Transparency bites , '' he snarls
`` By golly , yes , '' Rummy says
`` We controlled Junior by playing on his fear of looking like a wimp just as his dad did
And now we 're controlling Boy Wonder by playing on his eagerness to show that the Democrats are tough on national security
He 's a sucker for four-star generals , ca n't resist anyone in uniform
Petraeus and Odierno speak and he jumps
If we want to roll him , we just send in the military brass flashing their medals .
Rummy knocks back some more brunello , and shoos away some Japanese tourists after confiscating their cameras
`` I hear Poppy Bush is furious at you , '' he says
`` He 's telling folks he put Junior in your care and you stole his presidency and destroyed the Bush name and derailed Jeb 's chances to ever be president , and P.S. , you wrecked the country and the Atlantic alliance to boot
He has it in for Lynne , too
Thinks she spun you up , like she did in high school with her flaming batons
He thinks you got loopy from all the heart procedures
And Colin 's mad at you .
`` He can go to yoga with Pelosi for all I care , '' Dick growls
The two old connivers clink glasses
`` So , '' Rummy muses , `` what do we make our new White House boy toy do next ?
`` Well , '' Dick says
`` He 's got to keep Gitmo open
It 's rich that his own party wo n't give him the money to close it
The NIMBY factor works every time no terrorists in my backyard
He 's got to stop this pansy diplomacy with Muslim nations
He 's got to let Bibi take out those Iranian centrifuges
He 's got to stop his Kodak moments and Commie book club with Hugo Ch vez
He 's got to release those C.I.A. memos proving that we were right to rip up the Constitution
And , of course , he 's got to pardon Scooter .
`` Can we get him to do all that , Dick ?
Dick twinkles
`` Yes , we can .
`` Besides that , Hillary
Seriously , you do n't want your delusion to put John McCain in the White House
Or maybe you do
You have no shot
I 'm 60 delegates away from nomination nirvana
You should stop stalking me
I come down to Florida for a victory lap and you follow me down here and call for a recount
Look what that did for Al Gore
If you show a shred of common sense and take a powder now , the party will put you on a pedestal .
`` Pedestals are for losers
You 're on a pedestal
I 've never been a loser
I refuse to lose
I won the West Virginia and Kentucky derbies , and I 'm not going to end up like Eight Belles .
`` Hillary , you 've been a great candidate , better than your train-wreck campaign
You 're Churchillian in your indomitable tenacity
You 've inspired women all over the country
In fact , you 've inspired some of them to hate me
But now it 's time for you to try to muster a gracious exit .
`` Forget it , Bones
Once Harold Ickes works his dark magic on the delegate rules to count Michigan and Florida , I 'll have the popular vote
And then the superdelegates will grovel back
They know in their hearts that they do n't want to go on a blind date with a guy who 's going to be BFF with Cuba , Hamas , Iran and retired Weathermen
You can bet your white turban that I 'm not raising the white flag .
`` Like hell you are n't , sister .
`` Sexist !
`` Speaking of whites , you ca n't win without them
And if you think your Secretary of Hairdressing , John Edwards , is going to help , you 're more delusional than I am .
`` Hillary , when are you going to realize that these whites you consider your pawns are so sick of the Republicans that they 're going to vote for anybody who has the 'D ' next to their name , and it 's going to be me
So cool it with the White Fright
Now what do you want
Debt relief ?
`` Bill and I do n't need your Netroots arugula moolah
We do n't need your stinking $ 20 donors
We 've got Burkle , the Saudis , the Kuwaitis and Kazakh uranium loot on tap .
`` Settle down , Hillary
What if I let you write the health care plank in the party platform ?
`` Wow , you 're so-o-o generous
Can I also write the plank on switchgrass ?
`` I switched from grass a long time ago .
`` Listen , rookie , we 're gonna have to share this thing .
`` Fine , you can have the 3 a.m. shift on the White House switchboard .
`` Oh , you 're so witty with all your stupid rallies with 75,000 people and spending $ 100 million on ads to promote one puny word : Change
I 've made sacrifices in this campaign
While you 've been fake-eating and losing weight , I 've had to stuff myself with all that greasy working-class junk food and chase it with Boilermakers .
`` What about me
I 've come from nowhere , with a single mother on food stamps and a funny name .
`` Oh , you 're so inspiring
For the first time in my adult lifetime , I 'm really proud of my country .
`` Do n't mock Michelle
I would be polite and ask you to be my vice president , but you 'd accept , just the same way Lyndon Johnson sandbagged Bobby Kennedy , so I ca n't
You and Bill are just too much drama for me
Bill is off-the-charts crazy .
`` Tell me about it
But he 'd be way over on Massachusetts Avenue , a completely different ZIP code than the White House
And Cheney built that underground bunker there , so we 'd always have someplace to stash him
If you do n't put me on the ticket , I 'll signal my faithful to vote for John McCain
He 's more fun than you , anyhow .
`` Hillary , I do n't trust you
And Michelle hates your guts
Look , the Senate is a wonderful place
I enjoyed my two months there
You 've never made the most of the experience because you were so busy using it as a launching pad .
`` Back at ya , Skeletor .
`` Can you stop talking , Hillary
Is that even possible ?
`` No , I wo n't , Mr. Never-Convened-Your-European-Affairs-Subcommittee
I do n't want to go back
It 's boring
And why should I work with all those self-hating , so-called feminists who stabbed me in the back , like Claire McCaskill and Amy Klobuchar ?
`` Look , Hillary , a few years back in the Senate helping me move my world-changing agenda will help you repair some of those relationships
In Barack Obama 's Washington , there will be no more game-playing , mud-slinging or back-stabbing .
`` Hey , Se or Appeaser , there 's another primary in 2012
Bill and I are already gearing up for it .
`` You 're not likeable enough , Hillary .
T. S. Eliot wrote about when memory mixes with desire
Politicians get in trouble when desire nixes memory
They know they are misrepresenting an experience , but ca n't help themselves
Their desire to be the person they describe is too overpowering
Politicians are actors trapped in the same part , and some occasionally feel the need to punch up the script
They are salesmen engaged in the hard sell , and some occasionally get carried away
Consider Richard Blumenthal
The 64-year-old attorney general of Connecticut , who is running for Chris Dodd 's seat in the Senate , had a fine r sum that needed no sprucing up
He has degrees from Harvard and Yale Law School , clerked for Justice Harry Blackmun on the Supreme Court , and spent six years in the Marine Corps Reserve
But like other politicians , Blumenthal added a filigree here and there , not because he needed them to win , but perhaps because those more heroic actions fed his innermost desires
He copped last week to `` a few misplaced words '' that indicated he served in Vietnam when in fact he received five deferments before joining the Marine Reserve stateside - only after pulling a low draft number
-LRB- He had desk jockey duty and organized a Toys for Tots drive .
These cases , however , are never merely about words
They 're more profoundly about identity
`` I think that lies are like wishes , '' said Bella DePaulo , a psychology professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara
`` So when you wish you were a certain kind of person that you know you 're not , and maybe you 're not willing to do what it would take to become that person or ca n't go back , then it becomes very tempting to lie .
Whether out of some residual guilt about avoiding Vietnam or not , Blumenthal became a fierce advocate for veterans ' rights
He slipped from merely saying `` I served during the Vietnam era '' to saying `` In Vietnam , we had to endure taunts and insults , and no one said , ` Welcome home .
I say , ` Welcome home . '
He failed to correct many news reports that printed his spurts of hyperbole
It may have had something to do with what David Halberstam called the `` patriotism fault line running through this country .
Writing in Vanity Fair in 2004 about the right 's scurrilous smear on John Kerry 's bravery in Vietnam , Halberstam said , `` We require Democrats to work a little harder to prove that they 're really patriotic and not somehow in league with our enemies .
Dan Quayle supported the Vietnam War that he avoided when his family pulled strings to get him into the Indiana National Guard
Yet he called himself a `` Vietnam-era veteran '' in campaign literature when he ran for the Senate in 1980
Pete Dawkins , the Republican former Heisman Trophy winner at West Point , lost a Senate race in New Jersey in 1988 after being ensnared in a web of overstatement
The worst was a fund-raising letter to West Point graduates in which Dawkins , a decorated retired Army brigadier general , falsely claimed that he had been wounded in Vietnam and served two tours there instead of one
The Wall Street Journal editorial page compared Blumenthal 's stretching on Vietnam to Eliot Spitzer 's stretching out with call girls , and called his character flawed
But chronic puffer-uppers can have impressive public service careers
When Joe Biden aped the British politician Neil Kinnock to boost his own presidential chances in 1988 , he clearly overidentified with Kinnock 's life : two scrappy , working-class Celtic kids with a talent for gab who rose without privilege in coal-mining territory
Sometimes Biden credited Kinnock and once he did n't , speaking at a debate in the first person , which created a problem when facts from Kinnock 's life and Biden 's diverged
But Biden is obviously a decent guy
He went on to become a truth-teller on Iraq , succeeding the vice president who was anything but
Al Gore was criticized during the 2000 campaign for a tendency to heighten the truth , but it was innocent compared with the vile exaggeration that W. and Cheney employed to trick the country into going along with an invasion of Iraq
In 2008 , Hillary Clinton got caught burnishing her r sum twice
She worried that her time as first lady was not substantive enough , so she built up some foreign trips to sound more presidential
She had to concede she `` misspoke '' after saying she had run head down to evade sniper fire after landing in Bosnia in 1996 , when actually she was met by a little girl who read a poem
Hillary also hyped her role in the Irish peace process
But like the veterans who surrounded Blumenthal shouting `` Ooh-Rah !
at a news conference , the Irish were so grateful to Hillary for her support that they did not mind the blarney
She 's gone on to become a respected secretary of state
With political kleptomania , DePaulo notes , `` your lies often reveal who you wish you were .
Venturing into Daschle-Obama territory , she inadvertently and inelegantly illuminated her thinking on why she wants to keep running as long as she can : stuff happens
In politics , there are many unpredictable and unsavory twists and turns
That 's why she 's hanging around , and that 's why she and Bill want to force Barack Obama to take her as his vice president , even if he does n't want her , even if Michelle ca n't stand her , even if she has to stir the sexist pot , and even if she tarnishes his silvery change message
In an interview with The Argus Leader in Sioux Falls , Hillary disagreed that she 's hurting party unity : `` My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June , right
We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California .
She was talking about the timeline for June , not wishing physical harm upon her rival
But many Democrats were upset
Congressman James Clyburn of South Carolina called her words `` beyond the pale .
Maybe a tired , stressed Hillary was giving an unfiltered version of a blunt conversation that she 's had with her husband and advisers about staying in the race , using R.F.K. as an anything-can-happen example , in the same way she fantasizes about Sean Hannity breaking a story that would demolish Obama
She 's made the tasteless assassination comment before , including in a March interview with Time
But coming right after the anniversary of the King assassination , right before the anniversary of the Bobby Kennedy assassination , right in the midst of the wrenching news about Teddy Kennedy 's brain tumor , and right in the middle of Billary 's hostile takeover attempt on the vice president 's mansion , the image was jarring
Senator Clinton apologized and , in a fairly inspired reach , suggested that it was the awful diagnosis for Teddy that had put the dark thought in her head
Standing incongruously in front of the salad-dressing section of a Sunshine Foods , she said , `` The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy '' and pointed out that she holds Bobby Kennedy 's Senate seat
Teddy Kennedy decided to endorse Obama in part because he was upset that Hillary sat silently when Francine Torge introduced the New York senator at a New Hampshire event saying : `` Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy
But he was assassinated
And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually '' signed the civil rights bill into law
Hillary knows that in politics , bimbos erupt
Tapes leak
Husbands disappoint
Friends commit suicide
Rivals get sick
Her Senate race against Rudy Giuliani suddenly turned in her favor when he got prostate cancer and dropped out
The macabre story of 2008 is that the vice presidential picks are important
On the Republican side , it 's because of John McCain 's age and history of skin cancer , and that 's openly discussed
But on the Democratic side , it is , as The Times 's Obama reporter Jeff Zeleny has written , a `` hushed worry .
Barack Obama has fused two of the most powerful narratives in American history those of Martin Luther King Jr. and Camelot and that makes him both magical and vulnerable
He was only 6 years old in the spring of 1968 , when Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated
But the unspoken fear that he is in some danger as their spiritual heir hovers over his race
He got a Secret Service cordon last May , the earliest a candidate has ever been given it
Alma Powell 's worries about assassination helped influence Colin Powell not to run
Michelle Obama expressed concern before her husband 's election to the Senate but said on `` 60 Minutes , '' `` I do n't lose sleep over it , because the realities are that , you know , as a black man , you know , Barack can get shot going to the gas station .
Mike Huckabee had to apologize after making a joke at the National Rifle Association convention about a noise , saying it was Obama tripping off a chair when `` somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor .
Obama now has the perfect excuse not to pick Hillary as his running mate
She has been too unseemly in her desire to be on the scene if he trips , or gets hit with a devastating story
She may want to take a cue from the Miss America contest : make a graceful , magnanimous exit and wait in the wings
That 's where the runners-up can be found , prettily lurking , in case it turns out the girl with the crown has some naked pictures in her past
It 's unnerving , disorienting
A particularly noxious blend of helplessness , fear and fury that washes over you when you realize the country has again been dragged into a costly and scary maelstrom revolving around acronyms you 've never heard of
Our economy went in the ditch while traders got rich peddling C.D.O. 's and C.D.S. 's
Even many bankers - much less average Americans who lost their shirts - were gobsmacked by the acronyms , and scrambled to figure out how collateralized debt obligations and credit default swaps worked
And now a gazillion gallons of oil have poisoned the Gulf of Mexico , thanks in part to unethical employees at a once-obscure agency known as M.M.S. - the Interior Department 's Minerals Management Service
M.M.S. is charged with collecting royalties from Big Oil even as it regulates it - an absurd conflict right there
So M.M.S. has had the same sort of conflicts of interest as ratings agencies like Moody 's and Standard & Poor 's had with Wall Street
Consorting with the industry intensified once two oilmen took over the White House
Dick Cheney , Duke of Halliburton - responsible for the cementing of the calamitous well , now under investigation - had his aides conspire with BP America and other oil companies to draw up an energy policy
As when derivatives experts had to help unravel the derivatives debacle , now the White House is dependent on BP to find a solution to the horror it created
The financial crisis and the oil spill are both man-made disasters brought on by hubris and avarice
With poignant scenes of oil-soaked birds and out-of-work fishermen on TV , the White House is still scrambling to get on top of this latest catastrophe
The laconic president is once more giving too much deference and trust to rapacious corporate scoundrels and failing to swiftly grasp and articulate the alarm of Americans
One West Wing official admits that , even with all the crises they were juggling , they should have acted more urgently to re-examine the dark legacy of Cheney in the Energy and Interior Departments
Monitoring the plume of doom - a symbol of national impotence - we 're learning another whole new vocabulary from Top Hat to Top Kill
We are trapped in a science-fiction nightmare we ca n't wake up from , possibly because of a dead battery in the control pod connected to a dead man 's switch for the blowout preventer , whatever that means
We 're glued to a House energy subcommittee 's `` spillcam '' Web site and Google Earth pictures of the spreading slick , nauseated by the news that once more , government officials charged with protecting us were instead enabling greedy corporations
As The Washington Post reported on Tuesday , there is growing suspicion that the money concerns of the companies involved with the well created `` an atmosphere of haste '' that may have spurred the spill
In a report released on Tuesday , Mary Kendall , acting inspector general of the Department of the Interior , described an agency that followed Cheney 's lead in letting the oil industry write the rules
Just like those S.E.C. employees who were watching porn and ignoring warning signs while Wall Street punks created financial Frankensteins , some M.M.S. employees were watching porn , using coke and crystal meth and accepting gifts like trips to the Peach Bowl game from oil and gas companies , the report said
Regarding outrageous behavior prior to 2007 , one confidential source told investigators that some M.M.S. inspectors let oil and gas company staffers fill out inspection forms using pencils `` and MMS inspectors would write on top of the pencil in ink and turn in the completed form .
Larry Williamson , the M.M.S. Lake Charles , La. , district manager , told investigators : `` Obviously , we 're all oil industry
We 're all from the same part of the country
Almost all of our inspectors have worked for oil companies out on these same platforms
They grew up in the same towns
Some of these people , they 've been friends with all their life , '' hunting , fishing and skeet-shooting together
The tragedy is that M.M.S. eerily presaged the disaster in the draft of a May 2000 environmental analysis of deep-water drilling in the gulf
The agency noted that `` the oil industry 's experience base in deepwater well control is limited '' and that given the prodigious production rates , `` a deepwater blowout of this magnitude in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico could easily turn out to be a potential showstopper '' for the Outer Continental Shelf program
But M.M.S. got rid of those caveats in the final report , just as they deemed a remote-controlled shut-off switch an unnecessary expense for drilling companies several years ago
As we watch a self-inflicted contamination that has no end in sight , consider this chilling arithmetic : One oil industry reporter reckoned that the 5,000 barrels a day -LRB- a conservative estimate -RRB- spewing 5,000 feet down in the gulf counts for only two minutes of oil consumption in the state of Texas
After `` Rahmbo '' Emanuel , the Illinois congressman dubbed `` the hostage negotiator '' by the Obama forces , fails to talk Hillary down , Barack Obama knows that he is left with one final roll of the dice
He sets up a secret meeting with Bill Clinton in neutral territory at Rahm 's hideaway office in the Capitol
`` If you brought me over here to cry uncle , shame on you , Barack Obama
You and your press lackeys are engaged in a cover-up even though Hillary 's winnin ' the popular vote and the general election .
`` Hey , Bill , please , stop wagging your finger at me
Call off Harold Ickes and the Hillaryland Huns
You 're right
I ca n't win without her
The two of us can clean McCain 's grandfather clock .
`` Goshalmighty
You could knock me over with a hair on a biscuit , Barack
Smart move , everybody wins
Now Hillary wo n't be the skunk at your Denver garden party .
`` That 's why they call me : No Drama Obama .
`` You 're a natural , like me
I was for hope ; you are for hope
I was for change ; you are for change
I took the Camelot sword from J.F.K. ; you took it from Teddy
I would have been with you from the beginning except for that little deal I had with Hillary
She 's going to be so relieved that she does n't have to return to the back rows of the Senate with everybody there snickering that she flopped
And if something happens to you , God forbid , she 's right there in the Situation Room , ready to go at 3 a.m. on her Day One .
`` Yeah
I really want to announce this quickly , so let 's clear up a few niggling details .
`` Thank goodness you 've got Jim Johnson frisking me
He 's the guy who missed all the baggage weighing down Geraldine Ferraro 's husband .
`` Mr. President , I 'm going to run a very transparent administration , everything on C-Span
So I 'll need a full accounting of your foundation donors .
`` Oh , sure thing , buddy , from this day forward .
`` No , Bill , we 'll need full disclosure of your business dealings for the last eight years
And you can no longer accept Arab millions not if I 'm going to talk tough to them about oil
I ca n't send Hillary on diplomatic missions to the Middle East if you 're taking money from Dubai and Kuwait
And no more trips to Kazakhstan
I would n't want to have to put a Geiger-counter bracelet on you to check that you 're not involved in another shady uranium deal .
`` We need to know where that $ 11 million came from that you guys loaned your campaign
And the $ 15 million from Ron Burkle at Yucaipa and the $ 3 million from Vinod Gupta
And you must spill about any offshore accounts in the Caymans
And no more big-money speeches , Bill
You guys have already cashed in for more than $ 100 million .
`` You 're right , Barack , no more speeches
Just conversations
If a C.E.O. interviews me in front of a small audience , that 's fine
But no speeches .
`` I 'm not debating the meaning of the word ` speech , ' Bill
We 're going to have an administration so squeaky clean that it makes Jimmy Carter look like Marc Rich
All your trips abroad will have to be authorized by a higher authority .
`` The State Department
Fine , I 'll check with them .
`` Higher .
`` Oh , no.
Not that .
`` Yes , Michelle
She 'll have you on a much shorter leash , Bill , and it 's not so fun
There 'll be no more Ron Air , no Burkling and Binging
Eight long years of Michelle watching your every move
No eruptions of any kind
And that big telescope in the Naval Observatory is off limits
We 're going to be a family-values administration
And in the campaign , we 'll use you the way Al Gore did : Not at all
No more Bill YouTube meltdowns .
`` You know , Barack , the more I 'm seein ' what you 've got in mind for me , the more I 'm worryin ' that Hillary 's just not cut out for this job
You do n't want her glomming on to everythin '
Since she 's almost even with the delegates , she 'll want to go halfsies in the government
She 'll want to run foreign policy , cause you know nothin ' about that
And legal stuff , because you never practiced real law
And economic policy , 'cause she connected better with working-class voters
And everything to do with white people , of course
I 've got to level with you , man
Hillary 's a lot of work
And that Kathleen Sebelius is terrific and has those twinkly eyes .
`` So , Bill , you 're not wedded to Hillary being vice president
You wo n't sabotage my campaign if I pick somebody I like , I mean , like , if I pick somebody else ?
`` Nah
Now that I see the big picture , the idea of Hillary as your No. 2 was always a fairy tale .
Once more , he has willfully and inexplicably resisted fulfilling a signal part of his job : being a prism in moments of fear and pride , reflecting what Americans feel so they know he gets it
`` This president needs to tell BP , ` I 'm your daddy , ' '' scolded James Carville , a New Orleans resident , as he called Barack Obama 's response to Louisiana 's new watery heartbreak `` lackadaisical .
At a press conference , Obama said Malia had asked him , as he shaved , `` Did you plug the hole yet , Daddy ?
-LRB- That hole should be plugged with a junk-shot of Glenn Beck , who crudely mocked the adorable Malia .
Oddly , the good father who wrote so poignantly about growing up without a daddy scorns the paternal aspect of the presidency
In the campaign , Obama 's fight flagged to the point that his donors openly upbraided him
In the Oval , he waited too long to express outrage and offer leadership on A.I.G. , the banks , the bonuses , the job loss and mortgage fears , the Christmas underwear bomber , the death panel scare tactics , the ugly name-calling of Tea Party protesters
Too often it feels as though Barry is watching from a balcony , reluctant to enter the fray until the clamor of the crowd forces him to come down
The pattern is perverse
The man whose presidency is rooted in his ability to inspire withholds that inspiration when it is most needed
Oblivious to warnings about Osama hitting the U.S. and Katrina hitting New Orleans , W. often seemed more absorbed in workouts than work
Obama , by contrast , does his homework ; he conveys a rare and impressive grasp of difficult subjects when he at last deigns to talk to the news media and reassure those whose lives are overturned by disaster
The wound-tight , travel-light Obama has a distaste for the adversarial and the random
But if you stick too rigidly to a No Drama rule in the White House , you risk keeping reality at bay
Presidencies are always about crisis management
Obama invented himself against all odds and repeated parental abandonment , and he worked hard to regiment his emotions
But now that can come across as imperviousness and inflexibility
He wants to run the agenda ; he does n't want the agenda to run him
Once you become president , though , there 's no way to predict what your crises will be
F.D.R. achieved greatness not by means of imposing his temperament and intellect on the world but by reacting to what the world threw at him
For five weeks , it looked as though Obama considered the gushing that became the worst oil spill in U.S. history a distraction , like a fire alarm going off in the middle of a law seminar he was teaching
He 'll deal with it , but he 's annoyed because it 's not on his syllabus
Even if Obama does n't watch `` Treme '' on HBO , it 's strange that he would not have a more spontaneous emotional response to another horrendous hit for Louisiana , with residents and lawmakers crying on the news and dead pelicans washing up on shore
But then , he did n't make his first-ever visit to New Orleans until nearly a year after Katrina hit
`` I never had occasion to be here , '' he told The Times 's Jeff Zeleny , then at The Chicago Tribune
Just as President Clinton once protested to reporters that he was still `` relevant , '' President Obama had to protest to reporters last week that he has feelings
He seemed to tune out a bit after the exhausting battle over health care , with the air of someone who says to himself : `` Oh , man , that was a heavy lift
I 'm taking a break .
He 's spending the holiday weekend in Chicago when he should be commemorating Memorial Day here with the families of troops killed in battle and with veterans at Arlington Cemetery
Republican senators who had a contentious lunch with the president last week described him as whiny , thin-skinned and in over his head , and there was extreme Democratic angst at the White House 's dilatory and deferential attitude on the spill
Even more than with the greedy financiers and arrogant carmakers , it was important to offend and slap back the deceptive malefactors at BP
Obama and top aides who believe in his divinity make a mistake to dismiss complaints of his aloofness as Washington white noise
He treats the press as a nuisance rather than examining his own inability to encapsulate Americans ' feelings
`` The media may get tired of the story , but we will not , '' he told Gulf Coast residents when he visited on Friday
Actually , if it were n't for the media , the president would probably never have woken up from his torpor and flown down there
Instead of getting Bill Clinton to offer Joe Sestak a job , Obama should be offering Clinton one
Bill would certainly know how to gush at a gusher gone haywire
Let him resume a cameo role as Feeler in Chief
The post is open
The specter of Specter helping the president have his way with Congress has actually made conservatives remember why they respected the Constitution in the first place
Senator Mitch McConnell , the leader of the shrinking Republican minority , fretted that there was a `` threat to the country '' and wondered if people would want the majority to rule `` without a check or a balance .
Senator John Thune worried that Democrats would run `` roughshod '' and argued that Americans wanted checks and balances
Senator Judd Gregg mourned that `` there 's no checks and balances on this massive expansion on the size of government .
Bill Kristol , the editor of The Weekly Standard , tried to put the best face on it , noting , `` This will make it easier for G.O.P. candidates in 2010 to ask to be elected to help restore some checks and balances in Washington .
This is quite touching , given that the start of the 21st century will be remembered as the harrowing era when an arrogant Republican administration did its best to undermine checks and balances
-LRB- Maybe when your reign begins with Bush v. Gore , a Supreme heist that kissed off checks and balances , you feel no need to follow the founding fathers ' lead .
After so many years of watching a White House upend laws , I now listen raptly when President Obama plays the constitutional law professor
He was asked at his news conference Wednesday night about the Republican fear that he will `` ride roughshod over any opposition '' and establish one-party rule
`` I 've got Democrats who do n't agree with me on everything , '' he said
`` And that 's how it should be
Congress is a coequal branch of government .
You almost thought the professor in chief was going to ask the assembled students to please turn to page 317 in their Con Law book
He went on to reassure Republicans that his vision of the presidency is very different from the imperial view held by the Boy Emperor and his regents
`` I do think that , to my Republican friends , I want them to realize that me reaching out to them has been genuine , '' the president said , adding , `` The majority will probably be determinative when it comes to resolving just hard-core differences that we ca n't resolve , but there is a whole host of other areas where we can work together '' and `` make progress .
The officials who actually represented a threat to the country while they were running the country are continuing to defend themselves
But they just end up further implicating themselves
Condi Rice , who plans to go back to being a professor of political science at Stanford , got grilled by a student at a reception at a dorm there on Monday
I 've often wondered why students have n't been more vocal in questioning the architects of the Iraq war and `` legal '' torture who landed plum spots at prestigious universities
Probably because it would have taken the draft , like the guillotine , to concentrate the mind
But finally , the young man at Stanford spoke up
Saying he had read that Ms. Rice authorized waterboarding , he asked her , `` Is waterboarding torture ?
She replied : `` The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations , legal obligations , under the Convention Against Torture
So that 's and by the way , I did n't authorize anything
I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency .
This was precisely Condi 's problem
She simply relayed
She never stood up against Cheney and Rummy for either what was morally right or what was smart in terms of our national security
The student pressed again about whether waterboarding was torture
`` By definition , if it was authorized by the president , it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture , '' Ms. Rice said , almost quoting Nixon 's logic : `` When the president does it , that means that it is not illegal .
She also stressed that , `` Unless you were there in a position of responsibility after Sept. 11 , you can not possibly imagine the dilemmas that you faced in trying to protect Americans .
Reyna Garcia , a Stanford sophomore who videotaped the exchange , said of Condi 's aria , `` I was n't completely satisfied with her answers , to be honest , '' adding that `` President Obama went ahead and called it torture and she did everything she could not to do that .
As Mr. Obama said in his news conference , it is in moments of crisis that a country must cleave to its principles
Asserting that `` waterboarding violates our ideals , '' he said he had been struck by an article describing how Churchill would not torture prisoners even when `` London was being bombed to smithereens .
`` And the reason was that Churchill understood , you start taking shortcuts and over time , that corrodes what 's best in a people , '' he said
`` It corrodes the character of a country .
Class dismissed
Bleeding white voters in North Carolina and Indiana , the Illinois senator headed Thursday evening to V.F.W. Post 1954 in North Liberty , Ind. , consisting of a bar , a pool table , a Coors Light clock and a couple of dozen curious white guys
Checking out what the vets were drinking , he announced , `` I 'm going to have a Bud .
Then , showing he 's a smart guy who can learn and assimilate , he took big swigs from his beer can , a marked improvement on the delicate sip he took at a brewery in Bethlehem , Pa.
Obama is also doing his best to impress hoop-crazed Hoosiers with his passion for basketball
On Thursday night , in shirt and tie , he took on an eighth grader named Aaron at a backyard picnic in Union Mills in an impromptu game of P-I-G
`` You know , he 's tough , '' Obama laughed about his 14-year-old opponent
`` He 's like Hillary Clinton .
The lioness of Chappaqua is hot on the trail of the Chicago gazelle , eager to gnaw him to pieces , like a harrowing scene out of a George Stubbs painting
Proclaiming that the upcoming elections in Indiana and North Carolina would be `` a game changer , '' Hillary and her posse pressed hard on their noble twin themes of emasculation and elitism
Cherry-bombing the word `` pansy '' into the discourse , Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina said Hillary made `` Rocky Balboa look like a pansy .
Paul Gipson , president of a steelworkers local in Portage , Ind. , hailed her `` testicular fortitude , '' before ripping into `` Gucci-wearing , latte-drinking , self-centered , egotistical people that have damaged our lifestyle .
James Carville helpfully told Eleanor Clift of Newsweek that if Hillary gave Obama one of her vehicles of testicular fortitude , `` they 'd both have two .
Then came the Big Dog , crazy like a fox , for the coup de graceless
Campaigning in Clarksburg , W. Va. , he said that his scrappy wife can win working-class voters , as compared with Obama 's Viognier-and-Volvo set
`` The great divide in this country is not by race or even income , it 's by those who think they are better than everyone else and think they should play by a different set of rules , '' the former president said
`` In West Virginia and Arkansas , we know that when we see it .
Oh , well , at least Bill did n't use the word uppity
And do n't you love this paean to rules coming from a man so tethered and humbled by rules that he invented an entirely new sexual etiquette to suit his needs in the Oval Office
Why does Obama , the one with the bumpy background and mixed racial heritage , the one raised by a single mother who was on food stamps , seem so forced when he mingles with the common folk
Karl Rove and other Republicans say he comes across as the snooty product of a Hawaiian prep school , Cambridge , Columbia and Hyde Park , and that is what led to the damaging anthropological `` bitter '' disquisition
Yet George H. W. Bush 's attempts to paint over his patrician style with a cowboy veneer was a silly sort of masquerade , obviously engineered by Lee Atwater , who brought the props of pork rinds and country music
Voters also do n't seem to mind Hillary , with her $ 109 million bank account , selling herself as the champion of the little people
The blue-collar queen shared her thoughts about the `` outrageous '' Rev. Wright with the blue-collar king , Bill O'Reilly , last week
In reality , as first lady , Hillary was renowned for her upstairs-downstairs tussles in the White House , and her high-handed treatment of the little people in the travel office , on the switchboard and on the residence staff
The reports were legend about the Clintons ' problems with the Secret Service , and I once saw Bill dress down an agent in a humiliating way over a couple of autograph seekers who got past a rope line in Orange County , Calif.
Obama , on the other hand , may seem esoteric , and sometimes looks haughty or put-upon when he should merely offer that ensorcelling smile
But he is very well liked by his Secret Service agents , and shoots hoops with them
And I watched him take the time one night after a long day of campaigning to stand and take individual pictures with a squadron of Dallas motorcycle police officers on the tarmac
It must be hard for Obama , having applied all his energy over the years to rising above the rough spots in his background , making whites comfortable with him , striving to become the sophisticated , silky political star who looks supremely comfortable in a tux
Now he must go into reverse and stoop to conquer with cornball photo ops
`` I do think that one of the ironies of the last two or three weeks was this idea that somehow Michelle and I are elitist , pointy-headed intellectual types , '' he said , adding sincerely , `` I filled up my own gas tanks .
It 's hard not to be who you are , but it 's doubly hard to be who you 've strived not to be
Obama not only has to figure out how to unwind with a Bud
He has to rewind his life
Looking across the booth at her grinning , boyish husband , she told me that it was irritating to be married to someone so comely who looked so much younger
She was smiling , but she was telling the truth
The Edwardses reminded me of the Quayles smooth , pretty boys married to tough , smart women they 'd met at law school
Elizabeth Edwards would have made a wonderful candidate herself
But she poured everything into John
And then John betrayed her
And then John betrayed his staffers , going ahead with the 2008 campaign , letting his disciples work around the clock because they believed in him and what he was running on , even though the Edwardses knew it could implode at any minute because of John 's entanglement with Rielle Hunter
Like Monica and Gennifer before her , Rielle was not a discreet choice
She inspired the literary character of Alison Poole , `` an ostensibly jaded , sexually voracious '' New York party girl who had the lead in Jay McInerney 's novel `` Story of My Life '' and in a short story in his new book , `` How It Ended , '' as well as a couple of walk-ons in novels by Bret Easton Ellis
What unimaginable stress , to learn that you were trying to make your husband president at the same time his mistress was making a baby that could well be his
And while you were raising young kids and battling deadly cancer
`` He should not have run , '' Elizabeth Edwards writes in her new book , `` Resilience .
John told her a little about Rielle a few days after he announced in 2006 , and she told him to drop out to `` protect our family from this woman , from his act , '' she writes
She said she cried , screamed and threw up when she found out
But she ended up going along , helping sell the voters on her husband 's character as a truth teller and charm as a loving husband and father
She had put so many quarters in the shiny slot machine of their mutual ambition
It was hard to walk away
Just as it 's hard to walk away from her desire to prosecute her husband and his former girlfriend now in public , while still taking the marriage `` month by month .
John Edwards 's political career is over , and he 's being investigated by the feds about whether he used campaign funds to underwrite his affair
Nobody except Rielle has any interest in hearing from him again
Americans would have been relieved if the last we heard of him was that cringe-inducing `` Nightline '' interview last year , when he made the argument that he was a helpless narcissist and that he hit on Rielle when Elizabeth 's cancer was in remission
But now Saint Elizabeth has dragged him back into the public square for a flogging on `` Oprah '' and in Time and at bookstores near you
The book is billed as helping people `` facing life 's adversities '' and offering an `` inspirational meditation on the gifts we can find among life 's biggest challenges .
But it 's just a gratuitous peek into their lives , and one that exposes her kids , by peddling more dregs about their personal family life in a book , and exposes the ex-girlfriend who 's now trying to raise the baby girl , a dead ringer for John Edwards , in South Orange , N.J. Elizabeth said when they married , the only gift she asked John for was to be faithful
`` It did n't occur to me that at a fancy hotel in New York , where he sat with a potential donor to his antipoverty work , '' Elizabeth writes in her book , `` he would be targeted by a woman who would confirm that the man at the table was John Edwards and then would wait for him outside the hotel hours later when he returned from a dinner , wait with the come-on line ` You are so hot ' and an idea that she should travel with him and make videos
And if you had asked me to wager that house we were building on whether my husband of then 28 years would have responded to a come-on line like that , I would have said no. '' She may be smart , but she does n't seem to know much about men
Like Hillary with Monica , the feminist struck out at the girlfriend , implying that Rielle was a wacky stalker
`` We 're basically old-fashioned people , '' Elizabeth told O magazine
`` So this was a pretty big leap for him
Maybe it 's being so different is what was attractive .
She 's still helping her husband hedge on Rielle 's baby , whom she refers to as `` it , '' telling Oprah that she has `` no idea '' if the baby is John 's , and adding : `` It does n't look like my children , but I do n't have any idea .
Asked by Oprah in a taping for Thursday 's show whether she 's still in love with her husband , she replied , `` You know , that 's a complicated question .
The really complicated question is what she hopes to gain from this book
In his memoir , the legendary Elia Kazan wrote about directing Vivien Leigh in `` A Streetcar Named Desire .
While he did not think that Leigh was a great natural actress , he was impressed that she would crawl through glass to get the role right
Hillary Clinton may not be a great natural politician , but traveling across the country on her own Bus Named Desire , she has crawled through glass to get the role right
She showed again with her squeaker win in Indiana that for many white working-class men , she is The Man more tenacious and less concerned with the judgments of the tony set , economists and editorial writers
Talking up guns , going to the Auto Racing Hall of Fame , speaking from the back of pickup trucks and doing shots of populism with a cynicism chaser , Hillary emerged from a lifetime of government limos to bask as queen of the blue-collar prom
Nobility is for losers
Just as Obama spent his youth trying not to be threatening , so as not to unnerve whites , Hillary spent her life learning to be threatening so she could beat back challenges to her and her husband from Republicans and from `` bimbo eruptions '' and now from a charmed younger rival
As Obama learned to accommodate , the accommodating Hillary learned to triangulate and lacerate
As he learned that following the rules could get you far with adoring mentors , she learned from Bill and Dick Morris and Mark Penn that following the rules was for saps
Hillary is less Blanche than Scarlett
`` Heaven help the Yankees if they capture you , '' Rhett told the willful belle at the start of her rugged odyssey
And heaven help the Democrats as they try to shake off Hillary
On top of her inane vows to obliterate Iran , OPEC and the summer gas tax , she plans `` a nuclear option '' during her Shermanesque march to Denver
Tom Edsall reported on The Huffington Post that the Hillaryites will try , at a May 31 meeting of the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee , to renege on their word and get the Michigan and Florida delegations seated
Addressing supporters here , she urged the counting of the Florida and Michigan votes , noting `` it would be a little strange to have a nominee chosen by 48 states .
`` It 's full speed onto the White House , '' she said
Fox News reports that the Clintons are planning a summer campaign with TV appearances , fliers and rallies , between the end of the primary and the convention , to drag back superdelegates trying to flock to Obama
The Democratic race has been a scorpion and a butterfly in a bottle
Hillary tore Barry 's wings off , and so psyched him out with her silly goading `` Enough about the speeches and the big rallies !
she cried that he gave up his magical trump cards
Wandering around Indiana , appearing in neighborhoods and at diners without any advance notice , talking to handfuls of people , Obama strived to seem less lofty and more mortal
Hounded by Hillary , Bill and Rev. Wright , he just looked sort of numb
When Obama went to an 11:30 p.m. shift change at an auto components plant here , a Newsday reporter on the scene noted that many of the white men `` were less likely to smile or look him in the eye or seem impressed with him .
In a restaurant in Greenwood on Tuesday , Obama approached an older white guy who waved him off , muttering afterwards to a reporter : `` I ca n't stand him
He 's a Muslim
He 's not even pro-American as far as I 'm concerned .
Even though people at diners kept trying to fatten up Obama he drew the line at gravy he looked increasingly diaphanous , like anti-matter to Hillary 's matter
She 's more appealing when she 's beaten down ; he 's less imposing
Even his strategists admit that he will now need to `` step it up , '' as one said
And he did that with his victory speech in Raleigh , N.C. , with a vivid paean to patriotism and `` telling the truth forcefully , repeatedly , confidently .
As one aide crowed , `` He 's back !
It 's hard to believe that this Hillary is the same Wellesley girl who said she yearned for a more `` ecstatic and penetrating mode of living .
What would that young Hillary who volunteered on Gene McCarthy 's anti-war campaign ; who cried the day Martin Luther King Jr. was killed ; who referred to some of her `` smorgasbord of personalities '' in a 1967 letter to a friend as an `` alienated academic , '' and an `` involved pseudo-hippie '' ; who once returned a bottle of perfume after feeling guilty about the poverty around her think of this shape-shifting , cynical Hillary
She 's so at odds with who she used to be , even in the Senate , that if she were to get elected , who would voters be electing
Obama is like her idealistic , somewhat na ve self before the world launched 1,000 attacks against her , turning her into the hard-bitten , driven politician who has launched 1,000 attacks against Obama
As she makes a last frenzied and likely futile attempt to crush the butterfly , it 's as though she 's crushing the remnants of her own girlish innocence
Kevin Rubs It In My Mom used to say , `` When you 're blue , wear red .
America took that advice on Election Day , and you can color Kevin happy
My conservative brother celebrated by doing his year-end political letter early
Here is his tour d'horizon : As a semichastened Barack Obama appeared at the press conference following the election , he conjured up the image of the curtain opening in `` The Wizard of Oz , '' revealing a little old man working the controls , not the great and powerful Oz
The president had to wonder how this could happen in two short years
He must long for the days when the media routinely referred to him as `` cerebral and brainy '' -LRB- savvy was never mentioned -RRB- and salivated over `` Michelle 's amazing arms .
The voters left no doubt about their feeling for his super-nanny state where the government controls all aspects of their lives and freedoms
Warning signs were up in the three elections held in Massachusetts , Virginia and New Jersey and with the noisy birth of the Tea Party
But the president , swathed in the protective cocoon of adulation and affirmation from the media and his own sycophants , soldiered on in his determination to turn our country into just another member of the failed European union - France without the food
No one should be surprised by this
The president is a devoted disciple of the teachings of Saul Alinsky and a true believer in a redistribution of wealth controlled by big government
We can see how well that is working in Greece , Portugal , Spain and France
Instead of focusing on jobs and turning the private sector loose to provide them , he insisted on giving the American people things they did not want : expensive health care , more regulation and higher taxes
He clumsily interjected himself on behalf of the mass-murdering Muslim Army major , the ground zero mosque , the civil trials of enemy combatants and the lawsuit against Arizona
His theme song could have been `` Who are you going to believe , me or your lying eyes ?
On Nov. 2 , voters across every spectrum loudly stated their preference for a return to American exceptionalism , self-reliance , limited government and personal freedoms
They delivered a message that they would demand that their representatives start reflecting their wishes
They showed their muscle to shocked elitists who had dismissed their dissent as ignorance , bigotry or racism
It is probably a product of the revisionist history we now teach in our schools that the Tea Party , a replica of the beginnings of the American Revolution , was marginalized and mocked as a lunatic fringe group by a dismissive news media
That same media is becoming increasingly aware that its creation is in over his head
He seems unaware of , or ambivalent about , the results of his actions
The last three weeks of the campaign were particularly unseemly
The vision of the President of the United States , one who spoke of civility and hope and change , exposed as just another Chicago pol , viciously and personally attacking his opponents , was undignified
When my children were small , I used to take them to visit my mother
One of her favorite lines if they complained was , `` Do you want some cheese with that whine ?
We may have to call Switzerland to get enough cheese for the presidential whines
I once had a Jesuit English teacher who asked for an example of irony
A classmate raised his hand and wondered if Othello mistakenly killing Desdemona qualified
The old priest shook his head , noting , `` That is not irony , bud , that is tragic irony .
So it is with the idea being floated that Hillary might join Obama on a dream ticket as V.P. to save his presidency
Hillary , the only member of the cabinet with any political savvy , saving the guy that jumped line on her
I do n't think so
Here are my random thoughts for 2010 : To Sarah Palin : Mirror , mirror on the wall , you 're the fairest of them all
You do n't need to run for the presidency
To Nancy Pelosi : It 's hard to watch a noble ideal ravaged by facts
We 're going to need that military jet back
To Keith Olbermann : A welcome , but all too brief , respite
Thank God you 're not handicapping horses
To Chris Matthews : Is that tingle now a spasm
To Jon Stewart : Good work and great rally
You tower above your critics
To Alan Grayson : Good riddance
To Eric Holder : Try suing the bad guys
To Chris Van Hollen : Pickett was not promoted after Gettysburg
To Jimmy Carter : You make my hair hurt
To Vivian Schiller : Too bad the truth did n't set you free - as in fired
To President Bush : A 50-to-42 winner over Obama in a mock presidential poll in Ohio after doing absolutely nothing
A Nobel Prize is on the way
To John Boehner : You are on double secret probation
Be grateful for a second chance
Vaya con Dios
I shudder to think what s happening to all the kids who keep in touch with world news by listening to reports of late-night comedians , said David Thomson , the film historian
Actually , I m one of those people he s shuddering about
I keep up on the news by listening to late-night comedians
I read a lot of stuff too , and talk to people
But I m a satirical news junkie
Knowing I was going to miss my Weekend Update from Seth Meyers on Saturday Night Live , I asked the show s news co-anchor and head writer if he could take some time out from the picket line to give me a weekend update on the writers strike
IT S SUNDAY MORNING LIVE
-LRB- Sort of . -RRB-
First of all , Mr. Meyers wanted to rebut any notion that the writers are well-heeled brats carrying Starbucks and Evian to the barricades in an attempt to get richer , while throwing TV s steerage class out of work
Mr. Meyers took issue with the Times article characterizing the New York picket line of Tina Fey , himself and other NBC writers in front of Rockefeller Center as a glamour strike , with Writers Guild members in arty glasses and fancy scarves rather than hard hats and work boots
Glamour show
he asked
Scarves and glasses
Have those not always been the accouterments of the geek and not the runway model
That s how Harry Potter dresses , not Kate Moss
And while our glasses can be a little arty , isn t that the least we deserve after the regular glasses of our formative years helped push us towards a writing career in the first place
Good point
I am a fan of studios and what I like most about them is this : They know how to make money , he continued
That s why studios and writers are such a perfect fit
Without studios we d be back where comedy writers were 100 years ago in some backwoods farmhouse shouting jokes at each other in a makeshift ring , while drunken audiences throw nickels at our feet
The writers know that they have not been clever in past negotiations about new technology , and that their work , as Mr. Thomson puts it , could be playing on your thumbnail in five years
But they re trying to catch up
Even my technologically challenged mother watches television on a computer and she thinks an iPod is some kind of antelope , Mr. Meyers said
Our request is simple : we get paid a small percentage of any revenue generated from our creative material
As a comedy writer , I am more than willing to admit that I need a world with producers , but do they need us
The answer is yes , for two reasons
First , without writers whom will the studios blame for their failures
Second , seriously , whom
Mr. Thomson has more respect for the TV writers than the movie writers because screenwriters are not putting intelligent ideas and original material in films
The huge mistake the Writers Guild made long ago , he said , was not to insist on getting a copyright
If you write something for a movie company , they may pay you a lot of money , but they take it , he said
It alters completely the way writers get treated
Some industry analysts say that the writers may be engaged in a futile act , because they have no real power , can t shut down networks that can turn to more reality TV , and may not be able to stop the conglomerates from squashing them a scenario straight out of Paddy Chayefsky
Some of these writers are living check to check , said James Brooks , the writer , director and producer and a creative force behind The Simpsons who is on the picket line in Los Angeles
And I fear union busting
It s happening all over the place , and we re not immune
Dorothy Parker , once an unhappy writer in Hollywood , had an image of the town s power structure as a block-long limo with a gloved , jeweled hand sticking out the rear window holding a bagel with one bite taken out of it
The writers are running alongside the limo just trying to get their own bite
And maybe a schmear
Seth Meyers says he is ready to take the journey to new media with the studios
Ideally , in the back seats of their high-end cars that have computerized British voices telling you how to get there and when to turn
In an interview with The Sunday Times of London , the cocky chief of Goldman Sachs said he understands that a lot of people are `` mad and bent out of shape '' at blood-sucking banks
`` I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer , '' Lloyd Blankfein , the C.E.O. , told the reporter John Arlidge
But the little people who are boiling simply do n't understand
And Rolling Stone 's Matt Taibbi , who unforgettably labeled Goldman `` a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity , relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money , '' does n't understand
Banks , Blankfein explained , are really serving the greater good
`` We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital , '' he said
`` Companies that grow create wealth
This , in turn , allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth
It 's a virtuous cycle
We have a social purpose .
When Arlidge asked whether it 's possible to make too much money , whether Goldman will ignore the people howling at the moon with rage and go on raking it in , getting richer than God , Blankfein grinned impishly and said he was `` doing God 's work .
Whether he knows it , he 's referring back to The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism except , of course , the Calvinists would have been outraged by the banks ' vicious not virtuous cycle of greed and concupiscence
Blankfein 's trickle-down catechism is n't working
Now we have two economies
We have recovering banks while we have 10-plus percent unemployment and 17.5 percent underemployment
The gross thing about the Wall Street of the last decade is how much its success was not shared with society
Goldmine Sachs , as it 's known , is out for Goldmine Sachs
As many Americans continue to struggle , Goldman , Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase , banks that took government bailout money after throwing the entire world into crisis , have said they will dish out $ 30 billion in bonuses up 60 percent from last year
The saying used to be , whatever happens , the lawyers win
Now , it 's whatever happens , the bankers win
Under pressure from regulators , who were trying to ensure that long-term performance was rewarded , the banks agreed to award more in stock , deferring cash payments
But as The Times reported this week , the Goldman executives who got stock options instead of bonuses last year , at market lows , got a windfall so it had nothing to do with bank employees ' performance
`` The company gave its general counsel , for example , 104,868 stock options and 14,117 shares in December , when the bank 's stock was around $ 78 , '' Louise Story wrote for The Times
`` Now the bank 's shares have more than doubled in value , making that stock and option award worth nearly $ 12 million .
As one former Goldman banker told Arlidge , the culture there is `` completely money-obsessed
... There 's always room need for more
If you are not getting a bigger house or a bigger boat , you 're falling behind
It 's an addiction .
It 's an addiction that Washington has done little to quell
President Obama has not been strong on the issue , and Timothy Geithner coddles the wanton bankers whenever they freak out that they might not be able to put in their new pools next summer
The bankers try to dismiss calls for regulation as populist ravings , but the insane inequity of it can not be dismissed
No sooner had the Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd announced his plan to overhaul financial regulation Tuesday than compensation experts declared it toothless
The banks and their lobbyists wheedled concession after concession out of Washington and knocked down proposed inhibition after inhibition
Now the banks are laughing all the way to the bank
`` Saturday Night Live '' was tougher on Goldman Sachs than the government , giving the firm flak about commandeering 200 doses of the swine flu vaccine the same amount as Lenox Hill Hospital got while so many at-risk Americans wait
`` Can you not read how mad people are at you ?
demanded Amy Poehler
`` When most people saw the headline ` Goldman Sachs Gets Swine Flu Vaccine ' they were superhappy until they saw the word ` vaccine . '
Seth Meyers chimed in : `` Also , Centers for Disease Control , you sent the vaccine to Wall Street before schools and hospitals
Really ! ?
Were you worried the swine flu might spread to the Hamptons and St. Barts
These are the least contagious people in the world
They do n't even touch their own car-door handles .
And as far as doing God 's work , I think the bankers who took government money and then gave out obscene bonuses are the same self-interested sorts Jesus threw out of the temple
When Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton ran , their fates were inextricably linked with their gender
If they failed , many women felt , there was an X through the whole X chromosome
A blot on the female copybook
If not this woman now , Hillary 's supporters would ardently ask me , what woman ever
But Sarah Palin can come across as utterly unready to lead the world or even find the world on a map and that does n't reflect poorly on the rest of us
It only means that she does n't have enough mind grapes or thoughtsicles , as Tracy Morgan refers to brain droppings on `` 30 Rock , '' to be president soon
-LRB- It 's W. , Cheney and Edward Liddy , the C.E.O. of A.I.G. who ca n't seem to stop the conga line of bailout beneficiaries from going on luxury retreats , even though taxpayers have to keep ponying up who may have clinched the case that overprivilege
Palin told Greta Van Susteren Monday on Fox News that her faith will guide her on a 2012 run
`` I 'm like , O.K. , God , if there is an open door for me somewhere this is what I always pray do n't let me miss the open door , '' she said
`` Show me where the open door is , even if it 's cracked open a little bit , maybe I 'll plow right on through that and maybe prematurely plow through it .
The Alaska governor , who now thinks she is even bigger than her vast state , has certainly not missed an opportunity to throw open the door to the national press this week , letting them hang in her Wasilla kitchen as she makes moose chili and cake and baby formula and hefty servings of spin
After her brutal transformation by the McCain campaign into a shopaholic , whack-job diva `` Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast , '' as one angry McCain aide characterized it to Newsweek Palin is now trying to unmake that makeover and morph from uptown cloistered girl back to down-home accessible girl
Just hanging in the kitchen with her family and a bunch of camera crews , washing lettuce and washing John McCain and his tattling , gossiping sewing circle of aides right out of her fluffed-up hair
The same McCain aides who blasted the press as sexist for wondering if Palin was hopelessly over her head swiveled around and blasted Palin to the press as hopelessly over her head
The snippy McCain snipers once loved Palin 's sassy ability to burn Barack Obama and Joe Biden with snide little remarks
So let 's see how they like the burn turned on them
She said that the anonymous aides scapegoating her were `` cowardly '' `` mean-spirited , '' `` immature , '' `` unprofessional '' and `` jerks .
She 's right
And where was the usually gallant John McCain during all this
Usually Republicans protect their own
There was plenty W. did n't know during his coaching sessions when he was running for president , but it never leaked out from staffers
And yet , Palin still seems disturbingly unconcerned about how much she does not know
Calling Tina Fey
Here 's Palin defending herself on the contention that she got confused about Africa : `` My concern has been the atrocities there in Darfur and the relevance to me with that issue as we spoke about Africa and some of the countries there that were kind of the people succumbing to the dictators and the corruption of some collapsed governments on the continent , the relevance was Alaska 's investment in Darfur with some of our permanent fund dollars .
And , she concluded , `` never , ever did I talk about , well , gee , is it a country or a continent , I just do n't know about this issue .
Palin 's father , Chuck Heath , told The Associated Press over the weekend that his daughter was `` frantically '' trying to sort out the clothes she got as Eliza Knowlittle so she could send them back
`` You know , '' Heath said , `` the kids lose underwear , and everything has to be accounted for .
As Michael Shear reported in The Washington Post , on top of the $ 150,000 first cited in F.E.C. filings , Palin spent `` tens of thousands of dollars '' on more clothes , makeup and jewelry for herself and her family , including $ 40,000 in luxury goods for the First Dude
The campaign was charged for silk boxers , spray tanners and 13 suitcases to carry the designer duds , Shear reported , adding that one source said , `` She was still receiving shipments of custom-designed underpinnings up to her ` Saturday Night Live ' performance '' in October
Silk boxers and custom-designed underpinnings
Sounds like Sarah and Todd were treating the vice presidential run as a second honeymoon
Palin should follow her own reformer precedent and put the borrowed underpinnings on eBay
The windfall would undergird her new presidential bid
In 2005 , a year after Ellie Grossman , a doctor , met Ray Fisman , a professor , on a blind date , she was talking to her grandmother about her guy
Never let a man think you re smarter , her grandmother advised
Men don t like that
Ray and Ellie had a good laugh , thinking times had changed , he recalled
The pair went on to marry after she proposed
But now , he says , it seems like the students at Columbia University should pay heed to Grandma Lil s advice
Mr. Fisman is a 36-year-old Columbia economics professor who conducted a two-year study , published last year , on dating
With two psychologists and another economist , he ran a speed-dating experiment at a local bar near the Columbia campus
The results surprised him and made him a little sad because he found that even in the 21st century , many men are still straitjacketed in stereotypes
I guess I had hoped that they had evolved beyond this , he said in a phone interview
It s like that Sex and the City episode where Miranda went speed-dating
When she says she s a lawyer , guys lose interest
Then she tells them she s a flight attendant and that plays into their deepest fantasies
As he recapped the experiment in Slate last week : We found that men did put significantly more weight on their assessment of a partner s beauty , when choosing , than women did
We also found that women got more dates when they won high marks for looks
He continued : By contrast , intelligence ratings were more than twice as important in predicting women s choices as men s. It isn t exactly that smarts were a complete turnoff for men : They preferred women whom they rated as smarter but only up to a point ... It turns out that men avoided women whom they perceived to be smarter than themselves
The same held true for measures of career ambition a woman could be ambitious , just not more ambitious than the man considering her for a date
When women were the ones choosing , the more intelligence and ambition the men had , the better
So , yes , the stereotypes appear to be true : We males are a gender of fragile egos in search of a pretty face and are threatened by brains or success that exceeds our own
Hillary Clinton , who is trying to crash through the Oval glass ceiling , may hope that we re evolving into a kingdom of queen bees and their male slaves
But stories have been popping up that suggest that evolution is moving forward in a circuitous route , with lots of speed bumps
Perhaps smart women can take hope as long as they re built like Marilyn Monroe
Scientists at the University of California , Santa Barbara , and the University of Pittsburgh have released a zany study on the zaftig , positing that men are drawn to hourglass figures not only because they look alluring , but because hips plumped up by omega-3 fatty acids could mean smarter women bearing smarter kids
Yet Alex Williams recently reported in The Times that the new income superiority of many young women in big cities is causing them to encounter forms of hostility they weren t prepared to meet , leaving them trying to figure out how to balance pride in their accomplishments against their perceived need to bolster the egos of the men they date
Professional women in their 20s are growing deft at subterfuges to protect the egos of dates who make less money , the story said , such as not leaving their shopping bags around and not mentioning their business achievements
Or they simply date older men who might not be as threatened
Even though men and women in surveys often say that a salary gender gap doesn t matter , in the real world it can play out differently either because the man has subterranean resentment he can t shed , or the woman equates it with a lack of male drive
Evolution is lurching ahead unevenly at the office , as well
The Times s Lisa Belkin wrote this month about the confusing array of signals for executive women that can leave them hamstrung
Catalyst , an organization that studies women in the workplace , found that women who behave in ways that cleave to gender stereotypes focusing on collegiality and relationships are seen as less competent
But if they act too macho , they are seen as too tough and unfeminine
Ms. Belkin said that another study shows that men and female secretaries are not considered less competent if they dress sexy at work , but female executives are
Women still tend to be timid about negotiating salaries and raises
Men ask for more money at eight times the rate of women
Victoria Brescoll , a Yale researcher , found that men who get angry at the office gain stature and clout , even as women who get angry lose stature because they are seen as out of control
That may be why Obama is trying to get fired up , in the words of his fall slogan , while Hillary calmly observes that she can take the heat and stereotypically adds that she likes the kitchen
Sirens , Egyptian and Equine Some of the women who have wanted to lead are cartoonish , others charmless
Some are smart but tightly wound
Others are dumb and completely loose
The first female speaker of the House has been dumped , and the paltry number of women in Congress has shrunk for the first time in three decades
Alpha women in politics and business are in a slump
So instead , I have found myself obsessing on two enchantresses who knew how to win - one equine and one who claimed to be divine
In an era when it 's hard for women to be powerful and flamboyant at the same time , to be uninhibited and unflappable , Zenyatta and Cleopatra are not merely legends , but role models
They dazzled with glamour , while fiercely and daringly pursuing shrewd strategies to win against the biggest , fastest , most competitive boys
Both divas were renowned for coming from behind , until those last heartbreaking times when they could n't pull it off
Zenyatta drinks Guinness , while Cleopatra quaffed poison
-LRB- That asp may be the ancient world 's version of George Washington 's cherry tree .
Zenyatta , Hollywood 's `` aging Amazon , '' as one of the commentators at Churchill Downs called her last weekend , is statuesque and beautiful , with stylish bangs and a mink-brown coat
Cleopatra , the Egyptian queen , was not beautiful
But she was certainly sensual and theatrical , glowing with gems , pearls , intellect and charm as she sailed around the Red Sea in a cloud of incense , once dressed as Venus to greet Marc Antony 's Bacchus
She spoke nine languages , and was especially fluent , as Plutarch notes , in a 10th : flattery
She sent her love letters on black onyx tablets
In the enthralling new biography `` Cleopatra : A Life , '' Stacy Schiff describes the Egyptian ruler with the same imagery used to limn Zenyatta : `` self-assured , authoritative and saucy .
Certainly , both ladies were masters at demanding , and deserving , attention
Cleopatra had powers of persuasion and seduction so potent that male historians often attributed her sway over the fathers of her children , Caesar and Marc Antony , to magic or drugs
The men instantly lost their heads , before they instantly lost their lives
I was quickly beguiled by Zenyatta in June when I gazed up at her at her home track , the pink deco Hollywood Park , with my friend David Israel , the vice chairman for the California Horse Racing Board
Zenyatta got her name from The Police album `` Zenyatt Mondatta .
-LRB- Jerry Moss , who with his wife , Ann , bought the filly for the bargain price of $ 60,000 , co-founded A&M records and signed The Police .
She had the star power and rabid following of fans , especially women , that Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina could only dream of
The 6-year-old mare won her race , making her record 19 for 19 , after a heart-stopping rush from behind , and then pranced and posed for the cameras and fans
That was the way she always ran , David explained
That was the way her love-struck jockey , Mike Smith , always rode her
I stood in line to buy a T-shirt with her picture
I eagerly awaited her last run , where she would make it 20 for 20 and retire with a record that even Secretariat could envy
`` The fans are in awe because of the human traits they 've superimposed on her actions , blurring the line between a starlet and a horse , '' Wright Thompson wrote on ESPN.com , noting that Zenyatta did not run so much as ski
At the Breeders ' Cup Classic in Louisville , which was supposed to be her finale before retiring to a Kentucky farm to have babies , Zenyatta had a late start , got squeezed on the break , lost momentum , but still flew past the boys with a velocity so astonishing that commentators were left gushing about her as a Hall of Famer
She came so close to beating the colt Blame that Ann Moss , crushed , said the mare could have won if she 'd just stuck her tongue out
`` When a horse has that late running style , it 's always playing with fire because there 's no room for error , '' David explained afterward
`` If the race had been two jumps longer , she 'd have won .
Zenyatta 's modern world began , Stacy Schiff claims , with the death of 39-year-old Cleopatra in ancient times
Quoting Euripedes - `` O would that the female sex were nowhere to be found - but in my lap !
#NAME?
`` It has always been preferable to attribute a woman 's success to her beauty rather than to her brains , to reduce her to the sum of her sex life , '' Schiff writes , adding : `` Cleopatra unsettles more as sage than as seductress ; it is less threatening to believe her fatally attractive than fatally intelligent .
At long last , the feminist icon would represent the feminist ideal of getting a room of her own , all on her own
Running for the Senate and the presidency , Hillary felt entitled to get money , endorsements and support because she was the wife of Bill Clinton and at times the victim of Bill Clinton
If she became secretary of state , she would be getting the job despite her husband and because of her own transformation in the primaries from a legacy applicant to a scrappy one
After balking during his wife 's campaign at releasing records of his business dealings and big donors to his presidential library , Bill would have to stop spewing about Barack and start spilling to him
As Newsweek reported , last January Bill got so worked up in a phone call with Donna Brazile that he ranted , `` If Barack Obama is nominated , it will be the worst denigration of public service .
The magazine also revealed that `` the former president had amassed an 81-page list of all the unfair and nasty things the Obama campaign had said , or was alleged to have said , about Hillary Clinton .
If Hillary wants to be Madame Secretary , Bill will have to put away the 81-page list and pick up the 63 questions in the Obama vetting questionnaire , an unprecedented deep probe of potential cabinet members and their spouses
Even if Bill scurries past the questions on sexual harassment claims , conflicts of interest , civil suits , real estate holdings , federal investigations , diaries , gifts worth more than $ 50 and Internet aliases , the Clintons will still have to grapple with No. 8 : `` Briefly describe the most controversial matters you have been involved with during the course of your career .
-LRB- It would take books , and it has .
Not to mention No. 62 : `` Do you know anyone or any organization ... that might take steps , overtly or covertly , fairly or unfairly , to criticize your nomination , including any news organization ?
In his desire to channel the character of Lincoln and create a team of rivals on his cabinet , Obama may be willing to overlook the array of conflict-of-interest issues posed by the rivals he vanquished
#NAME?
He promptly bought Alaska , known as `` Seward 's Folly , '' which ended up bringing us the folly of Sarah Palin -RRB-
There are Obama aides and supporters who are upset that The One who won on change has ushered in d j vu all over again
The man who vowed to deliver us from 28 years of Bushes and Clintons has been stocking up on Clintonites
How , one may ask , can he put Hillary who voted to authorize the Iraq war without even reading the intelligence assessment in charge of patching up a foreign policy and a world riven by that war
You can hear the gnashing of teeth from John Kerry who thought the job was promised to him in return for his endorsement after New Hampshire and Bill `` Judas '' Richardson , who met Friday with Obama in Chicago to discuss the job
And Joe Biden would probably like a little less blond ambition at State so he could be the shadow secretary
But as James Carville has said , a campaign is the time to stab your enemies and a transition is the time to stab your friends
Hillary is probably ready to ankle out of the Senate
The point of the Senate was to be a staging area for her presidential race , and that 's done
She 's not a player there
Her bid to get the health care issue away from Ted Kennedy was stymied recently when Kennedy refused her request to create a special subcommittee that she would head
And why should the woman who made 18 million cracks go back to being junior to Chuck Schumer , if she could be toasted from Dublin to Dubai
On the down side , Hillary would be taking over a big and demoralized government bureaucracy , after proving with her campaign that she does not know how to run a big and demoralized group of people
On the up side , she would never have to exaggerate her foreign policy r sum again ; this time , she really would be brokering peace and flying into places where they 'd try to fire at her
And if she worked hard enough and she would she could restore clarity to Foggy Bottom , the striped-pants center of diplomacy so maligned and misused by W. and Dick Cheney on their Sherman 's march to war in Iraq and in their overwrought bid to become the only hyperpower
If Barry chooses Hillary as secretary of state , a woman who clearly intimidated him and taught him to be a better pol in the primaries , it does n't signal the return of the Clinton era
It says the opposite : If you have a president who 's willing to open up his universe to other smart , strong people , if you have a big dog who shares his food dish , the Bill Clinton era is truly over
Appointing a Clinton in the cabinet would be so un-Clintonian
The Way They Were Talk about your misty watercolor memories
What 's too painful to remember , we simply choose to forget
The bittersweet story of a preppie for whom things always came too easily and his noodging partner , pressuring with sky-high expectations until that final clash split them apart
Has time rewritten every line
It 's trying , big-time
Yes , Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand met up on `` Oprah '' on Tuesday to talk about their 1973 turn in `` The Way We Were '' as the culture-crossed Hubbell and Katie
But the more charged reunion was taking place in Dallas at the groundbreaking ceremony for the George W. Bush Presidential Center at Southern Methodist University
After a period of estrangement and after circling each other with dueling memoirs , a happy W. and a gaunt Dick Cheney were reunited on stage
`` History is beginning to come around , '' Cheney said with satisfaction
After hailing W. as `` classy , '' Vice acted unclassy
Demonstrating that Bush still can not control Cheney , the former vice president defied W. 's promise not to mock President Obama
`` This may be the only shovel-ready project in America , '' Cheney noted sardonically , making fun of Obama 's attempts to dig out from under the trillions of debt left by his predecessors
Together again were the president and vice president who invaded , deregulated , overspent , created a climate of fear and intensified the class divide with tax cuts - all so recklessly that our resources are sapped just as we need to step up and compete with our banker , China
`` I was n't a very good economic prognosticator , '' Bush told CNN 's Candy Crowley
No kidding
The pair fell out over the Scooter Libby pardon
Up until that point , Vice had been able to lead W. off various cliffs with faux deference and a good sense of which buttons to push
-LRB- W. would do anything to avoid getting labeled a wimp .
Bush writes in his autobiography that when he told Scooter 's old boss that the jury verdict should be respected , Dick stared at him intensely
`` I ca n't believe you 're going to leave a soldier on the battlefield , '' Cheney said
`` The comment stung , '' Bush concedes
`` In eight years , I had never seen Dick like this , or even close to this
I worried that the friendship we had built was about to be severely strained , at best .
In his book , Bush is respectful to Cheney
He does n't even mention his vice president 's near-deadly aim with a shotgun
But it is telling that W. takes pains to paint his Vice as a mere supporting player , not the huge force for global domination that he was
This conscious diminution of Cheney makes the power struggle in that White House all the more apparent
W. writes that he considered dropping Cheney from the ticket in 2004 , but even that was n't his own idea
Cheney diabolically suggested it , knowing the Dauphin would refuse
On the `` Today '' show interview with Matt Lauer , Bush was asked by an audience member to name his most insightful adviser
The chagrined ex-president tried to avoid the question at first
It was fascinating to watch the body language of the man who said his decision to invade Iraq relied more on body language than vigorous debate
When W. did offer a list , Cheney did not immediately pop to mind
Hank Paulson was first
Then Condi , who elbowed Cheney aside
Then Colin Powell , Cheney 's nemesis
Then Rummy , Cheney 's mentor and partner in dark machinations
And then , finally , when W. could avoid it no longer , he mentioned Vice , damning with faint praise : `` Dick Cheney 's advice was consistent and strong .
He told Lauer that he was motivated to run for president because of his father : `` I wondered whether or not I had what it took to get in the arena like he did .
And he writes that one of the motivating factors for sacking Saddam was that the Butcher of Baghdad tried to assassinate his dad
Yet , despite his father being the measuring stick and prod , he did not keep the former president and foreign affairs expert in the loop on Iraq
Asked by Bill O'Reilly why he did not like to seek advice from his father - the only other American president who went to war with Saddam - W. offered a nonsensical answer that simply underscored his perpetual fear of being overshadowed by his dad
`` He knew that I had better information at the time than he would have known , '' W. said , adding that when `` the heat '' is on `` you tend to seek out the advice of the people closest to you .
He also talked as usual about how close he and his dad are , which makes the whole thing even weirder
As Barbra sang on `` Oprah '' : If we had the chance to do it all again , tell me , would we
Could we
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction : An earlier version of this column misstated the type of gun used by Vice President Dick Cheney
It was a shotgun , not a hunting rifle
Palin is so determinedly American that , when she went into labor with Willow on the Fourth of July while kayaking on Memory Lake in Wasilla , she writes , `` I so wanted a patriotic baby that I paddled as hard as I could to speed up the contractions , but she held out until the next day .
I approached reading her book with trepidation , worried I might learn that I am not a real American , dang it , just another dreaded , jaded `` enlightened elite .
I was born and live in Washington , D.C. , after all
Now you 'd think that this would be a rather patriotic city to call home , but Palin paints it as a cross between Sodom and Dante 's Fifth Circle
Here is what the former Alaska governor censoriously writes about `` shenanigans '' in two capital cities : `` Politically , Juneau always had a reputation for being a lot like Animal House : drinking and bowling , drunken brawls , countless affairs , and garden variety lunchtime trysts
It 's been known at times to be like a frat house filled with freshmen away from their parents for the very first time
At other times , the capital city 's underside was even darker : clandestine political liaisons and secret meetings , unethical deeds and downright illegal acts .
She concludes : `` In short , it was a lot like Washington , D.C. '' Indeed , Sarah explains that the reason she wanted to join the McCain campaign was because she and Todd could contribute something rare and special : `` We are everyday Americans .
`` We felt our very normalcy , our status as ordinary Americans , '' she writes , `` could be a much-needed fresh breeze blowing into Washington , D.C. '' It is also real hard to be a real , ordinary , hard-working American if you are part of `` what used to be called ` mainstream ' national media , '' as Sarah scornfully writes
`` The time has come to acknowledge that it is counterfeit objectivity the liberal media try to sell consumers , '' she says
`` A period in the great American experiment has passed .
I was beginning to panic
I pored over the book to see if there was anything that I shared in common with this apotheosis of traditional American values
We both had what Palin calls `` a love of the written word '' and we both won Veterans of Foreign Wars writing contests as children
We both read `` The Wonderful Wizard of Oz '' and `` Animal Farm .
We both came from families that loved Ronald Reagan , drove Ramblers and watched `` The Lawrence Welk Show '' and `` The Wonderful World of Disney '' on Sunday nights
Palin 's father offered to let her hold some moose eyes
My dad came from Ireland , where they ate sheep eyes soup
Sarah and I both banged on the upright piano in the living room and twirled around to `` The Sound of Music .
We both grew up loving Hershey 's bars and bacon and steak
As Sarah explains her carnivore philosophy : `` I always remind people from outside our state that there 's plenty of room for all Alaska 's animals right next to the mashed potatoes .
She hunted moose , and I hunted for Bullwinkle on TV
We both belonged to the scouts , were baby sitters and kept diaries
-LRB- Of course , I was writing about making Jiffy Pop , and she , stacking firewood .
We both now have stressful lives where we sometimes , as she puts it , want `` a wife '' to organize things
And we both went through an Ann Taylor period before discovering Dolce & Gabbana at consignment shops
I can empathize with Palin , bless her heart , when she observes : `` After a while some of the giddy gets knocked right out of you .
I must be somewhat American because I agreed with Palin that she was undercut by Nicolle Wallace , one of the aides sent by John McCain to do the `` My Fair Lady '' makeover
Wallace had had a contract at CBS News and was determined to get the big interview for Katie Couric , even if it meant leading the lamb to slaughter , telling Palin that `` the Perky One , '' as Palin called Couric , was insecure -LRB- presumably because of her low ratings -RRB- and that she would do a short-and-sweet chat about balancing motherhood and a career
But Palin should have been smart enough to know that Couric has had a reputation for decades for being a tough interviewer , and that she was n't going to whiff on a chance like that
And despite Palin 's all-American paranoia , it is common practice to ask presidential candidates what they read
I also agree with Palin that the McCain high command should not have barred the Palin kids , including media darling Piper , from the stage the night of McCain 's concession speech
Nobody puts Piper in a corner
The ex-president was irritated , friends said , at all the unflattering comparisons between his slow , stumbling transition and Obama 's smooth , swift one
As Karen Tumulty wrote in Time , `` Obama has been quicker off the blocks in setting up his government than any of his recent predecessors were , particularly Bill Clinton , who did not announce a single major appointment until mid-December .
And as John Podesta , Clinton 's chief of staff who 's now the chief of Obama 's transition team , told NPR : `` President Clinton recognizes that , I think , he struggled at the beginning because he waited and named his White House staff quite late .
Just as Bill elevated his sprawling , chaotic personality into a management style , so Barry is elevating his spare , calm personality into a management style
But then Obama surprised Bill and Hillary by offering her a chance at the secretary of state job
Maybe because the Clintonian perspective on anyone who opposes them tends to be paranoid , the couple was n't expecting such a magnanimous move and they were pleased to be drawn back in from the margins
`` This , '' said one who knows Bill , `` allows him not to be angry .
At least Bill has the satisfaction of seeing that he has roiled the previously serene and joyous Obamaland
It may be Obama 's very willingness to take the albatross of Bill from around Hillary 's neck and sling it around his own that impresses Bill
Obama is overlooking all his cherished dictums against drama and leaking and his lofty vetting standards to try and create a situation where the country can benefit from the talent of the Clintons while curbing their cheesy excesses , like their endless cash flow from foreigners
And in turn , Bill is doing all he can he 's disclosing sketchy donors and business interests and figuring out how he could curb his global gallivanting to have fewer conflicts of interest to help his wife get the job
It says it all that , at the moment Washington became obsessed with news that Hillary was a contender for State , Bill was getting a half-million for an hour 's worth of chat sponsored by the National Bank of Kuwait , delivered from behind a podium with a camel and Arabic lettering on it
Last year , Bill made $ 10.1 million in speaking fees
If Hillary gets to be the Mistress of Foggy Bottom , Bill 's guilt over his primary tirades , which hindered her chances of becoming president , would be alleviated
But 42 will probably always be somewhat steamed at 44
Not only because of the Obama camp calling him out on his racially coded poison darts in South Carolina
Bill is surely jealous that his Democratic successor got a majority of the popular vote with 53 percent ; he always was fixated on the idea that , because Ross Perot was a pull on the vote and Bill only got 43 percent , he did not have a mandate , and he thought that emboldened Tom DeLay and the Republicans to start investigating him
After 9\/11 , Bill wistfully said that he wished he could have been a president during an epic global crisis
And , seeing Obama pictured on the cover of Time as the new F.D.R. , he will certainly fret that the younger pol will eclipse the Clinton era , which devolved into small-bore issues and the inane impeachment battle
Some critics say Hillary does n't have the foreign-policy chops for the job
But she would stop the pompous John Kerry from getting it , and that is a formidable recommendation
-LRB- You know he just wants to swan around in those striped pants .
One person who famously opposed Hillary 's presidential bid thinks she 'd make a great secretary of state
`` She 's smart and tough , a lot better than any of the old hacks like Holbrooke , Albright , etc. , '' says David Geffen
`` Barack Obama is going to run policy , and Hillary will be an effective communicator
It also takes Bill out of the game
It completely turns him into an ally and probably a help to both of them
I think Obama is very smart to get as many smart people into the room as he can , to bring in Rahm and keep Lieberman and get Hillary into the cabinet
It brings an enormous amount of good will his way , and he 's going to need every ounce of it , given the wars and financial catastrophe America is facing
It 's getting bleaker every day
There are many , many , many more bubbles to burst .
But why support Hillary for Madam Secretary if you do n't support her for Madam President
`` I do n't think they 're the same job at all , do you ?
he replied
I told him I agreed
On the tarmac in the darkness , he stood at attention , saluting , as 18 flag-draped cases were taken off an Air Force C-17 and carried to Port Mortuary by military teams in camouflage fatigues and black berets
The Halloween-eve parade of death included casualties from America 's most horrific day in Afghanistan in four years , and its bloodiest month of the war
It may have been a photo op , another way Obama could show he was not W. , the president who started the Iraq war in a haze of fakery and then declined to ever confront the reality of its dead
Certainly , as Obama tries to figure out how to avoid being a war president when he 's saddled with two wars , he wants as much military cred in the bank as he can get
But it was also a genuinely poignant moment
It is how we want our presidents to behave , doing the humane thing especially when it 's hard
And Obama , who called it `` a sobering reminder '' of sacrifices made , signaled to Americans that he will resist blinders as he grapples with the byzantine , seemingly bottomless conflicts he inherited
Leave it to Liz Cheney , in her continuing bid to out-Cheney her scary dad , to suggest that Obama is a crass publicity-seeker
`` I think that what President Bush used to do is do it without the cameras , '' she told a Fox News radio host
She 's right : There were no press cameras at Dover in the previous administration
There was also no W. While Bush occasionally visited the wounded and the families of those killed , he never went to Dover to salute the fallen
And he barred any media coverage of it , trying to airbrush the evidence that the wars he started were not the cakewalks he had promised
He did not attend a single funeral
It reflected an emotional and spiritual smallness typical of his administration , like Donald Rumsfeld signing letters to families of dead troops with an autopen and Paul Wolfowitz understating the number of war dead
Dona Griffin of Terre Haute , Ind. , the mother of Army Sgt. Dale Griffin , who was among those Obama saluted , appreciated the president 's presence
`` Unless we can see the images and look into the eyes and the faces of those that are sacrificing , we forget , '' she said on `` Good Morning America .
As Obama conducts his White House seminar on war , Dick Cheney accuses him of dithering
He and W. not only did n't dither before Iraq , they never bothered to ask `` Whither ?
Debate and due diligence were for sissies
Far more fun playing Jove , heedlessly throwing thunderbolts
President Obama bore witness just as he is deciding whether to accede to Gen. Stanley McChrystal 's request for up to 80,000 more troops in Afghanistan
He should keep in mind Cyrus Vance 's warning before President Carter decided to send a Delta team to rescue the Iranian hostages -LRB- an ill-fated decision that provoked Vance 's resignation as secretary of state -RRB-
`` Generals will rarely tell you they ca n't do something , '' he said
`` This is a complex damn operation , and I have n't forgotten the old saying from my Pentagon days that in the military , anything that can go wrong will go wrong .
Barack Obama , the wunderkind who came out of nowhere to win the presidency , was supposed to push America out of the ditch and into a glittering future
But modernity is elusive when you 're in a time machine to the 14th century called Afghanistan
The tableau of Obama at Dover evoked the last line of `` The Great Gatsby : '' `` So we beat on , boats against the current , borne back ceaselessly into the past .
As Obama comforted families at a tragic moment , he also had to contemplate a tragic dimension of his own presidency : It 's nice to talk about change , but you ca n't wipe away yesterday
Obama wants to be the cosmopolitan president of the world , and social engineer at home to improve the lives of Americans
But what he had in mind for renovating American society hinged on spending a lot of money on energy , education , the environment and health care
Instead , he has been trapped in the money pits of a recession and two wars
For now , the man who promised revolution will have to settle for managing adversity
It is , as Yogi Berra said , `` d j vu all over again .
Most of the time , Barack Obama seems like he s boxing in the wrong weight class
But Monday in Fort Dodge , Iowa , he delivered an unscripted jab that was a beaut
At a news conference , the Illinois senator was asked about Hillary Clinton s attack on his qualifications
Making an economic speech in Knoxville , Iowa , earlier that day , the New York senator had touted her own know-how , saying that there is one job we can t afford on-the-job training for that s the job of our next president
Her aides confirmed that she was referring to Obama
Pressed to respond , Obama offered a zinger feathered with amused disdain : My understanding was that she wasn t Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration , so I don t know exactly what experiences she s claiming
Everybody laughed , including Obama
It took him nine months , but he finally found the perfect pitch to make a trenchant point
Her Democratic rivals had meekly gone along , accepting her self-portrait as a former co-president who gets to take credit for everything important Bill Clinton did in the 90s
But she was not elected or appointed to a position that needed Senate confirmation
And the part of the Clinton administration that worked best the economy , stupid was run by Robert Rubin
Hillary did not show good judgment in her areas of influence the legal fiefdom , health care and running oppo-campaigns against Bill s galpals
She went on some first lady jaunts and made a good speech at a U.N. women s conference in Beijing
But she was certainly not , as her top Iowa supporter , former governor Tom Vilsack claimed yesterday on MSNBC , the face of the administration in foreign affairs
She was a top adviser who had a Nixonian bent for secrecy and a knack for hard-core politicking
But if running a great war room qualified you for president , Carville and Stephanopoulos would be leading the pack
Obama s one-liner evoked something that rubs some people the wrong way about Hillary
Getting ahead through connections is common in life
But Hillary cloaks her nepotism in feminism
She hasn t accomplished anything on her own since getting admitted to Yale Law , wrote Joan Di Cola , a Boston lawyer , in a letter to The Wall Street Journal this week , adding : She isn t Dianne Feinstein , who spent years as mayor of San Francisco before becoming a senator , or Nancy Pelosi , who became Madam Speaker on the strength of her political abilities
All Hillary is , is Mrs. Clinton
She became a partner at the Rose Law Firm because of that , senator of New York because of that , and -LRB- heaven help us -RRB- she could become president because of that
The Clinton campaign in Iowa is in a panic
Obama has been closing the gap with women and her ginning up of gender has lost her male votes
Speaking around Iowa this week , Obama made the point that his exotic upbringing , family in Kenya and years as an outsider allow him to see the world with more understanding , and helped form his judgment about resisting the Iraq war
I spent four years living overseas when I was a child living in Southeast Asia , he said
If you don t understand these cultures then it s very hard for you to make good foreign policy decisions
Foreign policy is all about judgment
President Bush is not so enamored of Obama s foreign policy judgment
He gave a plug to Hillary on ABC News last night , calling her a formidable candidate , even under pressure , who understands the klieg lights
Asked by Charles Gibson about Obama s offer to meet without preconditions with the leaders of Cuba , Venezuela and North Korea , W. declared it odd foreign policy
Laura Bush also gave Hillary a sisterly and dynastic plug when she told the anchor that living in the White House and meeting people everywhere would be very helpful to a first lady trading up
Though he did not mention the quick color me experienced trip Hillary took with some Senate colleagues to Iraq and Afghanistan just before she started running , Obama might have been thinking of it when he mocked Kabuki Congressional junkets : You get picked up at the airport by a state convoy and a security detail
They drive you over to the ambassador s house and you get lunch
Then you go take a tour of some factory or some school
Children do a native dance
Hillary pounced , knowing that her chief rival s foreign policy r sum is as slender as his physique , once more conjuring a childish Obama
She brazenly borrowed Republican talking points , even though she accused John Edwards of throwing mud that was right out of the Republican playbook
With all due respect , she told a crowd in Iowa
I don t think living in a foreign country between the ages of 6 and 10 is foreign policy experience
But is living in the White House between the ages of 45 and 53 foreign policy experience
Nuking the White House But there was the one formerly known as `` The One '' sitting at a table with a bunch of old , white , Republican dudes , choosing the most abstruse issue on the agenda for his moment to Man Up
With Republicans treating the president like a dirt sandwich and Democrats begging the president to throw a knuckle sandwich , Obama drew his line in the sand on telemetry
The Start arms treaty used to be a chance for American presidents to stare down the Russians
Now it 's a chance for a Democratic president , albeit belatedly , to stare down the Republicans
The administration dilly-dallied for months on New Start , which should have been a no-brainer , even after it was clear that Senator Jon Kyl was a problem and needed to be cultivated , and even after it was clear that Republicans were on track to grab some power back
But faced with the treaty 's unraveling , with possible deleterious consequences for sanctions on Iran and supply lines for our troops in Afghanistan , Obama had no choice
Even if the treaty does n't much affect our strategic security , it affects the relationship with Russia and our standing in the world
And resetting the relationship with Russia , with his buddy Dmitri , is the president 's only significant foreign policy accomplishment
Besides , a man who won the Nobel Peace Prize on layaway does n't want to be responsible for any loose Russian nukes ending up in the crazy ` Stans
As Richard Wolffe notes in his new book , `` Revival : The Struggle for Survival Inside the Obama White House , '' the president drove Rahm Emanuel crazy by spending his first months in office toiling on the details of Start when the chief of staff was trying to get him to focus on the economy and his domestic agenda
Nuclear arms control , Wolffe writes , was one of Obama 's first interests as a student at Columbia University
And his head is still in those wonky clouds
`` Most people do n't really give a pig 's patootie about a nuclear arms deal with Russia , '' James Carville told reporters last week
But he agreed that the president needed to get out of his spineless spiral , even repeating his put-down from the Democratic primaries , that if Hillary gave Barry one of her spheres of testicular fortitude , `` they 'd both have two .
Just as Bill Clinton once snatched welfare reform from the Republicans , now President Obama is playing W. 's national security card against the Republicans
It would have been nice if Obama had made his tough stand earlier , on tax cuts or `` do n't ask , do n't tell .
And since he does n't have the votes yet , he risks losing and taking a second shellacking
Popeye pulling out the spinach too late
Still , if the president calls the Republicans ' bluff and makes them vote against ratification , they look petty
Is it worth risking the obliteration of the world to obliterate Obama 's second term
In The Washington Post recently , Robert Kagan advised his fellow conservatives to show maturity and readiness to govern : `` Blocking the treaty will produce three unfortunate results : It will strengthen Vladimir Putin , let the Obama administration off the hook when Russia misbehaves and set up Republicans as the fall guy if and when U.S.-Russian relations go south .
Senator Richard Lugar , the only Republican so far willing to vote with the president , was blunt in warning Kyl of the danger of playing politics with nukes
His message underscored the hypocrisy of Republicans who shriek at the Iranians building a nuclear bomb while shrugging at the thousands of nukes that the Russians have floating around
`` One of those warheads - and there were 13,300 originally - one of them could demolish my city of Indianapolis , '' Lugar told Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC
The president and his advisers have been moping since the election
Richard Wolffe says the fourth-quarter player in the Oval , who has struggled to figure out whether he 's an insider or an outsider , aims to position himself as a statesman
He wants to come across as the grown-up in the room , disciplining puerile Republicans who would `` mess with nuclear weapons and screw up alliances .
The Republicans may help Obama if they act so vindictive , entitled and puffed up that they turn off the voters who just anointed them
Sarah Palin 's fans have hijacked what is supposed to be a fun talent contest , `` Dancing With the Stars , '' and turned it into an annoying straw vote for the Palin family
And on Friday , as Americans were rebelling against groping airport pat-downs , the soon-to-be speaker of the House , who was supposed to travel like real Americans , put himself above the madding crowd
The Times 's Jeff Zeleny was on the scene and reported that John Boehner did not wait in line or go through security : he `` was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners , and taken directly to the gate .
So much for Reagan 's trust but verify
Now we 've got distrust and vilify
She 's back on the trail , with the tumbling hair and tumbling thoughts
The queen of the scenic strip mall known as Wasilla now reigns over thrilled subjects thronging to a politically strategic swath of American strip malls
The conservative celebrity clearly has n't boned up on anything , except her own endless odyssey of self-discovery
And she still has that Yoda-like syntax
`` And I think more of a concern has been not within the campaign the mistakes that were made , not being able to react to the circumstances that those mistakes created in a real positive and professional and helpful way for John McCain , '' she told Bill O'Reilly
Yet Democrats would be foolish to write off her visceral power
As Judith Doctor , a 69-year-old spiritual therapist , told The Washington Post 's Jason Horowitz at Palin 's book signing in Grand Rapids , Mich. , `` She 's alive inside , and that radiates energy , and people who are not psychologically alive inside are fascinated by that .
Barack Obama , who once had his own electric book tour testing the waters for a campaign , could learn a thing or three from Palin
On Friday , for the first time , his Gallup poll approval rating dropped below 50 percent , and he 's losing the independents who helped get him elected
He 's a highly intelligent man with a highly functioning West Wing , and he 's likable , but he 's not connecting on the gut level that could help him succeed
The animating spirit that electrified his political movement has sputtered out
People need to understand what the president is thinking as he maneuvers the treacherous terrain of a lopsided economic recovery and two depleting wars
Like Reagan , Obama is a detached loner with a strong , savvy wife
But unlike Reagan , he does n't have the acting skills to project concern about what 's happening to people
Obama showed a flair for the theatrical during his campaign , and a talent for narrative in his memoir , but he has yet to translate those skills to governing
As with the debates , he seems resistant to the idea that perception , as well as substance , matters
Obama so values pragmatism , and is so immersed in the thorny details of legislative compromises , that he may be undervaluing the connective bonds of simpler truths
Americans who are hurting get angry when they learn that Timothy Geithner , as head of the New York Fed before becoming Treasury secretary , caved to the insistence of Goldman Sachs and other A.I.G. trading partners that they get 100 cents on the dollar when he could have struck a far better bargain for taxpayers
If we could see a Reduced Shakespeare summary of Obama 's presidency so far , it would read : Dither , dither , speech
Foreign trip , bow , reassure
Seminar , summit
Shoot a jump shot with the guys , throw out the first pitch in mom jeans
Compromise , concede , close the deal
Dither , dither , water down , news conference
It 's time for the president to reinvent this formula and convey a more three-dimensional person
Palin can be stupefyingly simplistic , but she seems dynamic
Obama is impressively complex but he seems static
She nurtures her grass roots while he neglects his
He struggles to transcend identity politics while she wallows in them
As he builds an emotional moat around himself , she exuberantly pushes whatever she has , warts and all the good looks , the tabloid-perfect family , the Alaska quirkiness , the kids with the weird names
Just like the disastrous and anti-intellectual W. , this Visceral One never doubts herself
The Cerebral One welcomes doubt
On Afghanistan , Palin says , W-like , that the president should simply give Gen. Stanley McChrystal a blank check
But Afghanistan is a wrenching decision , and we do need the closest exit ramp
So the president should get credit for standing back and studying the issue , and for not rubber-stamping the generals ' predictable urge to surge
But the way he has handled the perception part has allowed critics including generals to cast him as indecisive
McChrystal and Gen. David Petraeus should have been giving their best advice to Obama and airing their view against scaling down in Afghanistan in confidence
Instead , McChrystal pushed his opinion in a speech in London , and Petraeus has discussed his feelings in private sessions with reporters
This creates a `` Seven Days in May '' syndrome , where the two generals are , in effect , lobbying against the president and undercutting him as he 's trying to make a painfully complex , life-and-death decision
This time , Obama should adopt Palin 's straight-from-the-gut approach , call the generals into the Oval and tell them , `` Your pie-holes you will shut or rise higher you will not
Because , dang it , the president I am !
The Great Game Imposter Though we 're pouring billions into intelligence in Afghanistan , we ca n't even tell the difference between a no-name faker and a senior member of the Taliban
The tragedy of Afghanistan has descended into farce
In the sort of scene that would have entertained millions if Billy Wilder had made a movie of Kipling 's `` Kim , '' it turns out that Afghan and NATO leaders have been negotiating for months with an imposter pretending to be a top Taliban commander - even as Gen. David Petraeus was assuring reporters that there were promising overtures to President Hamid Karzai from the Taliban about ending the war
Those familiar with the greatest Afghan con yet say that the British had spent a year developing the fake Taliban leader as a source and , despite a heated debate and C.I.A. skepticism , General Petraeus was buying into it
The West was putting planes and assets at the poseur 's disposal , and paying him a sum in the low six figures
`` It 's funny but not funny because the consequences are so staggering , '' said a Western diplomat
`` Put it this way : It was not well handled .
We 've heard a lot about the shadow world of Afghanistan , but this is ridiculous
We 're bargaining with the shadow of a shadow
Even President Karzai may have been fooled
The man taking us for a ride may have been taken for a ride
Indeed , sometimes it feels as if the entire region is taking us for a ride
Everybody is lining up for Western cash , treating America , the British and NATO like suckers
President Karzai and his brother toy with us for their immense personal profit , even as they corrupt their own elections
Karzai undermines the American military plan by going up against General Petraeus on night raids
And the Taliban and the Pakistan intelligence service are playing us as well
America is stomping around the moonscape of Afghanistan trying to do the right thing , but we ca n't because we 're clueless about the culture to the point where we can be faked out by an imposter masquerading as Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour , a high-level Taliban commander
As Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall revealed in The Times on Tuesday , the Afghan faker attended three meetings with NATO and Afghan officials , traveling across the border from Pakistan , where Taliban leaders are hiding with the help of the ISI , the Pakistani intelligence service -LRB- even though we give Pakistan billions of dollars in aid every year -RRB-
The Times 's article said that the phony was even ushered into a meeting with Karzai at the presidential palace in Kabul
Something the crafty Karzai denied
He may have been dispatched as an agent by the Taliban - whose leaders still deny there are any peace talks - or the double-dealing Pakistani intelligence service
`` The Taliban are cleverer than the Americans and our own intelligence service , '' a senior Afghan official told The Times
`` They are playing games .
Bizarrely , the Afghans let the fake Mansour retreat over the border
In a further huge embarrassment for the Western intelligence community , he was not held to determine whether he was an enemy agent
Nor is this the only confusion about our war
We also ca n't seem to get the calendar straight
First , we were leaving in 2011
Then maybe we were n't
Then we were n't leaving until 2014
Then maybe we are n't
In trying to please all his many wartime constituencies , President Obama has provided a confusing plethora of plans and semiplans for withdrawal
No sooner had the NATO ministers in Lisbon agreed that we were staying till 2014 than Obama declared that `` early 2011 will mark the beginning of a transition to Afghan responsibility .
On the duration of our commitment to the war in Afghanistan , we seem to be faking ourselves out
Obama wants to get out ; Petraeus wants flexibility
`` The real protagonists are the president and the general , '' one Obama adviser noted dryly
It should have been a sign that the Russians , who are a lot more vicious than us and have a much closer cultural attachment to the Graveyard of Empires , got whipped after 9 years and 50 days - which we 're now exceeding
Just as with Saddam and W.M.D. , or groping and the T.S.A. , we get no satisfaction for the $ 80 billion a year we spend on intelligence
Or we get fake information like Curveball that leads us into spending trillions more on a trumped-up war
Last year , seven top C.I.A. officials were fooled by a Jordanian double-agent who got onto an American base in Khost and blew all of them up
Our agents in the `` wilderness of mirrors '' may not be up to le Carr , but ca n't they learn to Google , or at least watch `` The Ipcress File ''
Who knows
Maybe we 've been dealing with bin Laden all along
Maybe he 's been coming and going under a different moniker
As far as our intelligence experts are concerned , a turban and beard are just a turban and beard
Sipping a glass of water , the president offered special gratitude to the woman on his right
`` I advised this hard-working Cabinet to get a little bit of rest this week , '' he said , looking at Hillary Clinton , `` particularly the people who have been traveling around the globe day-in and day-out and do n't know what time zone they 're in .
The secretary of state , with a china cup and saucer in front of her , smiled
In the back of the room , back where they were parched , back where no water or coffee was served for the two-hour meeting , sat Greg Craig , the White House counsel who was a ghostly presence , given his death by a thousand leaks
Only a year after he had helped Barack Obama get elected by eviscerating his close friend , Clinton White House colleague and Yale Law School classmate , Hillary Clinton , Craig was himself eviscerated by the Obama inner circle
I remember meeting Craig at a book party during the campaign
He upbraided me for writing critical things about Obama
I did n't like being chastised , but I admired his loyalty
It could n't have been easy for Craig , a special counsel in the Clinton White House who directed the response on impeachment , to break away from the Clintons and help the insurgent Obama shatter Hillary 's dream of shattering the Oval glass ceiling
As Todd Purdum wrote of Craig in The Times in 1998 , `` At Yale , he surrendered his $ 75-a-month apartment in New Haven to Mr. Clinton and his girlfriend , Hillary Rodham , who were a class behind him , and he remains especially close to Mrs. Clinton , friends say .
In a memo he sent to the press during the bitter 2008 Democratic primary , Craig made the case that Hillary had exaggerated her foreign policy experience and that she did not pass `` the Commander-in-Chief test .
It was brutally effective , taking apart her claims of involvement , country by country , and noting : `` As far as the record shows , Senator Clinton never answered the phone either to make a decision on any pressing national security issue not at 3 AM or at any other time of day .
I often wondered if Craig and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice , the other former Clinton official who helped undermine Hillary 's foreign policy record , would have done so if they had known that after turning on Hillary they would once more end up working beside her ; if they had known that Obama can often be more interested in wooing opponents than tending to those who put themselves on the line for him
There were complaints that Craig was out of the loop , but could n't Obama have walked the single West Wing staircase up to his counsel 's office and looped him in
Craig was , after all , simply defending positions that Obama himself took during the campaign , from closing Gitmo to greater transparency
The way the Craig matter was handled sent a chill through some Obama supporters , reminding them of the icy manner in which the Clintons cut loose Kimba Wood and Lani Guinier
But then , Obama is surrounded by many old Clinton hands -LRB- and a Clinton -RRB-
Writing in Politico , Elizabeth Drew called it `` the shabbiest episode of his presidency , '' saying that it had caused people who had helped Obama rise to question whether he would behave in as classy and non-Clintonian a fashion as they had hoped
It recalled Obama 's failure to lift a finger to help Caroline Kennedy after she had lifted him at a crucial moment when the loopy Gov. David Paterson was dragging her through mud and refusing to announce a decision on the appointment for the New York Senate seat
Paterson was being lobbied by a vengeful Bill Clinton
Bill was still upset at Caroline for bestowing the Camelot mantle , which he had tried to claim during his campaigns , on Obama
Yet no one from the Obama camp tried to counteract Bill and straighten out Paterson
Although a handful of donors were invited to the premiere state dinner Tuesday night as well as erstwhile allies Craig and Hillary many donors and passionate supporters are let down by Obama 's detachment , puzzled at his failure to make them feel invested when he 's certain to come back to tap their well soon enough
It is especially puzzling given that Obama faces tough midterms and a less-than-certain re-election and given that we all now know someone on the unemployment line
-LRB- A new poll shows Obama and Sarah Palin neck and neck among independents , but then it is a Fox survey .
Bill Clinton may not have cared any more about contributors than Obama does , but he was such a talented politician that he made them feel as though they were in `` a warm bath , '' as one put it
Obama is more like a cold shower
Like her boss , she loves schedules and routines and hates disruptions
As a child , she was elected president of her family , a position that allowed her to dictate the organizational details of family trips , according to Condoleezza Rice : An American Life , a new biography by The Times s Elisabeth Bumiller
As an adult , Condi was worried about taking the job of top diplomat because it would mean traveling and being away from her things and habits
So it is telling that in Annapolis she is running such a seat-of-the-pants operation , which seems designed to rescue the images of a secretary of state and president who have spent more time working out in the gym than working on the peace process
W. couldn t be bothered to stay in Annapolis and try to belatedly push things along and guide Israel with a firmer hand
After subverting diplomacy in his first term , now W. does drive-by diplomacy , taking a playboy approach to peace
He wants to look like he s taking the problem of an Israeli-Palestinian treaty seriously when his true motivation is more cynical : pacifying the Arab coalition and holding it together so that he can blunt Iran s sway
When they invaded Iraq rather than working on the Palestine problem , W. and Condi helped spur the greater Iranian influence , Islamic extremism and anti-American sentiment that they are now desperately trying to quell
Condi has compared trying to broker deals in the Middle East to Groundhog Day
An Annapolis-inspired breakthrough would be thrilling , but it will be tough for Madame Secretary to turn around her reputation after so many instances of Mideast malpractice
The tight-as-a-tick team of W. and Condi have been consistently culturally obtuse on the Middle East , even with a pricey worldwide operation designed to keep them in the loop
First , Condi missed the scorching significance of the August 2001 presidential daily brief headlined Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.
An explosive title on a nonexplosive piece , as she later dismissively described it
Then she and W. failed to fathom that if Iraq went wrong , Iran would benefit
When Brent Scowcroft , who lured the young Soviet expert from Stanford to the Bush 1 national security staff , wrote a Wall Street Journal piece before the Iraq war titled Don t Attack Saddam , she didn t call him to explore his reasoning
She scolded him for publicly disagreeing with W. Scowcroft confided to friends that he was mystified by Rice
She enabled Bush s bellicosity rather than putting a brake on it
He told me several times , I don t understand how my lady , my baby , my disciple , has changed so much , a senior European diplomat told Bumiller
Condi and W. were both underwhelmed by the C.I.A. s presentation of its case on Iraq s W.M.D. s on Dec. 21 , 2002
Yet , only days later , Bumiller reports , Rice and W. were alone in the Oval Office when he surprised her by asking her point blank about the war : Do you think we should do this
Yes , she told the president
She let Rummy waltz away with the occupation and only got back some control after he d made a historic hash of it
It took her too long to push back on Rummy s absurd turf-war tricks , like reading or doodling while she was talking , or dropping a Defense Department document on the conference table as Rice was leading a discussion on a different topic so that he could steal the agenda
W. s former chief of staff Andy Card told Bumiller that Rummy was a little bit old-school and a little bit sexist in his dealings with Rice
Not to mention a little bit crazy
In 2006 , when Israel invaded Lebanon and many civilians died , including children , Condi and W. drew Arab and U.N. ire for not forcing Ehud Olmert to broker a cease-fire faster
That same year , in another instance of spectacular willful ignorance , she was blindsided by the Hamas win in the Palestinian elections
As she described it to Bumiller , she went upstairs at 5 a.m. the morning after the Palestinian elections in 2006 to the gym in her Watergate apartment to exercise on her elliptical machine
She saw the news crawl reporting the Hamas victory
I thought , Well , that s not right , she said
She kept exercising for awhile but finally got off the elliptical trainer and called the State Department
I said , What happened in the Palestinian elections
and they said , Oh , Hamas won
And I thought , Oh , my goodness
Hamas won
When she couldn t reach the State Department official on the ground in the Palestinian territories , she did what any loyal Bushie would do : She got back on the elliptical
I thought , might as well finish exercising , Rice told Bumiller
It s going to be a really long day
It was one of the few times she was prescient on the Middle East
How people leave relationships
How people help their loved ones negotiate their final months and years
How we ourselves face the final curtain , as Frank Sinatra would say
I 've seen some people who were fierce in the face of mortification and death
But none as fierce as Abe Pollin
In the last few years , Washington 's great sports impresario and philanthropist suffered from a rare brain disease that robbed him of everything but his burning love of life and sports and his burning desire to help sick children and the poor in Washington and around the world
After giving everyone in his company , from part-time ushers to top executives , a Thanksgiving bonus ; after making sure that the Wizards staff was going to get out early for the holiday ; after sending his wife , Irene , a bouquet of yellow roses to thank her for their 64 years together , the 85-year-old Pollin died Tuesday at his home in Bethesda , Md.
Pinioned by his crippling neurological disease , he could no longer walk , read or write
He was confined to a wheelchair with a neck brace holding his head in place
His mind was working , but his body was a cage around it
Just about the only pleasures left to Pollin , besides his loyal family , were Tchaikovsky 's Fifth , Puccini 's `` Turandot , '' Frank Sinatra -LRB- Abe loved that you could hear every word Frank sang -RRB- , sunshine , birds , root beer Popsicles and Wizards basketball games
Anything the debilitated Wizards owner wanted to remember about team business , he had to hold in his head , since he could no longer jot down a note
Sometimes he stayed up all night just trying to hang on to what he wanted to remember the next day
His son , Bob , who worked with me many years ago at The Washington Star on the clerks ' desk before becoming an economist and professor , said in his emotional eulogy at Washington Hebrew Congregation on Friday that he was amazed that his father `` was never bitter .
`` He loved and appreciated simple pleasures , '' Bob said dryly
`` Like a basketball team
And yes , he had four houses
Not as many as John McCain .
Bob noted : `` My mother and he always celebrated Shabbat dinner on Friday night
And they always had lobster .
As strongly as Abe Pollin felt about Judaism , Bob said , it was not the rituals that he considered important so much as `` leading a moral life .
Abe , the son of a Russian immigrant plumber , was famously frugal
But when he saw children in need , his generosity was boundless
After reading an article in The Washington Post in 1984 about 40,000 children dying daily from malnutrition in Africa , he called the story 's writer to see if it was a typo
Assured that it was accurate , Pollin called a top Unicef official and said : `` I want to help
I will do anything .
And so he became an honorary chairman of the global charity
He transformed a bleak swath of downtown Washington in 1997 when he opened what is now the Verizon Center , built with $ 200 million of his own money
Pollin who originally entered the family construction business created the Linda Pollin Memorial Housing Project in southeast Washington in honor of his daughter , who died at 16 of congenital heart disease
And he was about to break ground on an affordable-housing project here when he died
`` We 'll do all the things the way you wanted it , Dad , '' Bob promised
President Obama , who attended a Wizards game in February at Pollin 's invitation , said in a statement on Wednesday : `` Abe believed in Washington , D.C. , when many others did n't putting his own fortune on the line to help revitalize the city he loved .
I still remember when Abe decided that the original name of his team , the Bullets , was offensive and he was going to change it to something less violent , the Wonders , maybe , or the Wizards
Unlike the owners of the Redskins , he decided it was worth the marketing tumult
Even though his team had won its only championship in 1978 as the Bullets , Abe felt , as Bob put it , `` that a bullet killed Yitzhak Rabin and bullets killed young people in Washington every day .
He famously fired Michael Jordan in 2003 because he thought Jordan was a bad manager , always out on the links , and a divisive force with the players
I went to a game with Bob , Abe and Abe 's friend Tom Friedman a few months ago and was deeply moved by the courage of Mr. P. , as he was known by his adoring Wizards staff
He could barely move a muscle , but he emanated joy
`` He was in such bad shape for so long , but he would somehow always muster the strength and courage to surge back , '' Bob told me
`` He was having just such a surge on Tuesday
I had just finished feeding him lunch a full , happy meal and we were planning to go to the Wizards ' game that evening
That is when he died suddenly .
His heart stopped
But oh , what a heart it was
Macpherson bow-tied and white-haired but boyish-looking at 53 should know
He pioneered `` glocal '' news outsourcing Pasadena coverage to India at Pasadena Now , his daily online `` newspaperless , '' as he likes to call it
Indians are writing about everything from the Pasadena Christmas tree-lighting ceremony to kitchen remodeling to city debates about eliminating plastic shopping bags
`` Everyone has to get ready for what 's inevitable like King Canute and the tide coming in and that 's really my message to the industry , '' the editor and publisher said
`` Many newspapers are dead men walking
They 're going to be replaced by smaller , nimbler , multiple Internet-centric kinds of things such as what I 'm pioneering .
I wondered how long it would be before some guy in Bangalore was writing my column about President Obama
`` In brutal terms , '' said Macpherson , whose father was a typesetter , printer and photographer , `` it 's going to get to the point where saving the industry may require some people losing their jobs
The newspaper industry is coming to a General Motors moment except there 's no one to bail them out .
He said it would be `` irresponsible '' for newspapers not to explore offshoring options
He said he got the idea to outsource about a year ago , sitting in his Pasadena home , where he puts out Pasadena Now with his wife , Candice Merrill
Macpherson had worked in the '90s for designers like Richard Tyler and Alan Flusser , and had outsourced some of his clothing manufacturing to Vietnam
So , he thought , `` Where can I get people who can write the word for less ?
In a move that sounded so preposterous it became a Stephen Colbert skit , he put an ad on Craigslist for Indian reporters and got a flood of responses
He fired his seven Pasadena staffers including five reporters who were making $ 600 to $ 800 a week , and now he and his wife direct six employees all over India on how to write news and features , using telephones , e-mail , press releases , Web harvesting and live video streaming from a cellphone at City Hall
`` I pay per piece , just the way it was in the garment business , '' he says
`` A thousand words pays $ 7.50 .
A penny for your thoughts
Now I knew my days were numbered
I checked in with one of his workers in Mysore City in southern India , 40-year-old G. Sreejayanthi , who puts together Pasadena events listings
She said she had a full-time job in India and did n't think of herself as a journalist
`` I try to do my best , which need not necessarily be correct always , '' she wrote back
`` Regarding Rose Bowl , my first thought was it was related to some food event but then found that is related to Sports field .
Macpherson admits you can lose something in the translation the Pasadena City Council Webcast that the Indian reporters now watch once missed two African-American lawmakers walking out in protest but says the question is , how significant is it
At first the reaction to covering Pasadena from 8,000 miles away and 13.5 hours ahead was `` absolutely brutal , '' Macpherson recalled
Journalism professors keened and Larry Wilson , the public editor at The Pasadena Star-News , called it `` nutty .
But then in October , Dean Singleton , The Associated Press 's chairman and the head of the MediaNews Group which counts The Pasadena Star-News , The Denver Post and The Detroit News in its stable of 54 daily newspapers told the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association that his company was looking into outsourcing almost every aspect of publishing , including possibly having one news desk for all of his papers , `` maybe even offshore .
Noting that most preproduction work for MediaNews 's papers in California is already outsourced to India , cutting costs by 65 percent , Singleton advised , `` If you need to offshore it , offshore it , '' and said after the speech , `` In today 's world , whether your desk is down the hall or around the world , from a computer standpoint , it does n't matter .
Macpherson feels `` vindicated , '' but also `` conflicted '' about the idea of having an American newspaper industry fueled by Indian labor
`` I mean , I am an American too , '' he said
`` I had two ancestors in the Revolutionary War
My mother was in the Daughters of the American Revolution .
It 's not easy being a visionary , he said : `` I have essentially been five years ahead of the world for a long time , and that 's a horrible address at which to live because people look at you , you know , like you 're nuts .
Frank Rich is off today
Republican Party Time At a Republican victory party suffused with vengeful glee , the man who body-surfed the anti-establishment wave to become the next Speaker of the House was looking very establishment
Even though it was predicted , it was still a shock to see voters humiliate a brilliant and spellbinding young president , who 'd had such a Kennedy-like beginning , while electing a lot of conservative nuts and promoting this central-casting congressman as the face of the future : a Republican who had vowed in a written pledge to restore America to old-fashioned values , returning to a gauzy `` Leave It to Beaver '' image that never existed even on the set of `` Leave It to Beaver .
Republicans outcommunicated a silver-tongued president who was supposed to be Ronald Reagan 's heir in the communications department
They were able to persuade a lot of Americans that the couple in the White House was not American enough , not quite `` normal , '' too Communist , too radical , too Great Society
All that Ivy League schooling had made them think they knew better than average American folks , not to mention the founding fathers
The Speaker-in-waiting sounded the alarm : the elites in the White House were snuffing out the America he grew up in
It only took two years to realize that their direction for the country was simply , as he put it , `` a contradiction with the vast majority of Americans .
No one gets to take America away from Americans - not even the American president
`` What the American people were saying is ` Enough ! '
the Speaker-to-be told me , as he savored his own win and his party 's landslide , which he said was `` a historical tide , not just a partisan election .
Washington had not been listening
Washington had been scorning the deepest beliefs of Americans
And now that would have to change
`` American people are clearly fed up with what they see as the decay of American society , '' he declared
The new leader of the House took a more black-and-white approach than the nuanced president
It 's enshrined in the Declaration of Independence that you need the consent of the governed and the governed did not consent
Ascending to third in the line of succession for the presidency : a working-class kid who rose in the House as a rabble-rouser willing to throw bombs to score points against powerful Democrats
Now he 'd be helping to run the country , saving it from what he regarded as an arrogant and out-of-touch clique of elites
In the revolutionary flush of the electoral map glowing red , he was floating , working hard to avoid gloating -LRB- even though Sean Hannity was around , gloating about the pain about to befall the Democratic president -RRB-
But he could not resist taking a few jabs at the `` liberal media elite '' distorting things , and a few more at a puffed-up White House that got punished for not paying enough attention to people 's anxieties
`` They had an enormous opportunity to bring about change and they failed , and I do n't say that harshly , '' he said , adding : `` They really are left-wing elitists and they really thought the country did n't get it , and , therefore , it was their job to give the country the government that they thought the country needed , even if they did n't want it
That 's the whole history of the health plan .
There was a lot of talk , as in the campaign , about the misbegotten health care plan , about balancing the budget , about lowering the deficit and taxes , about doing something on abortion and bloated government
Meanwhile , bloated fat-cat lobbyists were dancing down K Street
The next Speaker felt that the humbled president should take the election as a cue to be conciliatory , and he proposed they talk in the next few days
He offered to reach out to Democrats who wanted to work with his side , but also noted that the president would not be wise to stand in the way of the conservative agenda
`` I prefer to believe that this president , who is clearly very smart , is quite capable of thinking clearly about a message sent by the American people , '' he said
He said that , contrary to what the media elite had been jabbering about , he would not use his subpoena power to rain down a series of investigations on the Democratic administration
No `` witch hunts , '' he said
Only `` legitimate '' investigations
Yeah , that all worked out for Newt Gingrich
He really came through
The quotes above came from Gingrich , when I covered his heady victory in Marietta , Ga. , in the 1994 Republican landslide that made him Speaker
And , obviously , the Republican House only pursued `` legitimate '' investigations of Bill Clinton
Sixteen years later , as a weeping John Boehner extolled the American values he learned at his father 's bar - in the moment he dethroned Nancy Pelosi - the new crop of anarchic conservatives are saying all the same things
God help the Republic
And , Mr. Speaker , in the immortal words of Sharron Angle , man up
First Hillary got brushed back by the boys in the debate
Then some women bemoaned Hillaryland s Don t hit me , I m a girl strategy
The Washington Post s Ruth Marcus deplored the antifeminist subtext of Hillary s campaign playing the woman-as-victim card
Using gender this way , she said , is a setback
I must rush to a sister s defense
Women need to rally to support Hillary and send her money because there are men , men like Tim Russert , who have the temerity to ask her questions during a debate
If there are six male rivals on stage and two male moderators and heaven knows how many men manning lights and boom mikes , the one woman should have the right to have it two ways
It s simple math , really , an estrogen equation
If she wants to run on her record as first lady while keeping the lid on her first lady record , that s only fair for the fairer sex
And if she wants to have it both ways on illegal immigrants getting driver s licenses , then she should , especially if those illegal immigrants are men , or if Lou Dobbs is ranting on the issue , because he s not only a man , he s a grumpy , cranky , border-crazed man
She should certainly be allowed to play the gender card two ways , or even triangulate it
As her campaign manager , Patti Solis Doyle , said after the debate , she is one strong woman , who has dwarfed male rivals and shown she s tough enough to deal with terrorism and play on the world stage
But she can break , just like a little girl , when male chauvinists are rude enough to catch her red-handed being slippery and opportunistic
If the gender game worked when Rick Lazio muscled into her space , why shouldn t it work when Obama and Edwards muster some mettle
If she could become a senator by playing the victim after Monica , surely she can become president by playing the victim now
Sometimes when Hillary takes heat , she gets paranoid and controlling
But this time she took the heat by getting into the kitchen
After trying to have it both ways during the debate , she tried to have it both ways after the debate
In New Hamphire on Friday , she stayed above the fray , saying that her male rivals are not piling on because she s a woman but because she s winning
Meanwhile , she let her aides below the fray stir up fem-outrage by putting a video on the campaign Web site called The Politics of Pile On , edited to highlight men ganging up on her to the tune of Mozart s Marriage of Figaro
Mark Penn presided over a conference call on Wednesday to rally supporters to the idea of a fem-backlash , during which one devoted Ellen Jamesian suggested that Tim Russert should be shot
The woman quickly repented , not the sentiment , but the fact that she shouldn t have said it on a conference call
-LRB- NBC security remained on high alert .
Nothing should be sacred when it comes to rousing the women s vote , especially the working-class women Hillary needs to carry her back to the White House
That may be why she recently blew off a Vogue photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz at the last minute , according to Liz Smith : to show solidarity with supporters who can t afford Vogue frocks
And remember the time Hillville used a Washington Post story about a sighting of the senator s cleavage in the Senate to spearhead a fund-raising drive with women
Dollars for d colletage
When pundettes tut-tut that playing the victim is not what a feminist should do , they forget that Hillary is not a feminist
If she were merely some clich d version of a women s rights advocate , she never could have so effortlessly blown off Marian Wright Edelman and Lani Guinier when Bill first got in , or played the Fury with Bill s cupcakes during the campaign
She was always kind enough to let Bill hide behind her skirts when he got in trouble with women
Now she deserves to hide behind her own pantsuits when men cause her trouble
D Amato pulled off a dramatic upset in 92 against Robert Abrams , the New York attorney general , by pouncing when Abrams slipped one night and called D Amato a fascist
Though never a sensitive soul about insulting other ethnic groups , D Amato quickly cast fascist as an insult to Italian-Americans , producing an ad with scenes of Mussolini
Like Alfonse , Hillary has the gift of gall
She can be righteous while playing brass-knuckle politics
She will cozy up to former enemies she can use , like Matt Drudge and David Brock , and back W. s bellicosity if it helps banish her old image as antimilitary
There is nowhere she won t go , so long as it gets her where she wants to be
I had a four-hour dinner once with Rush Limbaugh at the `` 21 '' Club in Manhattan , back in the days when I was still writing profiles as a `` reporterette , '' to use a Limbaugh coinage
He was charming , in a shy , awkward , lonely-guy way
Not a man of the people
He arrived in a chauffeured town car and ordered $ 70-an-ounce Beluga , Porterhouse and 1990 Corton-Charlemagne
But he was not a Neanderthal , though he did have a cold and blew his nose in his napkin
He talked about Chopin 's Polonaise No. 6 , C.S. Lewis and how much he loved the end of the movie `` Love Story .
In those days , he called himself a `` harmless little fuzzball .
He 's a lot less harmless now
I went on to columny , as my pal Bill Safire called it , and Rush went on to calumny
As he and Sarah Palin conduct their auto-da-f of moderate Republicans `` Moderates by definition have no principles , '' he told his radio audience on Monday Limbaugh is more than ever the face of his party , as Rahm Emanuel said
He 's also the mouth
Limbaugh is right that Democrats tend to dither too much
They 're always wondering if they 're doing the right thing , indulging in on-the-one-hand , on-the-other paralysis by analysis , seeing , as James Carville put it , `` six sides to the Pentagon .
President Obama will have to step it up on jobs and fixing the deficit if he wants to block conservatives from stoking the anger of Americans who only see a recovery on Wall Street , especially given the Republican sweep in top races on Tuesday night
But the tactics of Limbaugh , Palin , Cheney & Fille are more cynical : They spin certainty , ignoring their side 's screw-ups , and they exploit patriotism , labeling all critics as traitors
In an interview on `` Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace , '' Limbaugh accused the president of trying to destroy the economy yes , the same economy that W. came within a whisker of ruining
`` I have to think that it may be on purpose , '' Limbaugh said , `` because this is just outrageous , what is happening a denial of liberty , an attack on freedom .
Asked about Afghanistan , another W. cataclysm that has left Obama agonizing , Limbaugh stated , `` I also do n't think he cares much about it .
Again suggesting that the president is an unpatriotic fop , the radio ranter averred : `` He wants to manage this rather than achieve victory .
He told Wallace that `` throughout the Iraq war , it was Barack Obama and the Democrat Party which actively sought the defeat of the U.S. military .
Actually , rigorously examining the government 's conduct of a war started on false pretenses is the best sort of patriotism
Asked about fellow conservative George Will 's contention that the United States should get out of Afghanistan , Limbaugh said , `` I do n't have the benefit of knowledge that George Will has , so I trust the experts , and to me they 're the people in the U.S. military .
Even a chickenhawk like Rush should remember how well that worked in Vietnam , or in the early years of Iraq
The founding fathers designated a civilian as commander in chief for a reason
Military brass have told the White House that this is the first time in eight years that they have gotten the attention and resources that they 've needed in Afghanistan
If W. had gone to Dover in the middle of the night to salute the war dead , Limbaugh and Liz Cheney would have been gushing about his patriotism
But since it 's Obama who at last showed up there to see the brutal cost of war , they simply have to dismiss the moving moment as a publicity stunt
Years ago , when I dubbed Dubya `` The Boy Emperor , '' Limbaugh spewed a stream of personal invective about me that embarrassed even my mother , a Limbaugh fan
But now Limbaugh calls Obama the `` man-child president .
The 48-year-old Obama is skinny and getting skinnier , but there 's nothing childish about him
He more or less raised himself and came to terms with his Oedipal demons on his own , and he radiates a hard-won maturity
W. , on the other hand , was like a kid who knew that Daddy 's friends would take care of him ; he was always running off to the gym or going biking , leaving the governing to his regents , Cheney and Rummy , or incompetents like Brownie
At our long-ago dinner , Limbaugh credited his success with being `` one-dimensional .
`` I 'm totally concerned with me , '' he said
And that was way before he got a contract for $ 400 million , so we can only imagine how one-dimensional he is now
But on Sunday , he ripped the president for having `` an out-of-this-world ego , '' for being `` very narcissistic , '' `` immature , inexperienced , in over his head .
-LRB- Is n't immaturity scoring OxyContin from your maid ?
It gives new meaning to pot , kettle and black
I walked over to the White House Tuesday night and leaned against the fence
How can such a lovely house make so many of its inhabitants nuts
There was no U-Haul in the driveway
I do n't know if W. was inside talking to the portraits on the wall
Or if the portraits can vanish from their frames , as at Hogwarts Academy , to escape if W. is pestering them about his legacy
The Obama girls , with their oodles of charm , will soon be moving in with their goldendoodle or some other fetching puppy , and they seem like the kind of kids who could have fun there , prowling around with their history-loving father
I had been amazed during the campaign not by the covert racism about Barack Obama and not by Hillary Clinton 's subtext when she insisted to superdelegates : `` He ca n't win .
But I had been astonished by the overt willingness of some people who did n't mind being quoted by name in The New York Times saying vile stuff , that a President Obama would turn the Rose Garden into a watermelon patch , that he 'd have barbeques on the front lawn , that he 'd make the White House the Black House
Actually , the elegant and disciplined Obama , who is not descended from the central African-American experience but who has nonetheless embraced it and been embraced by it , has the chance to make the White House pristine again
I grew up here , and I love all the monuments filled with the capital 's ghosts
I hate the thought that terrorists might target them again
But the monuments have lost their luminescence in recent years
How could the White House be classy when the Clintons were turning it into Motel 1600 for fund-raising , when Bill Clinton was using it for trysts with an intern and when he plunked a seven-seat hot tub with two Moto-Massager jets on the lawn
How could the White House be inspiring when W. and Cheney were inside making torture and domestic spying legal , fooling Americans by cooking up warped evidence for war and scheming how to further enrich their buddies in the oil and gas industry
How could the Lincoln Memorial `` With malice toward none ; with charity for all '' be as moving if the black neighborhoods of a charming American city were left to drown while the president mountain-biked
How can the National Archives , home of the Constitution , be as momentous if the president and vice president spend their days redacting the Constitution
How can the black marble V of the Vietnam Memorial have power when those in power repeat the mistake of Vietnam
How can the Capitol , where my dad proudly worked for so many years , hold its allure when the occupants have spent their days and years bickering and scoring petty political points instead of stopping White House chicanery and taking on risky big issues
How can the F.D.R. Memorial along the Tidal Basin be an uplifting trip to the past when the bronze statue of five stooped men in a bread line and the words of F.D.R. 's second inaugural `` I see one-third of a nation ill-housed , ill-clad and ill-nourished '' evokes the depressing present
Obama may be in over his head
Or he may be heading for his own monument one day
His somber speech in the dark Chicago night was stark and simple and showed that he sees what he 's up against
There was a heaviness in his demeanor , as if he already had taken on the isolation and `` splendid misery , '' as Jefferson called it , of the office he 'd won only moments before
Americans all over the place were jumping for joy , including the block I had been on in front of the White House , where they were singing : `` Na , na , na , na
Hey , hey , hey
Goodbye .
In the midst of such a phenomenal , fizzy victory overcoming so many doubts and crazy attacks and even his own middle name , Obama stood alone
He rejected the Democratic kumbaya moment of having your broad coalition on stage with you , as he talked about how everyone would have to pull together and `` resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long .
He professed `` humility , '' but we 'd heard that before from W. , and look what happened there
Promising to also be president for those who opposed him , Obama quoted Lincoln , his political idol and the man who ended slavery : `` We are not enemies , but friends though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection .
There have been many awful mistakes made in this country
But now we have another chance
As we start fresh with a constitutional law professor and senator from the Land of Lincoln , the Lincoln Memorial might be getting its gleam back
I may have to celebrate by going over there and climbing up into Abe 's lap
It 's a $ 50 fine
But it 'd be worth it
President Bush came to the steps of the Capitol yesterday for a Second Inaugural do-over
Here is the text of his revised speech : ON this day , when we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution , we must remember : Constitutions don t work for everyone
It s not a one-size-fits-all type deal
We are led , by recent events and common sense , to one conclusion : The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the repression of liberty in other lands
Once I thought my daddy was a wimp for cuddlin up real close with dictators , tradin stability for freedom
But now I gotta admit , that s a darn fair trade
As I told Mushy last night on that cool , high-tech videophone I got in the Sit Room , the best hope for expanding peace is expanding dictators
In America s ideal of freedom , we are ennobled by a heart for the weak
But we must also have a heart for the strongmen
Sometimes when the soul of a nation speaks , we must listen
But if that soul is housed in a bunch of trial lawyers wearing identical dark suits and calling my man Mushy a dog , I say , bring on the batons
Police tear-gassing lawyers is really just a foreign version of tort reform , which I support
Those lawyers should be in jail
Mushy told me they were reckonin to represent Osama when General-General catches him
Which will be any day now
He s a man of his word
I don t blame Mushy for dissolving that disloyal Supreme Court
When I needed to subvert the democratic process during the 2000 recount , my Supreme Court was totally supportive
House arrest for that fired chief justice sounds very relaxin , especially if he s got a feather pillow
I think Mushy should put Benazir Bhutto under house arrest in Karachi
They call her a kleptocrat in an Herm s scarf
I call her a chaos magnet
She s slippery
One minute she s overlooking Mushy s flaws , the next she s appalled by them
I m not even sure what nickname to use
Her friends called her Pinky at Harvard and Bibi later
I think I like Pinky
From the day of our foundin , we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government , because no one is fit to be a master , and no one deserves to be a slave
But I looked into Mushy s eyes and saw a master , a man committed to helping us fight terror
And sometimes we must fight terror with tyranny
He promised me he d be a more low-key autocrat , stop wearing that scary uniform at least when he s playing tennis
From now on , it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of tyrannical movements and institutions in every nation and culture , with the ultimate goal of ending democracy in our world so liberty can thrive
We will persistently clarify the moral choice before every ruler and nation : Choose oppression , which can work , as we see with our Arab allies , or freedom , which O.K. , I admit it this once we can t make work in Iraq
America s influence is not unlimited
And unfortunately for the oppressed , Mushy s open defiance is helping to further undermine America s influence
But we will use what influence we have left to pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains and that human beings aspire to live at the mercy of bullies
I m gonna have to sweet-talk Laura on coming around on Burma
I might even have to kiss her hand , like Sarko
Condi was very worried about Mushy suspending the Constitution , but Vice says Constitutions are for sissies
He doesn t see anything wrong with Mushy s press blackout
He thinks we can learn a few lessons from him
Vice says if we had someone decisive like Mushy in Iraq instead of those floppy Iranian puppets we put in power , we d be a lot better off
All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know : the United States will ignore your oppression and excuse your oppressors
When you stand for your liberty , we will not stand with you
The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know : To serve your people you must learn to mistrust them
Stop your journey of progress and justice , and America will not only walk at your side , we ll give you billions of dollars and lots of big-ticket stuff , like F-16s no strings attached
And we ll take you at your word that you have no intention of using them against India
In the long run , there is justice without freedom , and there can be human rights once the human rights activists have been thrown in the pokey
Three years ago , I believed that the most important question history would ask us was : Did our generation advance the cause of freedom
But now I am older and wiser
I know that the most important question history will ask us is : What s a little martial law between friends
Blindsided - A President s Story Often the thing the former president was sweating most was , well , sweating - making sure he got in quality time for his cherished workouts
In his deftly crafted and utterly selective new memoir , W. is the president we all wished him to be : compassionate , bipartisan , funny , charming , instinctive , independent , able to admit and learn from mistakes - and a good dad , who sang his twin girls the Yale fight song as a lullaby
Heck , after I finished reading it , I was ready to vote for the guy
The book lacks the vindictive or vaporous tone of many political autobiographies
It 's peppered with endearing personal stories , like the time W. made a Rose Garden speech supporting a Palestinian state and his mother called afterward to ask sarcastically , `` How 's the first Jewish president doing ?
But when I look at the sad eyes of President Obama , buried alive with his party beneath the heedless decisions and reckless spending and tax cuts of his predecessor , I snap out of it
Many presidents go a little loco
Others - even those who insist they want to be transformative and not play `` small ball '' - fall into periods where they seem strangely disengaged during crises
It happened to President Obama during the interminable health care battle and intemperate birth of the Tea Party , and again when the BP well gushed
It happened to W. with Afghanistan , Iraq and Katrina
When they tragically spun out of control on his watch , President Bush was not engaged
He sometimes treated life-and-death issues like abstractions , not imminent threats , and frequently did not grasp the consequences of his decisions
By the time he got on top of things , many lives had been lost or shattered
He was n't interested in the unglamorous part of decisions , the due diligence required before you plunge into wars that can break the military and expose to our enemies the limits of our power , or the follow-through essential for policies like nation-building in Afghanistan and education reform at home
The author of `` Decision Points '' prides himself as The Decider , a man with a great gut and crisp opinions - the opposite of the discursive , deliberative Obama
From the beginning , the prodigal son of the first President Bush was packaged by Karl Rove as the anti-wimp - one hardy hombre
Junior was tougher than his cosmopolitan father , as his White House chief of staff Andy Card asserted , because W. was from West Texas and `` his training was dealing with problems on the streets of Laredo or Dallas or Houston or Midland or Austin .
W. modeled himself on a Western hero and he even walked like a gunslinger , noting that a president has to be the `` calcium in the backbone .
Cheney played on this , taunting W. about sacking Saddam
At their weekly lunch , W. writes , `` Dick asked me directly , ` Are you going to take care of this guy , or not ? '
Yet for a self-proclaimed man of action , W. was often strangely passive , caught off guard again and again by shocks to America 's reputation and faith in itself
He was `` blindsided '' when both his FBI director and his acting attorney general threatened to resign over the legality of the Terrorist Surveillance Program
He was shocked by the looting and violence that followed the Iraq invasion , though it was widely forecast
He asked Rummy about the light troop levels , then meekly accepted the defense secretary 's tragic insistence that all was well
W. writes that he was `` blindsided '' by the `` grotesque '' Abu Ghraib photos , which he only saw the day they were shown on `` 60 Minutes II .
Rummy and Cheney knew how to play W. ; when they offered to resign , he was so impressed with their loyalty , he let them stay
Besides , W. writes , `` there was no obvious replacement for Don .
How about ... anybody
He was `` shocked '' that there were no W.M.D. , though it should have been an obvious possibility that the proud , decimated Saddam might want to look tough in front of his neighbors
And W. was taken aback by the Iraq insurgency , though when you toss a ruthless ruling class into the street , you should expect a rumble
When W. could have acted to try to prevent real disasters - Osama 's attack on 9\/11 , the fiend 's escape at Tora Bora , the financial meltdown - he was oblivious
When he jumped in pre-emptively , as in Iraq , it was because he and Cheney had conjured up fake disasters out of their own paranoia and obsession with proving their toughness
Yet if W. 's decision-making leaves something to be desired , his story-telling is good
He writes of a visit to Russia , when Putin showed him his black Labrador , Koni
`` Bigger , stronger , and faster than Barney , '' Putin bragged
Later , when W. recounted this to Stephen Harper , the Canadian prime minister , Harper drolly noted , `` You 're lucky he only showed you his dog .
One of those , for me , is `` The Red Shoes .
Like its doomed heroine , I 'm pulled inexorably along by the bewitched crimson ballet slippers into a lush , swirling landscape that turns into an inescapable , bloody hell
There are many great works of art about obsession , from Heathcliff 's wailing to Ahab 's whaling , but this is surely the most gorgeously haunting
The destructive obsession portrayed here is not with a lover or outside object of desire
It 's about the tyranny of creativity
As the white-skinned , blue-blooded ballerina Vicky Page , Moira Shearer dons the red slippers and is forced to choose between love and art
There was never a screen pairing more magical than Moira and Technicolor
The flame-haired Scottish dancer is so radiant in the Criterion DVD of the 1948 classic directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger that it 's impossible to believe she could glow more brightly
But in the lovingly polished version of the British movie that debuted at Cannes and is now showing at Film Forum in New York , Moira is even more incandescent
The original backers of the movie had so little confidence that a stylized tragic ballet film could do well that they did n't even give it an official London premiere
Now Martin Scorsese calls `` The Red Shoes '' `` one of the true miracles of film history .
He long ago began an obsessive campaign to restore Powell 's reputation
His Film Foundation and the UCLA Film and Television Archive have taken the lead in digitally alchemizing the movie from cracked , shrunk , moldy negatives
Scorsese fell in love with the movies of Powell and Pressburger when he was an asthmatic kid living in a four-room tenement apartment in New York , watching `` Million Dollar Movie '' on TV and going to theaters with his dad
`` They have a flair and flamboyance you do n't usually find in films being made at that time , '' he told me
`` And a fearlessness about emotion
They create worlds that take no prisoners .
In `` Black Narcissus , '' their 1947 movie about a lustful nun in the Himalayas , played by Deborah Kerr they seemed drawn to redheads for Technicolor the sister faints from sexual desire and the screen goes orange
`` That 's such a wonderful way to express desire , '' Scorsese marveled
In a letter to Kerr in the early '40s , Pressburger laid out their manifesto , including : `` No artist believes in escapism
And we secretly believe that no audience does
We have proved , at any rate , that they will pay to see the truth , for no other reason than her nakedness .
In the early '70s , Scorsese tracked down the broke and discredited Powell in London and took him to a pub
`` Michael was very surprised to hear that his films had thrilled a younger audience and given fuel to the imagination of myself and Brian De Palma and Francis Coppola , '' Scorsese once recalled
`` He went home that night and recorded in his diary that he felt his blood course through his veins again after meeting us in the bar .
In 1980 , Coppola invited Powell to become a consultant at Zoetrope Studios
He moved to America and married Scorsese 's film editor , Thelma Schoonmaker
It is interesting that Powell twice counseled Scorsese against the color red
He did n't like the red boxing gloves in the early rushes of `` Raging Bull '' and urged Scorsese to switch to a black-and-white film
-LRB- He did .
Powell told him `` Mean Streets '' had too much red lighting and he should take some out
-LRB- He did n't .
`` The Red Shoes '' is based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name about a little girl who becomes vain about her red shoes and gets confused about her priorities
As in the movie , the shoes force the girl to dance day and night , and then she dies
But the fable has an even grimmer coda : The girl asks an executioner to cut off her feet
The shimmering Moira Shearer could never take off the red shoes , either
`` To be constantly associated with that one film is really quite dismaying , '' she once said
`` It 's as though I 'd done nothing else in my life
I mean , it 's odd , when you 're 61 , to be haunted by something you 've done when you were 21 !
She resisted doing the movie , finding the script `` silly and banal '' ; she feared it would deflect her from a classical ballet career
And when she died at 80 in 2006 , her husband dismissively called her film work `` a bit of a distraction .
Shearer said she faced hostility when she returned to the ballet world from some who considered her overnight movie fame frivolous
She always worried that she was succeeding more for her looks than her dancing
She was eclipsed by Margot Fonteyn , married , had four children and receded
She wrote a book about her experiences with George Balanchine
As Clive Barnes wrote in Dance Magazine , `` She had a disappointing and disappointed dance career .
In later years , Shearer was asked to give her occupation in `` Who 's Who .
`` Writer , '' she replied
I grew up in the nation 's capital , but I 've never seen blacks and whites here intermingling as they have this week
Everywhere I go , some white person is asking some black person how they feel
I saw one white customer quiz his black waitress at length at a chic soul food restaurant downtown , over deviled eggs and fried chicken livers , about whether she cried when Barack Obama won
She said she did , and he said he wept like a baby
He wondered how long she thought it would take the new president to scrape the government up off the floor
`` Three years , '' she replied authoritatively
I saw three white women asking a black bartender at the Bombay Club , across Lafayette Park from the White House , if he was happy and what he thought about Jesse Jackson 's flowing tears at Grant Park , given his envious threat to cut off a sensitive part of Obama 's anatomy
`` I think the tears were real , '' the bartender said
And did he feel it would be better to refer to Obama as half-white and half-black , or simply black , they pressed
`` Black , '' the bartender responded
`` Because it means more .
But one of the women insisted , should n't we call the new president African-American instead of black
And was n't he really , really excited about Obama
The bartender gently explained he was not even a Democrat ; he was a libertarian
I saw a white-haired white woman down the block from me running out to strike up a conversation with a black U.P.S. delivery guy , asking him how he felt and what this meant to him
I was starting to feel guilty
Every time I passed a black patron at a downtown restaurant or a movie or the Kennedy Center , would perfect strangers want me to ask how they were feeling
Or was that condescending and were they sick to death of it
How would I know if I did n't ask them
I heard my cute black mailman talking in an excited voice outside my house Friday , so I decided I should go ask him how he was feeling about everything , the absolute amazement of the first black president
If you do n't count what Toni Morrison said about Bill Clinton , that is
But should we count it
Was Barack Obama the first or the second black president , or alternatively , the first half-white , half-black president
I eagerly swung my front door open and joined the mailman 's conversation
`` Are you talking about the election ?
I said brightly
`` How do you feel ?
He shot me a look of bemused disdain as he walked away
I suddenly realized , with embarrassment , that he was on his Bluetooth , deep in a personal conversation that had nothing to do with Barack Obama
I grew up down the block from Fort Stevens , where Lincoln in his frock coat dodged the bullets of Jubal Early 's Confederate troops in the battle that saved the capital
It was a mostly black neighborhood
I 've never seen the capital become truly integrated
After the O. J. Simpson verdict , when black Howard University law students cheered , and during the Million Man March , led by Louis Farrakhan , a man who peddles racial and religious divisions , I wondered if we had lived and played apart for so long that we had lost track of how different our experiences and thoughts and perceptions of progress were
President Bush was a divider , not a decider
And the city and the country followed his bunker mentality
After 9\/11 , the White House and Capitol were ever more blockaded , and there seemed to be fewer and fewer bridges across any of our divisions racial , political , social and cultural
But now we have the delicious irony that a white president from a patrician family , whose administration was so negligent about America 's poor and black citizens , was so incompetent that he helped elect the first black president
As Andrew Young told Stephen Colbert , `` The world got so messed up nobody else wanted to really tackle it so then they turned it over to us .
And we have images to share that are harmonizing , not polarizing black and white students cheering and celebrating in front of the White House and the warm and fuzzy obsession about what kind of hypoallergenic puppy Sasha and Malia will get
It 's cool that President-elect Cool has gotten everybody chatting , even if it 's awkward small talk
And it 's fun , after so many years of unyielding barriers , to feel sentimental
`` When suddenly CNN revealed its wall-sized announcement of the outcome , I experienced a blissful and unembarrassed rush of racialism , '' Leon Wieseltier wrote in The New Republic
`` Only a hologram of Frederick Douglass would have excited me more .
But is it time now for whites to stop polling blacks on their feelings
I 'll have to call my friend Gwen Ifill tomorrow and ask her how she feels about that
Up until now , she has displayed remarkable imperturbability gliding along with the help of good lighting , a hearty guffaw and a clever husband
But on Sunday in New Hampton , Iowa , Hillary lost her cool at last
Sparring with a voter on Iran , she sounded defensive and paranoid
A Democrat , Randall Rolph , asked Senator Clinton why he should back her when she did not learn her lesson after voting to authorize W. to use force in Iraq
He did not understand how she could have voted yea to urge W. to label Iran s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization , possibly setting the stage for more Cheney chicanery
Hillary said that labeling them a terrorist organization gives us the authority to impose sanctions on their leadership
... I consider that part of a very robust diplomatic effort
Fearful that her questioner was an enemy spy creeping into her perfect little world , she suggested that he had been put up to the question and did not have his information right
I take exception , Mr. Rolph insisted
This is my own research
... I m offended that you would suggest that
Hillary apologized and said that she had been asked the very same question in three other places
She explained that she had signed on to a rewritten version of the amendment that did not , as he claimed , give a green light for combat
In the original sense of Senate on Iran document , sponsored by Joe Lieberman and the Republican Jon Kyl last month , there was a paragraph that supported the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq , including diplomatic , economic , intelligence and military instruments , in support of the policy with respect to Iran
That original draft , called tantamount to a declaration of war and Dick Cheney s fondest pipe dream by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia , was softened
Even so , Joe Biden and Chris Dodd voted no , and Barack Obama would have voted no if he had voted
If you know the dingbat vice president is agitating for a conflict with Iran , if you know that Condi is chasing after Cheney with a butterfly net on Iran and Syria , if you know you can t believe anything this administration says , why vote to give them more backing on their dysfunctional Middle East policy
The schism in the administration is deepening in a way that should alarm Hillary
Mark Mazzetti and Helene Cooper report in today s Times that Cheney and his hawks are arguing that the Israeli intelligence about Syria s nascent nuclear capabilities that led to last month s Israeli strike on Syria was credible and should dictate a harsher policy toward Syria and North Korea , while Condi , Bob Gates and calmer heads did not believe the intelligence presented so far merits any change in the American diplomatic approach
Hillary s hawkish Iran vote was an ill-advised move , especially given her private view that Cheney is untrustworthy and given Sy Hersh s New Yorker report claiming that Cheney had pushed to devise a plan to attack the Revolutionary Guard facilities in Iran
She made a course correction on Oct. 1 , co-sponsoring legislation introduced by Mr. Webb to prohibit the use of funds for military operations against Iran without explicit Congressional authorization
Her opponents have sounded the fool-me-once-shame-on-you , fool-me-twice-shame-on-me drumbeat
Obama chided Hillary for her willingness to once again extend to the president the benefit of the doubt
John Edwards wondered if in six months from now he goes to war in Iran , are we going to hear her once again say if only I had known then what I know now
When Hillary voted to let W. use force in Iraq , she didn t even read the intelligence estimate
She wasn t trying to do the right thing
She was trying to do the opportunistic thing
She felt she could not run for president , as a woman , if she played the peacenik
By throwing in with Joe Lieberman and the conservative hawks on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard issue , she once more overcompensated in a cynical way
She d like to paint Obama as the weak reed who wants to cozy up to dictators , while she s the one who will play tough
It was odd , given her success in the debates conveying the sense that she is the manliest candidate among the Democrats , that she felt the need to man-up on Iran
But maybe she knows that Rudy will hurl thunderbolts at her , as he did in the debate yesterday , suggesting that she doesn t have the guts to use a military option to stop Iran from going nuclear
Voters seem more concerned with Hillary s political expediency which the vote underscored than with her ability to be manly
Her camp seems to think her vote was a safe one because W. and Cheney do not have the time or support to bomb Iran , and that Bob Gates can stop it
But she may be underestimating W. and Cheney
She should be at least as paranoid about that pair as she was about an Iowa Democrat
It did n't take long , sitting with an enthralled audience and watching the saga of the cloistered jerk who betrayed those around him and ended up unfathomably rich and influential , to understand why it has been hailed as a masterpiece
They had me at the mesmerizing first scene , when the repulsive nerd is mocked by a comely , slender young lady he 's trying to woo
Bitter about women , he returns to his dark lair in a crimson fury of revenge
It unfolds with mythic sweep , telling the most compelling story of all , the one I cover every day in politics : What happens when the powerless become powerful and the powerful become powerless
This is a drama about quarrels over riches , social hierarchy , envy , theft and the consequence of deceit - a world upended where the vassals suddenly become lords and the lords suddenly lose their magic
The beauty who rejects the gnome at the start is furious when he turns around and betrays her , humiliating her before the world
And the giant brothers looming over the action justifiably feel they 've provided the keys to the castle and want their reward
One is more trusting than the other , but both go berserk , feeling they 've been swindled after entering into a legitimate business compact
The antisocial nerd , surrounded by his army of slaving minions , has been holed up making something so revolutionary and magical that it turns him into a force that could conquer the world
The towering brothers battle to get what they claim is their fair share of the glittering wealth that flows from the obsessive gnome 's genius designs
The gnome , remarkably , invents a way to hurl yourself through space and meet up with somebody at the other end
All of these mythic twists and turns in `` Das Rheingold '' at the Metropolitan Opera in New York were a revelation to me
I 'd never seen the Ring cycle
I did n't even know what it was about
I loved everything about Peter Gelb 's $ 16 million production : the shape-shifting , high-tech stage , the mermaid sopranos dangling from wires , the magnetic Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel , who plays Wotan , the weak ruler of the gods who tries to renege after bartering his gorgeous sister-in-law for construction of a gorgeous castle
-LRB- The moral of the story : Never mess with your contractor , the contractor always wins .
But as I watched the opera , my mind kept flashing to the `` The Social Network , '' another dazzling drama about quarrels over riches , social hierarchy , envy , theft and the consequences of deceit
A Sony executive called `` The Social Network , '' the David Fincher-Aaron Sorkin movie about Facebook 's Mark Zuckerberg and his circle of ex-friends and partners , `` the first really modern movie .
Yet the strikingly similar themes in Wagner 's feudal `` Das Rheingold '' - the Ring cycle is based on the medieval German epic poem `` Das Nibelungenlied , '' which some experts say helped inspire J. R. R. Tolkien 's `` The Lord of the Rings '' - underscore how little human drama changes through the ages
We are always fighting about social status , identity , money , power , turf , control , lust and love
We are always trying to get even , get more and climb higher
And we are always trying to cross the bridge to Valhalla
W. P. Ker defined the heroic epic as `` the defense of a narrow place , against odds .
And that can just as well sum up the modern epic of the antihero Mark Zuckerberg
In `` Das Rheingold , '' the dwarf Alberich is mocked and rejected by the Rhinemaidens
`` Fury and longing \/ fierce and forceful \/ surge through my spirit , '' Alberich sings
Thwarted in lust , stewing in rage , the gnome turns to greed and vengeance
He steals the Rhinemaidens ' gold , returns to his sulfurous , subterranean cavern and forges a gold ring that `` would give unbounded power and wealth .
He uses the ring to enslave the other dwarves , `` the Nibelungs ' nocturnal race , '' and forge and weld more gold trinkets , as well as a magic helmet that can make him invisible and teleport him through space
`` No one can see me \/ though he search for me \/ yet I am everywhere \/ hidden from sight , '' Alberich says , in a perfect description of the elusive Zuckerberg and Internet users in general
Then , in a mantra that could belong to Jesse Eisenberg 's Zuckerberg , Alberich warns the gods : `` Beware
\/ For when once you men \/ serve my might \/ the dwarf will take his pleasure \/ with your pretty women \/ who scorn his wooing , \/ though love does not smile upon him .
The 1854 Wagner libretto has ornate language like `` the soft zephyrs ' breeze .
The 2010 Sorkin screenplay has snappy , syncopated language about Python Web servers and Pix firewall emulators
But the passions that drive humans stay remarkably constant , whether it 's a magic ring being forged or a magic code being written
When he heard the Nobel Peace Prize shocker on Friday , Bill Clinton went into one of his purple rages
He picked up the phone and dialed the one person on earth who would be as steamed as he was
CLINTON : Hey , man , it 's me
This thing is plumb crazy
Can you believe it
W : No way , Jose
CLINTON : First that prig Carter
Then that prig Gore
And now President Paris Hilton
The guy 's in office three days and he gets the peace prize
He should have gotten the Nobel in chemistry , because chemistry 's all he 's got
Talk about a fairy tale
This ... is ... just ... wrong
It 's killing me , man
I feel like my head 's explodin '
First I had the vast right-wing conspiracy , and now I have the vast left-wing conspiracy
W. : I hear ya , 42
As if his head was n't big enough
This cat is all cage , no bird
He does n't have a clue
CLINTON : Heck no.
W. : See , I 'm the one who should be mad
Let me tell you , this Norwegia thing has nothing to do with him
It 's just another way for the pinkos of the world to drop a cow patty on my legacy
All that garbage in the prize statement about how special La Bamba is for bringing back wimpy multilateral diplomacy , dialogue and negotiations , the kind my dad and Scowcroft loved
Those Nobel ninnies are so lulu left they make the U.N. look like a Fox jamboree
The rookie already got rewarded once for not being me when he got elected
Gosh , what would he do without me
CLINTON : Fine , but you never expected to win this prize
You were the quote-unquote war president and proud of it
I had to put up with a gazillion hours of Arafat 's insanity , but I guess that still was n't enough for those Oslo ice queens
I guess ending ethnic cleansing in Bosnia was n't enough , or bringing peace to Northern Ireland
And I guess my work with the Clinton Global Initiative saving lives in Africa and hanging with Bono and Barbra was n't enough
W. : Calm down , bro
You gotta take care of that ticker
CLINTON : It was a case of premature adulation
W. : Heh-heh-heh
Yeah , very pre-emptive , sort of like Cheney 's pre-emptive war policy
CLINTON : If they were n't going to give it to me , they should at least have given it to the Chinese human rights movement or the Iranian protesters or AIDS workers in the Congo
Or even Bono
W. : Yeah , man
CLINTON : That would have helped make life better for the good guys and harder for the bad guys
Once again , action loses out to talk , just like with Hillary and Obama in the campaign
Nobel Prize for blah-blah-blah
Heck , I used to be considered a pretty good talker myself
W. : It 's aggravating , I agree
But look at it this way , 42
Everybody 's laughing at La Bamba
He gets a Nobel for nada
Being loved by Europeans is n't gonna do him any good here in the U.S. of A. I whupped that Frenchy Kerry , did n't I
CLINTON : The only peace Obama has made is bringing together the Taliban , Rush Limbaugh , the Palestinians and the Israelis to agree the guy is undeserving
It just confirms everyone 's suspicion that all this dude knows how to do is dazzle
W. : He does n't want to be a Decider
He wants to be a Transformer
He transformed , all right from Miss America to Miss Universe
He 's a five-spiral crash , and getting the gold is just a reminder of all he has n't done
He 's going to have to look over and see that big medallion hanging up there in the Oval , mocking him as an empty suit , a pretty boy beloved by the Blame-America-First crowd , whenever he has to send more troops to Afghanistan , or the Taliban act up , or Iran fires up for nukes
CLINTON : Maybe you 're right , George
Some winners think the Nobel 's the kiss of death
Any peace prize that goes to Henry Kissinger but not Gandhi ai n't worth a can of Alpo
Heck , if Gandhi had known he was going to lose out to Henry the K , he could have had more time to eat french fries and chase girls
W. : And finish getting dressed
CLINTON : Barack 's going to give that $ 1.4 million away to charity
I got a charity
How ` bout he just signs it over to me
Speaking of money , we need to do another of those joint lecture things
W. : I 'm fairly footloose
This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship
Go choke on a herring , Norwegia
The decline and fall of the American Empire echoes the experience of the Romans , who also tumbled into the trap of becoming overleveraged empire hussies
As our sand-castle economy washes away under the tide of bad gambles and debts , this most self-indulgent society lurches toward stoicism -LRB- even bankrupt Iceland gives us the cold shoulder and turns to a solvent superpower -RRB-
It 's going to require more than giving up constant infusions of stocks , Starbucks and Botox
As Seneca , the Roman Stoic who advised treating the body `` somewhat strictly , '' wrote in a letter : `` Avoid whatever is approved of by the mob , and things that are the gift of chance
Whenever circumstance brings some welcome thing your way , stop in suspicion and alarm ... They are snares
... we think these things are ours when in fact it is we who are caught
That track leads to precipices ; life on that giddy level ends in a fall .
The study of Latin and Greek , with illuminations on morality , philosophy , mob rule and chariot races , reached a nadir in the greedy '80s and '90s , when it seemed irrelevant for kids who yearned to be investment bankers and high-tech millionaires
But now we 've learned the hard way that greed is bad avaritia mala est and the classics have staged a comeback
Amo Latinam , so I was happy to see last week 's Times story about the soaring enrollment for Latin classes in New York
In high school , I translated swatches of Julius Caesar 's `` The Battle for Gaul '' from Latin to English while nibbling cheese crackers
To boost the felicitous new trend toward Latin , I enlisted Gary D. Farney , an associate professor of history at Rutgers University , to translate -LRB- loosely and creatively -RRB- from English to Latin `` The Battle of Gall , '' my take below on why the hyperventilating Republicans are not veni , vidi , vici-ing
So now the Republican president who bungled wars and the economy and the Democratic president trying to dig us out are in a dead heat
America 's long-term economic woe has led to short-term memory loss
Republicans are still popular , and the candidates are crazier than ever
And crazy is paying dividends : Sharron Angle , the extreme Republican candidate for the Senate in Nevada , vacuumed up $ 14 million in the last quarter in her crusade to knock out Harry Reid - the kind of money that presidential candidates dream of collecting
Karl Rove has put together a potent operation to use anonymous donors to flood the airwaves with attack ads against Democrats
And a gaunt-looking Dick Cheney is out of the hospital and back to raking in money defending torture and pre-emptive war
He , Lynne Cheney , Rove , Sarah Palin , Newt Gingrich and Laura Bush drew more than 10,000 people at $ 495 a pop to a conference in Bakersfield , Calif. , last weekend
Republicans are also gearing up to start re-sliming Valerie Plame Wilson and Joe Wilson when `` Fair Game , '' the movie based on their memoirs , opens next month
Robert Luskin , a lawyer for Rove who considered Plame collateral damage and labeled her `` fair game , '' dismissively told Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The Times that the Wilsons are `` a little past their ` sell-by ' date .
It 's hard to believe that it was seven years ago when the scandal of the Glamorous Spy and Showboating Ambassador exploded
Joe Wilson first accused the Boy Emperor of not wearing any clothes on the Iraq W.M.D. 's , and then charged the Bush White House with running a `` smear campaign '' against him and outing his wife as a C.I.A. spy
He was right on all counts and brave to take on a White House that broke creative new ground in thuggery and skulduggery
But it was child 's play for the Republicans to undermine the former diplomat and the spy who loved him
Wilson was `` pretty widely known as a loudmouth , '' as the movie 's director Doug Liman put it , and overstepped at times , posing for Vanity Fair in his Jaguar convertible with his wife coyly cloaked in scarf and sunglasses
While her husband was in his promotional whirlwind , Plame was in her reticent cloud , her air of blonde placidity belying her anguish at being betrayed and her disgust that Cheney Inc. bullied the C.I.A. , overriding skepticism about Saddam 's weapons system and warping intelligence
`` It 's called counterproliferation , Jack , '' Naomi Watts 's Plame says to her superior
`` Counter .
The movie makes clear that Plame was not merely `` a secretary '' or `` mediocre agent '' at the agency , as partisan critics charged at the time , but a respected undercover spy tracking Iraqi W.M.D. efforts
And it reiterates that Plame did not send her husband , who had worked in embassies in Iraq while Saddam and Bush Senior were in charge and was the ambassador in two African countries , on the fact-finding trip to Niger about a possible Iraqi purchase of 500 tons of yellowcake uranium
She merely acted as an intermediary when a colleague threw his name into the hat for the unpaid gig
The film creates composites to heighten the tension and suggests that Plame 's Iraqi contacts and their families were murdered once she was outed - a subplot Variety called `` apocryphal and manipulative .
But the movie is a vivid reminder of one of the most egregious abuses of power in history , and there are deliciously diabolical turns by actors playing Scooter Libby , David Addington and Rove
Plame 's C.I.A. bosses are portraits in cravenness , cutting her loose at the moment she starts receiving death threats and her Iraqi sources become endangered
Liman , who grew up watching his father Arthur 's Buddha-like interrogations during the Iran-Contra hearings , does not use an Oliver Stone sledgehammer on history
He views the scandal through the lens of the Wilsons ' marriage , which snaps for a time under the strain of being hounded by the most powerful men on earth
-LRB- As Valerie writes in her book about Joe 's demand to see Rove `` frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs '' : `` Husbands
What can you do ? ''
Costumed with lush mane and round paunch , Sean Penn is well suited to capture Wilson 's arrogance and mouthiness , while also showing his honesty , brazenness , sly charm and fierce love of wife and country
They were the Girl and Boy Who Kicked the Hornet 's Nest , and we should all remember what flew out
He was sneering that Times columns make good kindling
He was ranting that after you throw away the paper , it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade
He was observing , approvingly , that Dick Cheney s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann s skull
I called Colbert with a dare : if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit , he should try it
He came right over
In a moment of weakness , I had staged a coup d moi
I just hope he leaves at some point
He s typing and drinking and threatening to shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle
I Am an Op-Ed Columnist -LRB- And So Can You !
By STEPHEN COLBERT Surprised to see my byline here , aren t you
I would be too , if I read The New York Times
But I don t. So I ll just have to take your word that this was published
Frankly , I prefer emoticons to the written word , and if you disagree : -LRB- I d like to thank Maureen Dowd for permitting\/begging me to write her column today
As I type this , she s watching from an overstuffed divan , petting her prize Abyssinian and sipping a Dirty Cosmotinijito
Which reminds me : Before I get started , I have to take care of one other bit of business : Bad things are happening in countries you shouldn t have to think about
It s all George Bush s fault , the vice president is Satan , and God is gay
Now I ve written Frank Rich s column too
So why I am writing Miss Dowd s column today
Because I believe the 2008 election , unlike all previous elections , is important
And a lot of Americans feel confused about the current crop of presidential candidates
For instance , Hillary Clinton
I can t remember if I m supposed to be scared of her so Democrats will think they should nominate her when she s actually easy to beat , or if I m supposed to be scared of her because she s legitimately scary
Or Rudy Giuliani
I can t remember if I m supposed to support him because he s the one who can beat Hillary if she gets nominated , or if I m supposed to support him because he s legitimately scary
And Fred Thompson
In my opinion Law & Order never sufficiently explained why the Manhattan D.A. had an accent like an Appalachian catfish wrestler
Well , suddenly an option is looming on the horizon
And I don t mean Al Gore -LRB- though he s a world-class loomer -RRB-
First of all , I don t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys
Second , winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief
I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president , you don t need to care about science , literature or peace
While my hat is not presently in the ring , I should also point out that it is not on my head
So where s that hat
-LRB- Hint : John McCain was seen passing one at a gas station to fuel up the Straight Talk Express .
Others point to my new bestseller , I Am America -LRB- And So Can You !
noting that many candidates test the waters with a book first
Just look at Barack Obama , John Edwards or O. J. Simpson
Look at the moral guidance I offer
On faith : After Jesus was born , the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up
On gender : The sooner we accept the basic differences between men and women , the sooner we can stop arguing about it and start having sex
On race : While skin and race are often synonymous , skin cleansing is good , race cleansing is bad
On the elderly : They look like lizards
Our nation is at a Fork in the Road
Some say we should go Left ; some say go Right
I say , Doesn t this thing have a reverse gear
Let s back this country up to a time before there were forks in the road or even roads
Or forks , for that matter
I want to return to a simpler America where we ate our meat off the end of a sharpened stick
Let me regurgitate : I know why you want me to run , and I hear your clamor
I share Americans nostalgia for an era when you not only could tell a man by the cut of his jib , but the jib industry hadn t yet fled to Guangdong
And I don t intend to tease you for weeks the way Newt Gingrich did , saying that if his supporters raised $ 30 million , he would run for president
I would run for 15 million
Nevertheless , I am not ready to announce yet even though it s clear that the voters are desperate for a white , male , middle-aged , Jesus-trumpeting alternative
What do I offer
Hope for the common man
Because I am not the Anointed or the Inevitable
I am just an Average Joe like you if you have a TV show
It 's hard to believe that the Bush dynasty , which limped away in disgrace after smashing our economy and the globe , has spawned another political dynasty
But Jason Horowitz reported in The Washington Post that Mary Cheney , the younger daughter of the former vice president , is starting a consulting firm modeled on Kissinger Associates
Since it involves the Cheneys , it 's shrouded in unnecessary secrecy
But Mary 's friends say her plan is to make it Cheney cubed , bringing in her dad and big sister , Liz , when those two finish cleaning out the Augean stables of Dick Cheney 's legacy for his memoir
Horowitz wrote that Mary , who is expecting her second child with her partner , Heather Poe , next month , may be hanging the shingle for the `` gruff clan who speak in dour unison when bashing the current president , second-guessing the previous commander in chief and chiding wayward G.O.P. leaders .
The influence-peddling firm will be wildly successful , no doubt , because if anyone has shown a golden touch , it 's Dick Cheney
And there are bound to be oodles of clients who want coaching on how to make things look totally the opposite of what they are
Saudis , right-wing dictators and Bernie Madoff calling for image makeovers
Scooter Libby calling to see how to get his career back after taking the fall for his scheming boss
Rush Limbaugh calling to strategize about how to buy an N.F.L. team with black players as he says offensive things about blacks
Rupert Murdoch seeking tips on how to merge Fox and NBC into Brian O'Hannity
You can hear a receptionist chirping : `` Cheney , Cheney & Cheney
Who would you like to target today ?
Regarding bipartisanship with the same contempt as multilateralism and multiculturalism , the Cheneys have led the charge against Obama , painting him as a wishy-washy loser who has turned America to mush
On Fox News last Sunday , Liz Cheney who still talks about having `` liberated '' Iraq called Obama 's Nobel Peace Prize a `` farce '' and suggested that he `` send the mother of a fallen American soldier to accept the prize on behalf of the U.S. military .
The blonde 43-year-old lawyer , a mother of five hailed by her fans as `` a red state rock star , '' teamed up this week with Bill Kristol to start a new group called `` Keep America Safe .
Kristol , of course , was the chief proponent of the wacky notion that Dan Quayle , and later Sarah Palin , could Keep America Safe , which somewhat undermines the urgency and gravity of the group 's moniker
And Liz 's dear old dad was the one who made America less safe by straining our military to the breaking point while carrying out his knuckleheaded theory of pre-emptive war
Still , Liz hopes her new enterprise will energize opponents of President Obama 's `` radical '' foreign policy , as she has tried to do so volubly on cable shows , and raise money by presenting the president as a callow , wobbly , golf-playing appeaser whose foreign policy will `` make us weaker .
The Web site features a daily Willie Hortonish detainee feature , profiling one of the scary swarthy prisoners at Gitmo
And it will also have all kinds of fun reading , like memos by Bush lawyers on enhanced interrogation
-LRB- Or , as it 's more commonly known outside the gargoyled gates of Cheneyville , torture .
The `` Keep America Safe '' mission statement says that `` the current administration too often seems uncertain , wishful , irresolute , and unwilling to stand up for America , our allies and our interests .
It 's evocative of an earlier effort by conservatives to prod a Democratic president to man-up , hectoring him about his `` inadequate '' foreign policy and his course of `` weakness and drift .
That was a 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton from the Project for the New American Century , with signers such as Kristol , Paul Wolfowitz , Donald Rumsfeld , Richard Perle and John Bolton , urging a strategy that `` should aim , above all , at the removal of Saddam Hussein 's regime from power .
-LRB- Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby signed the project 's statement of principles .
Kristol joked to Politico 's Ben Smith that the venture might serve as a launching pad for Liz to run for office
-LRB- A Senate bid from Virginia , where she lives , or Wyoming , which she still calls home ?
That raises the terrifying specter that some day we could see a Palin-Cheney ticket , promoted by Kristol
Sarah would bring her content-free crackle and gut instincts ; Liz would bring facts and figures distorted by ideology
Pretty soon , we 're pre-emptively invading Iran and the good times are rolling all over again
He won the Nobel prize in economics this week , and while I 'm sure that 's delightful for him , it has raised the bar to an impossible height for his fellow columnists at The Times
We used to strive for Pulitzers , or simply regional awards , or even just try to top each other on the paper 's most e-mailed list
Now we 're supposed to compete for Nobels
It 's a total disaster
Any minute , Krugman might swagger into the office wearing that big old 24-karat-gold-plated medal around his neck like a World Wrestling championship belt , talking about how beautiful Sweden is
So I must aim higher
Much higher
A Nobel in economics is out
I did n't take economics in college because all the classes started at 8 a.m. Physics , chemistry and medicine are out
They 've given up giving it to Americans
So it 's going to have to be the Nobel Peace Prize
I tried to think of a horrible war going on that needed my mediation skills
And then it hit me : The conservative donnybrook over Sarah Palin , the peppery debate raging about whether she is an embarrassment who should fade away or an impudent but promising wine picked before its time
Republicans have been slugging it out over whether Palin is dragging John McCain down or whether his campaign is mishandling her
The governor 's favorability rating is now 32 percent , according to the new Times\/CBS News poll , plummeting 8 points from earlier this month , and her unfavorable rating soared 9 percentage points to 41 percent
On Tuesday , Matthew Dowd , the former Bush strategist who offered a famous apologia for helping get W. re-elected , offered a scorching assessment of Palin 's not being ready , saying that McCain `` knows that in his gut
And when this race is over , that is something he will have to live with
... He put somebody unqualified on that ballot , and he put the country at risk .
Christopher Hitchens endorsed Barack Obama on Slate on Monday , calling Palin 's conduct `` a national disgrace '' and writing : `` Given the nasty and lowly task of stirring up the whack-job fringe of the party 's right wing and of recycling patent falsehoods about Obama 's position on Afghanistan , she has drawn upon the only talent that she apparently possesses .
Christopher Buckley endorsed Obama on The Daily Beast , writing of McCain 's embrace of Palin : `` What on earth can he have been thinking ?
-LRB- The endorsement led to Buckley 's resigning from The National Review , founded by his father .
On `` The Colbert Report '' on Monday , the conservative columnist Kathleen Parker stuck by her assertion , which she said caused the base to treat her like a traitor , that Palin should have bowed out
She said she 'd gotten some secret e-mails from Republicans in the White House agreeing with her
William Kristol , a Palin fan who thinks she has been horribly managed , wrote in The Times on Monday that McCain should fire his campaign for malpractice
David Brooks , speaking at an Atlantic Magazine event , called Palin `` a fatal cancer to the Republican Party , '' bemoaning the fact that she did not fit in with the late William Buckley 's desire to have a party that celebrated ideas and learning
I started my campaign to win a Nobel prize by trying to make peace between the two conservatives at odds on our Op-Ed page
I called Kristol and asked him if he thought Palin could grow into the next Reagan , reminding him that he was outnumbered by conservatives recoiling from her
`` Conservative eggheads are my friends , '' he said , `` but politically they 're a contrarian indicator
If they 're down on Palin , things are looking up for her
With all due respect for my fellow eggheads , they are underestimating the importance of a natural political gift or star quality
It matters a lot .
He suggested that she has a shrewdness and toughness `` like Andrew Jackson '' beyond what you get with a Yale law degree or Harvard business degree
`` That may be hard for my conservative intellectual friends to grasp , '' he said
I did n't seem to be soothing the waters
I called Brooks , who conceded : `` Her political delivery skills are incredible .
So you agree with Kristol that she might be a star in the party
Could Palin be the nominee in 2012
`` The short answer is no , '' Brooks said
`` She has reinforced the worst of talk-radio culture
The party will need a leader to strike out in a new direction , a fiscally conservative president more like a high-tech Teddy Roosevelt
Someone with gravitas .
So much for brokering a peace accord
I 'll have to leave the eggheads boiling
David Horowitz s conservative Freedom Center has designated next week the time to break through the barrier of politically correct doublespeak that prevails on American campuses , if you want to help our brave troops , who are fighting the Islamo-Fascists abroad
The Freedom Center s terrorism awareness program is urging college students to stage sit-ins outside the offices of women s studies departments to protest the silence of feminists over the oppression of women in Islam and to distribute pamphlets on Islamo-Fascism
Their titles include The Islamic Mein Kampf , Why Israel is the Victim and Jimmy Carter s War Against the Jews
Even before Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week , the Republican presidential candidates were pitching in yesterday at the Republican Jewish Coalition Victory 2008 Forum here
I don t know if you ve noticed this about the Democratic debates , Rudy Giuliani said , but they never use the word Islamic terrorist
They have a very hard time getting those words out of their mouth , he continued , to the delight of his listeners
I think it s quite clear to me now , having listened to seven or eight of their debates , that they think it s politically incorrect to say the words
I don t know exactly who they think they re offending
I don t know what kind of view of the world they have
I understand when I say Islamic terrorism , I m not offending all of Islam
I m not offending all of the Arab world
I m offending exactly who I want to offend and making it clear to them that we stand against them
As the phlegmatic Fred Thompson plummeted in the polls and made a lackluster appearance at the forum , a juiced Mr. Giuliani preened in front of an audience that loved him
He went through his greatest hits : The time he yanked Yasir Arafat out of Lincoln Center during a performance of Beethoven s Ninth
The thing that really bothered me was , he didn t have a ticket , Rudy recalled
He was a freeloader
The time he tossed back a $ 10 million check for 9\/11 families from the Saudi prince who urged America to adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause
You know , Israel s not perfect , and America s not perfect , but we re not terrorist states , he said
There has been much discussion about liberal Rudy stances on guns , gays , abortion , divorce and comic cross-dressing that are well-suited to Manhattan but not to G.O.P. primary voters
But there s also his bearhug with Israel , so hearty that even W. s embrace seems tepid in comparison
But Rudy seems out of the Republican mainstream on even giving lip-service to Palestinian aspirations
He has no patience for buttering up the Arabs , or the Republican men s club attitude represented by Saudi-loving Bush senior and James Baker that has always favored a more even-handed policy in the Middle East
Mr. Baker once reportedly justified the tough policy of the Bush 41 administration toward Israel with the notorious comment to a colleague : -LRB- Expletive -RRB- the Jews
They didn t vote for us anyway
W. blew off the Baker-Hamilton panel suggestions on Iraq that urged the administration to aggressively referee the Israeli-Palestinian dispute , to begin negotiations with Iran and Syria and called for Israel to return the Golan Heights to Syria
Imagine what Rudy would do
Even though he has been closer to Israel than his dad , at least W. held the Saudi crown prince s hand in Crawford
#NAME?
At a party at the vice president s mansion once , I watched Bandar greet waiters like old friends .
Rudy would probably only take the hand of an Arab leader to throw him down a ravine , or a wadi
We need to isolate the terror-funding theocrats in every way possible , he told the Jewish hawks , during a rant on Iran
And we must end direct and indirect investment until they change their course
Rudy lambasted Hillary and Obama for their strong Democratic desire to negotiate , negotiate , negotiate and negotiate , and suggested again that he would be tougher on Iran than Hillary , and would never let it get a nuclear weapon
Last night , when he and Judi were interviewed by Fox s Sean Hannity , Rudy ratcheted it up , saying that Hillary s ambiguity and shifting of position on Iran was a dangerous tendency , I think , in somebody that aspires to take on a position where you have got to be pretty darn decisive
He also bored in where Obama has been skittish about going : her experience
Honestly , in most respects , I don t know Hillary s experience
She s never run a city
She s never run a state
She s never run a business
She has never met a payroll
She has never been responsible for the safety and security of millions of people , much less even hundreds of people
He assured everyone he d learned how to put his cellphone on vibrate
But he left himself at full volume
As the politicians droned on and my Irish skin turned toasty brown , I worried that Governor Brewer might make a citizen 's arrest and I would have to run for my life across the desert
She has , after all , declared open season on anyone with a suspicious skin tone in her state
We are in the era of Republican Mean Girls , grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend , spray-paint your locker and , just for good measure , spread rumors that you were pregnant
These women - Jan , Meg , Carly , Sharron , Linda , Michele , Queen Bee Sarah and sweet wannabe Christine - have co-opted and ratcheted up the disgust with the status quo that originally buoyed Barack Obama
Whether they 're mistreating the help or belittling the president 's manhood , making snide comments about a rival 's hair or ripping an opponent for spending money on a men 's fashion show , the Mean Girls have replaced Hope with Spite and Cool with Cold
They are the ideal nihilistic cheerleaders for an angry electorate
Seated next to Brewer at the bridge dedication was Harry Reid , the slight , mild-mannered , 70-year-old Senate majority leader who has wandered into the surprise fight of his career - a race where the fur is flying
`` Man up , Harry Reid , '' Sharron Angle taunted him at their Las Vegas debate here Thursday night
That 's not an idle insult , coming from a woman who campaigns at times with a .44 Magnum revolver in her 1989 GMC pickup
With casino red suit and lipstick , Angle played the Red Queen of the Mad Hatter tea party , denouncing career politicians and ordering `` Off with your head !
and `` Down with government benefits !
Even sober and smiling beneath her girlish bangs , the 61-year-old Angle had the slightly threatening air of the inebriated lady in a country club bar , tossing off outrageous statements and daring anyone to call her on them
The debate between the former boxer and the former competitive weight lifter , the soft-spoken Mormon and the outspoken Christian , was a source of fascination because the rivals perfectly represent the two caricatures of the midterms : The Washington incumbent and master of back-room deals who 's been around forever and lost touch with people versus the wacky new-breed Tea Party challenger who 's hiding from and hating on the press , spouting a lot of weird stuff and vowing to do what Barack Obama did n't : Shake up Washington
The senator began the debate with a gentle reminiscence about his mother , who took in wash from the brothels in scruffy Searchlight , Nev.
Angle could have told the poignant story of her German immigrant great-grandmother who died trying to save laundry hanging on the clothesline in a South Dakota prairie fire , which Angle wrote about in her self-published book , `` Prairie Fire .
But instead the former teacher and assemblywoman began hurling cafeteria insults
`` I live in a middle-class neighborhood in Reno , Nevada , '' she said
`` Senator Reid lives in the Ritz-Carlton in Washington , D.C. '' Reid did not man up enough to mock Angle 's nutty assertion that Shariah law exists in Dearborn , Mich. , and Frankford , Tex. -LRB- a town that has n't existed since 1975 -RRB-
But he did rebut Angle 's inane contention that health insurers should not have to cover anything , talking about how important it was to be covered on mammograms and colonoscopies
`` If you do colonoscopies , '' he said , `` colon cancer does not come 'cause you snip off the things they find when they go up and - no more .
`` Well , '' Angle replied tartly , `` pink ribbons are not going to make people have a better insurance plan .
Angle has been pressing the case , underwritten by Karl Rove 's operation and other conservative groups that have made the majority leader their No. 1 target , that Reid must be punished for being in a socialist triumvirate with Nancy Pelosi and President Obama
In the debate , she went for the jugular , asking him how he became `` one of the richest men in the Senate '' after coming from Searchlight `` with very little .
Reid , who cloaks his ambition and brass knuckles under a mousy facade , looked as if she had slapped him
He called her `` my friend , '' but clearly did not think of her as his `` pet , '' as he unfortunately dubbed Chris Coons , the Delaware opponent of the bewitching Christine O'Donnell
He said that was `` really kind of a low blow , '' adding that he had been a successful lawyer before becoming a pol , and `` did a very good job in investing .
After the debate was over , Angle scurried away and so did I - in a different direction
I was feeling jittery again
If she saw me , she might take away my health insurance and spray-paint my locker
One singular leader who wrote elegantly about his ideals , was swept into the presidency and then collided with harsh reality had some advice for another
In an interview with Alison Smale in The Times last week , Vaclav Havel sipped Champagne in the middle of the afternoon and pricked Barack Obama 's conscience
Havel , the 73-year-old former Czech president , who did n't win a Nobel Peace Prize despite leading the Czechs and the Slovaks from communism to democracy , turned the tables and asked Smale a question about Obama , the latest winner of the peace prize
Was it true that the president had refused to meet the Dalai Lama on his visit to Washington
He was told that Obama had indeed tried to curry favor with China by declining to see the Dalai Lama until after the president 's visit to China next month
Dissing the Dalai was part of a broader new Obama policy called `` strategic reassurance '' softening criticism of China 's human rights record and financial policies to calm its fears that America is trying to contain it
-LRB- Not to mention our own fears that the Chinese will quit bankrolling our debt .
The tyro American president got the Nobel for the mere anticipation that he would provide bold moral leadership for the world at the very moment he was caving to Chinese dictators
Havel reached out to touch a glass dish given to him by Obama , inscribed with the preamble to the U.S. Constitution
`` It is only a minor compromise , '' he said
`` But exactly with these minor compromises start the big and dangerous ones , the real problems .
Our president would be well advised to listen
Havel is looking at this not only as a moral champion but as a playwright
Obama -LRB- who , as Robert Draper wrote , has read and reread Shakespeare 's tragedies -RRB- does not want his fatal flaw to be that he compromises so much that his ideals get blurred out of recognition
As Leon Wieseltier writes in the upcoming New Republic : `` The demotion of human rights by the common-ground presidency is absolutely incomprehensible
The common ground is not always the high ground
When it is without end , moreover , the search for common ground is bad for bargaining
It informs the other side that what you most desire is the deal that you will never acknowledge the finality of the difference , and never be satisfied with the integrity of opposition
There is a reason that ` uncompromising ' is a term of approbation .
F.D.R. asked to be judged by the enemies he had made
But what of a president who strives to keep everyone in some vague middle ground of satisfaction or dissatisfaction , without ever offending anyone
White House advisers do n't seem worried yet that Obama 's transformational aura could get smudged if too much is fudged
They say it is the normal tension between campaigning on a change platform and actually accomplishing something in office
Yet Obama 's legislative career offers cautionary tales about the toll of constant consensus building
In Springfield , he compromised so much on a health care reform bill that in the end , it merely led to a study
In Washington , he compromised so much with Senate Republicans on a bill to require all nuclear plant owners to notify state and local authorities about radioactive leaks that it simply devolved into a bill offering guidance to regulators , and even that ultimately died
Now the air is full of complaints that Obama has been too cautious on health care , Afghanistan , filling judgeships , ending `` do n't ask , do n't tell , '' repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and rebuilding New Orleans ; that he has conceded too much to China , Iran , Russia , the Muslim world and the banks
The White House Web site that went up during President Obama 's first week in office bragged about the four trips that Senator Obama made to the Gulf region after Katrina , promising to `` keep the broken promises made by President Bush to rebuild New Orleans .
He may be doing a better job than Brownie 's boss , but Obama did n't make his first visit to New Orleans until Thursday
He stayed just a few hours before jetting off to a fund-raiser in San Francisco
At the New Orleans town hall , 29-year-old Gabriel Bordenave complained about the slow pace of the recovery
`` I expected as much from the Bush administration , '' he told Obama
`` But why are we still being nickel-and-dimed ?
The president gave a technocrat 's answer about the `` complications between the state , the city and the feds in making assessments of the damages .
`` Now , I wish I could just write a check , '' he added
When an audience member yelled `` Why not ?
he dryly noted , `` There 's this whole thing about the Constitution .
The president should remember , though , that when you 're cooking up a more perfect Union , sometimes you 've got to break some eggs
I even felt a little thrill go up my leg , as Chris Matthews would put it , when I heard that the Lehman Brothers C.E.O. , Richard Fuld , got punched in the company gym after it was announced that the firm was going under
I ca n't wait to see the tumbrels rumble up and down Wall Street picking up the heedless and greedy financial aristocracy that plundered and sundered free-market capitalism
Just when we thought executives of A.I.G. , the insurance giant bailed out by taxpayers for $ 123 billion , had been shamed into stopping their post-bailout Marie Antoinette spa treatments , luxury sports suites , Vegas and California posh resort retreats , we were dumbfounded to learn that some A.I.G. execs were cavorting at a lavish shooting party at a British country manor
London 's News of the World sent undercover reporters to hunt down the feckless financiers on their $ 86,000 partridge hunt as they tromped through the countryside in tweed knickers , and then later as they `` slurped fine wine '' and feasted on pigeon breast and halibut
The paper reported that the A.I.G. revelers stayed at Plumber Manor not the ancestral home of Joe the Plumber , a 17th-century country house in Dorset and spent $ 17,500 for food and rooms
The private jet to get there cost another $ 17,500 , and the limos added up to $ 8,000 more
In an astonishing let-them-eat-cake moment , the A.I.G. big shot Sebastian Preil held court at the bar and told an undercover reporter , `` The recession will go on until about 2011 , but the shooting was great today and we are relaxing fine .
There were at least three New Yorkers bagging birds Jeffrey Malkovsky , a senior director at A.I.G. 's Manhattan office , Hilary James , the general manager of the Bristol Plaza Hotel , and her friend , John Roberts , an A.I.G. adviser
Who are these looters of our loot
The New York Times should follow up the excellent Portraits of Grief it did after 9\/11 with Portraits of Greed
Payback does n't have to go as far as the French Revolution
The grifters shafting us do n't have to shed blood , but they do have to give the money back
As far as these self-serving corporate con men and short-selling traders are concerned , off with their headsets
John McCain wasted his last-chance debate Wednesday by trying to stir up faux class rage against Barack Obama with Joe the Unvetted Plumber instead of tapping into the real class rage the country feels over bailing out ungrateful financiers who gambled away the life savings of working people
` Tis a far , far better thing that New York 's attorney general , Andrew Cuomo , did when he demanded that A.I.G. 's former executives who were trying to abscond with many millions in severance payments , bonuses and golden parachutes surrender the swag
He set a good example for the feds , who slapped Mr. Fuld in the face with a subpoena
Cuomo got A.I.G. to instantly reverse itself and cancel 160 conferences and other events that would have cost more than $ 8 million , as well as give up information on compensation , bonuses and other payments to determine whether they were fitting
-LRB- How could they be ?
`` We stopped a $ 10 million severance payment to Stephen Bensinger , the chief financial officer , '' Cuomo told me Friday
`` Just look at the words chief financial officer
There 's a phenomenon when senior management sees the corporation deteriorating and they concoct a version of looting the company to take care of themselves .
Even Cuomo , who has been locked in battle with A.I.G. for a long time , was stunned when he learned of the British hunting folly
At first he thought it could not be true
`` That was our partridge hunting trip , '' he said
`` The partridge paid the ultimate price , but the taxpayer came close .
He is using a state `` claw back '' law , which he says allows him to recover contracts and rescind payments if there was unjust compensation
Now can he find the $ 123 billion lost by A.I.G. that we now have to plug with taxpayers ' money
Let 's hope that if Barack Obama becomes president , the first thing he does is keep his promise to make the junketeers come to Washington -LRB- preferably by bus or carpooling -RRB- and write the U.S. Treasury a check , after which he will fire them on the spot
Heads must roll
My eating habits were so bad for many years that I did n't actually know the intricacies of making a salad
So when the man who has made $ 250 million for charity with Newman 's Own dressings and sauces asked me to help him make a salad in 1986 , while I was writing a profile of him for The Times Magazine , I mangled my cucumber so thoroughly that he snatched it away and showed me how to do it
At a moment when America feels angry and betrayed , when our leaders have forfeited our trust and jeopardized our future , we lost an American icon who stood for traits that have been in short supply in the Bush administration : shrewdness , humility , decency , generosity , class
When I asked W. in 1999 if he identified with any literary heroes , he said no , but he was drawn to Paul Newman 's defiance in `` Cool Hand Luke .
The Texan cast himself as an anti-hero and rebel
But as president , he knew how to strut only in photo-ops , not when actual calamities loomed or hit
Newman was a rare liberal who loved the label ; he made it onto Nixon 's enemies list for supporting Eugene McCarthy 's anti-Vietnam run
In 1997 , I called him when he began writing a bit for The Nation -LRB- where he was an investor -RRB-
He ranted about right-wingers `` popping out of rat holes '' but also faulted the Clintons
`` Everything is about what 's winnable , not about the morality of the issues , '' he told me
In politics , as in racing cars , he said : `` You can do anything if you are prepared to deal with the consequences .
I was nervous the first time I met the star , because he 'd been a teenage crush along with William F. Buckley Jr. -LRB- I loved Buckley 's sesquipedalian dexterity a lost art in the anti-intellectual conservative set of W. and Sarah Palin .
We met at a restaurant on the Upper East Side , where he proceeded to interview me
Newman : `` What do you know about nuclear disarmament ?
He was deeply uncomfortable at getting adulation for playacting , acknowledging that `` there 's something very corrupting about being an actor
It places a terrible premium on appearance .
With a Butch Cassidy grin , he told me that he pictured his epitaph being : `` Here lies Paul Newman , who died a failure because his eyes turned brown .
He did not want to talk about his movies ; he wanted to talk throw-weights
He liked Bach and Budweiser and playing goofy practical jokes
-LRB- Once , when we were driving , he began high-speed bumping the car in front of us , driven by his friend .
He was bored by fashion and embarrassed by women who brazenly flirted with him or asked him to take off his sunglasses to show his blue eyes
Once , when he was handing out punch at a Westport charity event , a dowager asked him to stir her drink with his finger
`` I 'd be glad to , '' Newman replied , `` but I just took it out of a cyanide bottle .
He recalled how utterly flummoxed he was the time a stunning call girl approached him on Fifth Avenue and offered to dispense with her fee
`` You want to send her off with something classy and stylish , the way Cary Grant would , or Clint Eastwood , '' he said
`` You think , how would Hombre handle this
And when this woman came up to me the guy who played Hud what comes through
Laurel and Hardy
Both of them .
He said he was not like his sultry , flamboyant characters : `` You do n't always have Tennessee Williams around to write glorious lines for you .
He and his wife were reputed to have one of the happiest marriages in Hollywood , but the outspoken Joanne Woodward admitted that it took a lot of therapy to cope with the fact that , even though she got an Oscar first , he was able to stay a leading man for four decades
She told a magazine that she was always `` uncomfortable and even angry '' that `` Paul was so much bigger than I was ... Because he was living my fantasy '' to be a star
She would not talk to me for The Times 's profile that her husband did to promote `` The Color of Money '' even just on the topic of his role as the director of five movies that she had starred in
She said she did interviews only solo or jointly with him not about him
That byzantine deal reflected the rivalry that threaded through their romance
He said that he appreciated her , as he looked around his elegant Fifth Avenue apartment , observing dryly : `` If anyone had ever told me 20 years ago I 'd be sitting in a room with peach walls , I would have told them to take a nap in a urinal .
The false choice between intellectualism and sexuality in women has persisted through the ages
There was no more poignant victim of it than Marilyn Monroe
She was smart enough to become the most famous Dumb Blonde in history
Photographers loved to get her to pose in tight shorts , a silk robe or a swimsuit with a come-hither look and a weighty book - a history of Goya or James Joyce 's `` Ulysses '' or Heinrich Heine 's poems
A high-brow bunny picture , a variation on the sexy librarian trope
Men who were nervous about her erotic intensity could feel superior by making fun of her intellectually
Marilyn was not completely in on the joke
Scarred by her schizophrenic mother and dislocated upbringing , she was happy to have the classics put in her hand
What 's more , she read some of them , from Proust to Dostoyevsky to Freud to Carl Sandburg 's six-volume biography of Lincoln -LRB- given to her by husband Arthur Miller -RRB- , collecting a library of 400 books
Miller once called Marilyn `` a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes .
`` Fragments , '' a new book of her poems , letters and musings , some written in her childlike hand with misspellings in leather books and others on stationery from the Waldorf-Astoria and the Beverly Hills Hotel , is affecting
The world 's most coveted woman , a picture of luminescence , was lonely and dark
Thinking herself happily married , she was crushed to discover an open journal in which Miller had written that she disappointed him and embarrassed him in front of his intellectual peers
`` I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone 's wife since I know from life one can not love another , ever , really .
Her friend Saul Bellow wrote in a letter that Marilyn `` conducts herself like a philosopher .
He observed : `` She was connected with a very powerful current but she could n't disconnect herself from it , '' adding : `` She had a kind of curious incandescence under the skin .
The sad sex symbol is still a candle in the wind
There 's a hit novel in Britain narrated by the Maltese terrier Frank Sinatra gave her , which she named `` Maf , '' for Mafia , and three movies in the works about her
Naomi Watts is planning to star in a biopic based on the novel , `` Blonde , '' by Joyce Carol Oates ; Michelle Williams is shooting `` My Week With Marilyn , '' and another movie is planned based on an account by Lionel Grandison , a former deputy Los Angeles coroner who claims he was forced to change the star 's death certificate to read suicide instead of murder
At least , unlike Paris Hilton and her ilk , the Dumb Blonde of '50s cinema had a firm grasp on one thing : It was cool to be smart
She aspired to read good books and be friends with intellectuals , even going so far as to marry one
But now another famous beauty with glowing skin and a powerful current , Sarah Palin , has made ignorance fashionable
You struggle to name Supreme Court cases , newspapers you read and even founding fathers you admire
No problem
You endorse a candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate seat who is the nominee in West Virginia
Oh , well
At least you 're not one of those `` spineless '' elites with an Ivy League education , like President Obama , who ca n't feel anything
It 's news to Christine O'Donnell that the Constitution guarantees separation of church and state
It 's news to Joe Miller , whose guards handcuffed a journalist , and to Carl Paladino , who threatened The New York Post 's Fred Dicker , that the First Amendment exists , even in Tea Party Land
Michele Bachmann calls Smoot-Hawley Hoot-Smalley
Sharron Angle sank to new lows of obliviousness when she told a classroom of Hispanic kids in Las Vegas : `` Some of you look a little more Asian to me .
As Palin tweeted in July about her own special language adding examples from W. and Obama : '' ` Refudiate , ' ` misunderestimate , ' ` wee-wee 'd up .
English is a living language
Shakespeare liked to coin new words too
Got to celebrate it !
On Saturday , at a G.O.P. rally in Anaheim , Calif. , Palin mockingly noted that you wo n't find her invoking Mao or Saul Alinsky
She says she believes in American exceptionalism
But when it comes to the people running the country , exceptionalism is suspect ; leaders should be - as Palin , O'Donnell and Angle keep saying - just like you
In Marilyn 's America , there were aspirations
The studios tackled literary novels rather than one-liners like `` He 's Just Not That Into You '' and navel-gazing drivel like `` Eat Pray Love .
Walt Disney 's `` Fantasia '' paired cartoon characters with famous composers
Even Bugs Bunny did Wagner
But in Sarah 's America , we 've refudiated all that
Hillary s programmer says so
I m mentioned in a section of Mark Penn s new book , Microtrends , called Impressionable Elites
It could have been worse
At least I wasn t in the sections on Cougars , French Teetotalers , The Mildly Disordered , Aspiring Snipers or Unisexuals
Unisex , a trend started by hip hair salons in the 70s , has blossomed into a third-sex category that some say will be the next wave of the civil rights movement , Mr. Penn writes
Sure , only a few people take opposite-sex hormones , or dress up in their spouse s clothes , he says , but since the 1970s there has been a substantial blurring of the line between male and female in terms of habits , tastes , and fashions
And the marketers are picking up on it
That would be corporate marketers and Hillary Marketers -LRB- more of a macrotrend -RRB-
Her political hucksters and Power Pointers are trying to help the New York senator blur the line between male and female enough to become the first commanderess in chief
In Microtrends , the chapters all read like reports that Mr. Penn wrote for clients
Whether or not they re trends , they re certainly micro marketing studies gussied up as social science
As with Malcolm Gladwell s The Tipping Point , this book is less social philosophy than a fancy way to sell stuff
Why use red aluminum cans if you can sell more of the product in pink aluminum cans
Why rely on a candidate s charisma and beliefs if you can break down the country into microconstituencies from Archery Moms to Surgery Lovers to Uptown Tattooed and then devise policies to appeal to them
In the Impressionable Elites section , Mr. Penn writes that he does not like it when New York Times writers trend toward the personal
Sure , likability and buddy potential are important in choosing a president , he sniffs
But are they more important than solving health care and creating jobs
Most Americans say no.
Frankly , the only people who say yes are the very well-to-do
And the chattering classes , in the media
I understand that Mr. Penn is touchy on the likability issue
Whether he likes it or not , personality influences how Americans choose presidents
And on the trail , Hillary comes across more as a pile of diligently digested data than a joyful flesh-and-blood creature
But Mr. Penn is the one who has conjured a story line designed to make her more likable : the middle-class girl from the middle of the country with Midwest values who wants to govern from the middle
And , while he scoffs at the rightful place of the personal in the political , he s the one carving up the political into the personal , dividing -LRB- and hopefully conquering -RRB- voters by ludicrously discrete traits : Caffeine Crazies
Late-Breaking Gays
Bourgeois and Bankrupt
Ardent Amazons
Shy Millionaires
-LRB- These section titles read like a new lineup of Fox reality shows .
At a press breakfast in Washington last week , Mr. Penn elaborated on his point , musing that perhaps newspapers festooned their straight policy reporting once they realized that they might get more readership by focusing a little bit more on style and personality
The pollster is so used to dicing data into bite-sized pieces that the big picture may have eluded him : History shows that leaders personalities and policies are inextricably , and sometimes tragically , entwined
L.B.J. s DNA led to Vietnam as Nixon s led to Watergate as Reagan s led to Iran-contra as Bill s led to Monica as Hillary s led to her health care fiasco as W. s led to the Iraq imbroglio
Bill Clinton elevated his neuroses into a management style , running a chaotic White House that took its tempo from his adolescent indulgences and from his volatile marriage
The West Wing weather was determined by the Clintons strange emotional and political co-dependence
In her acid flashback of a new book , For Love of Politics , Sally Bedell Smith describes how First Lady Hillary routinely unmanned Bill and his aides , and engaged in sharp spurts of temper that sparked his temper
Hillary s anger was bound up in the intricacies of her marital bargain , which engendered rivalry and resentment along with mutual dependence , Ms. Smith writes
Political power was her reward for his marital infidelity
When Bill explains why Hillary should be president , his subtext is clear : We owe it to her for all she put up with from me
At the breakfast , a reporter asked Mr. Penn if the campaign has polled to figure out how to proceed if Bill s personal foibles once more take Hillaryland hostage
The pollster who believes that data trumps DNA brushed off the question , complimenting the former president as a tremendous asset
But if you think that Hillary doesn t have connubial contingency plans in place , you re disregarding his DNA and hers
It 's an intriguing idea , especially since the profession had such a cozy relationship with vice in the old days
Arthur Gelb , The Times 's famed former culture impresario and managing editor , begins his wonderful memoir , `` City Room , '' by describing the racier Times newsroom of the 1940s
He says it was a time of clandestine sex in closets , a movie-star mistress of the publisher sashaying about and two tough bookies from Hell 's Kitchen at a corner desk taking bets as `` wads of bills peeked from their pockets .
In his memoir , `` Gaily , Gaily , '' Ben Hecht describes his years as a cub reporter at The Chicago Daily Journal starting in 1910
It was a time when reporters were still `` exotic adults , '' he writes , and journalism was considered by many as `` a catch basin for hooligans , bar flies and minor swindlers .
The first thing Hecht did was get his girlfriend , who was `` in harlot servitude '' when they met , hired as the `` first girl reporter '' at the paper for $ 12 a week by pretending she was a Van Arsdale who was a niece of Edith Wharton
When she got caught selling her services in the newsroom , Hecht 's cynical Irish editor advised him that reforming women was a time-waster
`` The female , from birth onward , is a mist of lies , '' the editor intoned
`` And her white belly is a shrine for swindle and delusion .
The next thing Hecht did was plot with his colleague Charles MacArthur they would later write `` The Front Page '' to revive a hanged criminal with a shot of adrenaline and then charge newspaper editors around the country $ 50 each for the `` exclusive '' on the `` Walking Corpse .
In these times when big-city papers and magazines are disappearing and shrinking The New York Times is cutting 100 more newsroom jobs and Cond Nast is closing four magazines we need life rafts
Publications once buoyed by splashy ads evoking drinking and sex are now conjuring ways to use drinking and sex to subsidize the news
The New York Times , USA Today and The Wall Street Journal have wine clubs
Cond Nast has started an online dating Web site for a fee of $ 30 a month called TrulyMadlyDating.com to `` unite glamorous girls with fashion-conscious GQ-reading boys to create matches made in style heaven .
Self-described print press `` fanatic '' Mortimer Zuckerman , who owns The Daily News and U.S. News & World Report , proposed to Forbes that the federal government could save newspapers by allowing sports betting on newspaper Web sites
`` It would take Congressional legislation and the willingness on the part of the government to confront gambling and casino interests that have blocked this , '' he said
`` Newspaper owners have never gotten together to lobby for this because they have always been quite profitable
Those days are behind us .
I tracked down Zuckerman in Jerusalem on Tuesday to ask him about it
`` Newspapers are so critical for public dialogue and holding public officials responsible , '' he told me
`` And who 's going to be able to afford original reporting in the next five years
Very , very few .
He said some British newspapers make millions on betting games like Bingo
`` People are spending money on what is basically a social vice anyhow , '' he said
`` So why not use it to preserve the First Amendment
It 's not a perfect solution , but it is a solution .
Representative Barney Frank , the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee , introduced a bill to legalize and regulate online gambling
But he told me that he had to exempt sports gambling from the bill to round up enough votes to get it passed
`` Some people apparently believe that betting on games horror of horrors does not now happen , '' Frank said sardonically
Nick Pileggi , who wrote the books and screenplays for `` Goodfellas '' and `` Casino , '' sees no downside
`` It would be a wonderful , huge blow against organized crime because the money would be taken out of what the mob gets , '' he said
`` And every state has a lottery so nobody from the state is going to stand up and say ` We 're against gambling . '
He said that if newspapers would stop being so stuffy , they could set up A.T.M.-style machines in lobbies and at newsstands and `` take over a business that the mob now does illegally worth $ 20 to $ 40 billion a year .
`` Newspapers are not sacred papal offices , '' he said
`` It 's a Damon Runyon business .
Arthur Gelb may have written about the Runyon days fondly , but he disputes the virtue of vice
`` How about you get some Vegas showgirls to come to the newsroom , do a little performance and charge admission ?
he bristled
`` Or you could have an escort service
Just take away the managing editor 's office , and use it for assignations
Where do you stop this nonsense ?
I do n't know
The Vegas part does n't sound so bad
Colin Powell had been bugged by many things in his party 's campaign this fall : the insidious merging of rumors that Barack Obama was Muslim with intimations that he was a terrorist sympathizer ; the assertion that Sarah Palin was ready to be president ; the uniformed sheriff who introduced Governor Palin by sneering about Barack Hussein Obama ; the scorn with which Republicans spit out the words `` community organizer '' ; the Republicans ' argument that using taxes to `` spread the wealth '' was socialist when the purpose of taxes is to spread the wealth ; Palin 's insidious notion that small towns in states that went for W. were `` the real America .
But what sent him over the edge and made him realize he had to speak out was when he opened his New Yorker three weeks ago and saw a picture of a mother pressing her head against the gravestone of her son , a 20-year-old soldier who had been killed in Iraq
On the headstone were engraved his name , Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan , his awards the Purple Heart , the Bronze Star and a crescent and a star to denote his Islamic faith
`` I stared at it for an hour , '' he told me
`` Who could debate that this kid lying in Arlington with Christian and Jewish and nondenominational buddies was not a fine American ?
Khan was an all-American kid
A 2005 graduate of Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin , N.J. , he loved the Dallas Cowboys and playing video games with his 12-year-old stepsister , Aliya
His obituary in The Star-Ledger of Newark said that he had sent his family back pictures of himself playing soccer with Iraqi children and hugging a smiling young Iraqi boy
His father said Kareem had been eager to enlist since he was 14 and was outraged by the 9\/11 attacks
`` His Muslim faith did not make him not want to go , '' Feroze Khan , told The Gannett News Service after his son died
`` He looked at it that he 's American and he has a job to do .
In a gratifying `` have you no sense of decency , Sir and Madam ?
moment , Colin Powell went on `` Meet the Press '' on Sunday and talked about Khan , and the unseemly ways John McCain and Palin have been polarizing the country to try to get elected
It was a tonic to hear someone push back so clearly on ugly innuendo
Even the Obama campaign has shied away from Muslims
The candidate has gone to synagogues but no mosques , and the campaign was embarrassed when it turned out that two young women in headscarves had not been allowed to stand behind Obama during a speech in Detroit because aides did not want them in the TV shot
The former secretary of state has dealt with prejudice in his life , in and out of the Army , and he is keenly aware of how many millions of Muslims around the world are being offended by the slimy tenor of the race against Obama
He told Tom Brokaw that he was troubled by what other Republicans , not McCain , had said : '' ` Well , you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim .
Well , the correct answer is , he is not a Muslim
He 's a Christian
He 's always been a Christian
But the really right answer is , what if he is
Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country
The answer 's no.
That 's not America
Is something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president ?
Powell got a note from Feroze Khan this week thanking him for telling the world that Muslim-Americans are as good as any others
But he also received more e-mails insisting that Obama is a Muslim and one calling him `` unconstitutional and unbiblical '' for daring to support a socialist
He got a mass e-mail from a man wanting to spread the word that Obama was reading a book about the end of America written by a fellow Muslim
`` Holy cow !
Powell thought
Upon checking Amazon.com , he saw that it was a reference to Fareed Zakaria , a Muslim who writes a Newsweek column and hosts a CNN foreign affairs show
His latest book is `` The Post-American World .
Powell is dismissive of those , like Rush Limbaugh , who say he made his endorsement based on race
And he 's offended by those who suggest that his appearance Sunday was an expiation for Iraq , speaking up strongly now about what he thinks the world needs because he failed to do so then
Even though he watched W. in 2000 make the argument that his lack of foreign policy experience would be offset by the fact that he was surrounded by pros Powell himself was one of the regents brought in to guide the bumptious Texas dauphin Powell makes that same argument now for Obama
`` Experience is helpful , '' he says , `` but it is judgment that matters .
He may have lost his buddy in belligerence , Rummy
He may have tapped out the military in Iraq
He may not be able to persuade Congress so easily anymore except for Hillary to issue warlike resolutions
He can t cow Condi into supporting his bullying as he once did , and Bob Gates is doing his best to instill some common sense
Besides , Cheney is running out of time to wreak global havoc ; he s working for a president who is spending his waning days on the job trying to prevent children from getting health insurance
But the vice president may have hit on a devious tactic used by his old boss Richard Nixon
President Nixon and Henry Kissinger liked to use madness as a method
In 1969 , Nixon told Kissinger to caution the Soviet ambassador that Nixon was out of control on Indochina , and could do something drastic
Three months earlier , as Anthony Summers wrote in The Arrogance of Power : The Secret World of Richard Nixon , Kissinger had sent that very same message by proxy when he instructed Len Garment , about to leave on a trip to Moscow , to give the Soviets the impression that Nixon is somewhat crazy immensely intelligent , well organized and experienced to be sure , but at moments of stress or personal challenge unpredictable and capable of the bloodiest brutality
Garment carried out the mission , telling a senior Brezhnev adviser that Nixon was a dramatically disjointed personality ... more than a little paranoid ... when necessary , a cold-hearted butcher
All of which , his aides later reflected , was kind of true
Cheney seems to enjoy giving the impression that he is loony enough to pull off an attack on Iran before leaving office even if he has to do it alone , like Slim Pickens riding the bomb down in Dr. Strangelove to the sentimental tune of We ll Meet Again
He has even begun referring to his nickname , Darth Vader , noting that it is one of the nicer things I ve been called recently
Darth shook his fist against Iran again on Sunday , calling Tehran the world s most active state sponsor of terror and vowing serious consequences
Yet the administration s policy in northern Iraq is another adventure in hypocrisy , according to a story yesterday by The Times s Richard Oppel
The administration expresses solidarity with Turkey and tries to negotiate when Kurdish militants make raids against the Turks
But when Kurdish guerrillas stalk and kill Iranian forces , the Americans offer Iran little sympathy
Tehran even says Washington aids the Iranian guerrillas , a charge the United States denies , Oppel writes
The neocons who have their heart set on bombing Iran to stop I m-a-Dinner-Jacket and the mullahs from getting nuclear capability were thrilled and emboldened by the placid reaction to the Israeli air strike on Syria
The hawks are pounding the drums on Iran as they once did on Iraq , acting as if the hourglass is running out and we have to act immediately or , as the president apocalyptically suggested last week , we could be facing World War III
Or World War IV , as Norman Podhoretz , a neocon who is a top Giuliani adviser , says
Podhoretz urges bombing Iran as soon as it is logistically possible and likened Ahmadinejad to Hitler , as Poppy Bush did with Saddam
Rudy is using his more martial attitude toward Iran as a weapon against Hillary , painting her as a delicate ditherer on the topic , and Obama is using his more diplomatic attitude toward Iran as a weapon against Hillary , painting her as a triangulator and a two-time administration patsy
In his new book , the former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton scornfully accuses Colin Powell , and later Condi Rice , of appeasing Iran , including some carrots to get them to cease their nuclear plans
A top Bush 41 national security official told me shortly after Bush 43 got under way that the younger Bush team s foreign policy was dangerous because it was so black and white , so dependent on bogymen
President Bush has settled on his new bogyman , once more ignoring the obvious choice of Osama
Yesterday , he defended his plans to build a missile defense system in Europe by raising the specter of Iran s nuclear ambitions
Hit with sticks , the bogyman responded with sticks
He said that Iran will not negotiate with anyone about its right to nuclear technology
As Pat Buchanan noted on Hardball , Cheney and Bush are laying down markers for themselves which they re going to have to meet
I don t see how ... Bush and Cheney can avoid attacking Iran and retaining their credibility going out of office
In other words , once our cowboys have talked their crazy talk , they have to walk their crazy walk
In the wacky coda to one of the most searing chapters in American history , everyone remained true to form
Ginni Thomas came across like a spiritually addled nut
Clarence Thomas was mute , no doubt privately raging about the trouble women have caused him
And now into the circus comes Lillian McEwen , an old girlfriend of Thomas 's
Looking to shop a memoir , the 65-year-old McEwen used the occasion of Ginni 's weird phone message to Anita - asking her to `` consider an apology '' and `` pray about this '' and `` O.K. , have a good day !
#NAME?
If `` the real Clarence '' had been revealed at the time , he probably would n't have ascended to the court , McEwen told The Times 's Ashley Parker
Especially since the real Clarence denied ever using the `` grotesque '' argot of the porn movies he regularly rented at a D.C. video store
In her interviews , McEwen confirmed Thomas 's obsession with women with `` huge , huge breasts , '' with scouting the women he worked with as possible partners , and with talking about porn at work - while he was head of the federal agency that polices sexual harassment
Years later , some of the Democrats on that all-male , all-white Senate Judiciary Committee told me they assumed there must have been a consensual romance between the boss and his subordinate
McEwen assumed so , too , because Clarence took Anita with him when he changed agencies
Hill has made it clear she felt no reciprocal attraction
Joe Biden , the senator who ran those hearings , was leery of the liberal groups eager to use Hill as a pawn to checkmate Thomas
He circumscribed the testimony of women who could have corroborated Hill 's unappetizing portrait of a power-abusing predator
For the written record , Biden allowed negative accounts only from women who had worked with Thomas
He also ruled out testimony from women who simply had personal relationships with Thomas , and did not respond to a note from McEwen - a former assistant U.S. attorney who had once worked as a counsel for Biden 's committee - reminding him of her long relationship with Thomas
It 's too late to relitigate the shameful Thomas-Hill hearings
We 're stuck with a justice-for-life who lied his way onto the bench with the help of bullying Republicans and cowed Democrats
We do n't know why Ginni Thomas , who was once in the thrall of a cultish self-help group called Lifespring , made that odd call to Hill at 7:30 on a Saturday morning
But we do know that the Thomases show supremely bad judgment
Mrs. Thomas , a queen of the Tea Party , is the founder of a new nonprofit group , Liberty Central , which she boasts will be bigger than the Tea Party
She sports and sells those foam Statue of Liberty-style crowns as she makes her case against the `` tyranny '' of President Obama and Congressional Democrats , who , she charges , are hurting the `` core founding principles '' of America
As The Times 's Jackie Calmes wrote , Mrs. Thomas started her nonprofit in late 2009 with two gifts of $ 500,000 and $ 50,000 , and additional sums this year that we do n't know about yet
She does not have to disclose the donors , whose money makes possible the compensation she brings into the Thomas household
There is no way to tell if her donors have cases before the Supreme Court or whether her husband knows their identities
And she never would have to disclose them if her husband had his way
The 5-to-4 Citizens United decision last January gave corporations , foreign contributors , unions , Big Energy , Big Oil and superrich conservatives a green light to surreptitiously funnel in as much money as they want , whenever they want to elect or unelect candidates
As if that were n't enough to breed corruption , Thomas was the only justice - in a rare case of detaching his hip from Antonin Scalia 's - to write a separate opinion calling for an end to donor disclosures
In Bush v. Gore , the Supreme Court chose the Republican president
In Citizens United , the court may return Republicans to control of Congress
So much for conservatives ' professed disdain of judicial activism
And so much for the public 's long-held trust in the impartiality of the nation 's highest court
Justice Stephen Breyer recently rejected the image of the high court as `` nine junior varsity politicians .
But it 's even worse than that
The court has gone beyond mere politicization
Its liberals are moderate and reasonable , while the conservatives are dug in , guzzling Tea
Thomas and Scalia have flouted ethics rules by attending seminars sponsored by Koch Industries , an energy and manufacturing conglomerate run by billionaire brothers that has donated more than $ 100 million to far-right causes
Christine O'Donnell may not believe in the separation of church and state , but the Supreme Court does not believe in the separation of powers
O.K. , have a good day
Once , in the first grade , I was late for class
I started crying in the schoolyard , terrified to go in and face the formidable Sister Hiltruda
Father Montgomery , who looked like a handsome young priest out of a 1930s movie , found me cowering and took my hand , leading me into the classroom
Sister Hiltruda looked ready to pop , but she could n't say a word to me , then or ever
There was no more unassailable patriarchy than the Catholic Church
Nuns were second-class citizens then and 40 years after feminism utterly changed America they still are
The matter of women as priests is closed , a forbidden topic
In 2004 , the cardinal who would become Pope Benedict XVI wrote a Vatican document urging women to be submissive partners , resisting any adversarial roles with men and cultivating `` feminine values '' like `` listening , welcoming , humility , faithfulness , praise and waiting .
Nuns need to be even more sepia-toned for the ber-conservative pope , who was christened `` God 's Rottweiler '' for his enforcement of orthodoxy
Once a conscripted member of the Hitler Youth , Benedict pardoned a schismatic bishop who claimed that there was no Nazi gas chamber
He also argued on a trip to Africa that distributing condoms could make the AIDS crisis worse
The Vatican is now conducting two inquisitions into the `` quality of life '' of American nuns , a dwindling group with an average age of about 70 , hoping to herd them back into their old-fashioned habits and convents and curb any speck of modernity or independence
Nuns who took Vatican II as a mandate for reimagining their mission `` started to look uppity to an awful lot of bishops and priests and , of course , the Vatican , '' said Kenneth Briggs , the author of `` Double Crossed : Uncovering the Catholic Church 's Betrayal of American Nuns .
The church enabled rampant pedophilia , but nuns who live in apartments and do social work with ailing gays
The pope can wear Serengeti sunglasses and expensive red loafers , but shorter hems for nuns
`` It 's a tragedy because nuns are the jewels of the system , '' said Bob Bennett , the Washington lawyer who led the church 's lay inquiry into the pedophilia scandal
`` I was of the view that if they had been listened to more , some of this stuff would n't have happened .
As the Vatican is trying to wall off the `` brides of Christ , '' Cask of Amontillado style , it is welcoming extreme-right Anglicans into the Catholic Church the ones who are disgruntled about female priests and openly gay bishops
Il Papa is even willing to bend Rome 's most doggedly held dogma , against married priests as long as they 're clutching the Anglicans ' Book of Common Prayer
`` Most of the Anglicans who want to move over to the Catholic Church under this deal are people who have scorned women as priests and have scorned gay people , '' Briggs said
`` The Vatican does n't care that these people are motivated by disdain .
The nuns are pushing back a bit , but it 's hard , since the church has decreed that women ca n't be adversarial to men
A nun writing in Commonweal as `` Sister X '' protests , `` American women religious are being bullied .
She recalls that Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo , who heads one of the investigations , moved a meeting at the University of Notre Dame off campus to protest a performance of `` The Vagina Monologues .
`` It is the rare bishop , '' Sister X writes , `` who has any real understanding of the lives women actually lead .
The church can be flexible , except with women
Laurie Goodstein , the Times 's religion writer , reported this month on an Illinois woman who had a son with a Franciscan priest
The church agreed to child support but was stingy with money for college and for doctors , once the son got terminal cancer
The priest had never been disciplined and was a pastor in Wisconsin until he hit the front page
Even then , `` Father '' Willenborg was suspended only because the woman said that he had pressed her to have an abortion and that he had also had a sexual relationship with a teenager
-LRB- Maybe the church should n't be so obdurate on condoms .
When then-Cardinal Ratzinger was `` The Enforcer '' in Rome , he investigated and disciplined two American nuns
One , Jeannine Gramick , then of the School Sisters of Notre Dame , founded a ministry to reconcile gays with the church , which regards homosexual desires as `` disordered .
The other , Mary Agnes Mansour of the Sisters of Mercy , headed the Michigan Department of Social Services , which , among other things , paid for abortions for poor women
Marcy Kaptur , a Democratic congresswoman from Toledo and one of Bishop Blair 's flock , got a resolution passed commending nuns for their humble service and sacrifice
`` The Vatican 's in another country , '' she said
`` Maybe people do things differently there
Perhaps the Holy Spirit will intervene .
How odd then , to learn that McCain advisers have been treating their own vice presidential candidate like Valentino Barbie , dressing her up in fancy clothes and endlessly playing with her hair
In 1991 , with Americans fretting about a shaky economy , Poppy Bush visited a J. C. Penney and bought $ 28 worth of tube socks and a toddler 's sweat suit in a desperate effort to seem in touch with the common folk
Palin might have followed that example and popped into Penney 's to buy some new American-made duds
She is so naturally good-looking , there is no need to gild the Last Frontier lily
Instead , with the economy cratering and the McCain campaign running on an `` average Joe '' theme , dunderheaded aides , led by the former Bushies Nicolle Wallace and Tracey Schmitt , costumed their Eliza Doolittle for a ball when she should have been dressing for a bailout
The Republicans ' attempt to make the case that Barack Obama is hoity-toity and they 're hoi polloi has fallen under the sheer weight of the stunning numbers : The McCains own 13 cars , eight homes and access to a corporate jet , and Cindy had her Marie Antoinette moment at the convention
Vanity Fair calculated that her outfit cost $ 300,000 , with three-carat diamond earrings worth $ 280,000 , an Oscar de la Renta dress valued at $ 3,000 , a Chanel white ceramic watch clocking in at $ 4,500 and a four-strand pearl necklace worth between $ 11,000 and $ 25,000
While presenting herself as an I 'm - just-like-you hockey mom frugal enough to put the Alaska state plane up for sale on eBay , Palin made her big speech at the convention wearing a $ 2,500 cream silk Valentino jacket that the McCain staff had gotten her at Saks
At that point , Palin should have been savvy enough to tell those doing her makeover that she was a Wal-Mart mom
The sartorial upgrade was bound to turn into a strategy downgrade , as Palin pressed her case as a homespun gal who was ever so much more American than the elite , foreignish Obama , while she was gussied up in Italian couture
Politico broke the news that the Republican National Committee spent over $ 150,000 on a `` Pretty Woman '' - style shopping spree for Palin , including about $ 75,000 at Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis and nearly $ 50,000 at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York and St. Louis
Palin advisers did their best to spin the fashion explosion during the economic implosion , telling The Times that she needed new outfits to match the climate changes across 50 states
Republicans once more charged the media with sexism for reporting on Palin 's Imelda Marcos closet
`` No one would blink if this was a male candidate buying Brooks Brothers suits , '' said William F. B. O'Reilly , a G.O.P. consultant
It does n't wash to cry sexism now any more than it did at the beginning , when the campaign tried to use that dodge to divert attention from Palin 's lacunae in the sort of knowledge you need to run the world
The press has written plenty about the vanities and extravagances of male candidates
-LRB- See : Haircuts , John Edwards and Bill Clinton .
Sexism would be to treat Palin differently , or more delicately , than one of the guys
The governor who spent all her time talking about how she had cleaned up excesses in Alaska , and would do the same in Washington , also went over the top on hair and makeup
As a former beauty pageant contestant and sports anchor on TV , Palin already seemed on top of her grooming before the McCain campaign made her traveling makeup artist , Amy Strozzi , the highest-paid individual on the campaign for the first two weeks of October
Ms. Strozzi , who earned an Emmy nomination for her war paint skills on the TV show `` So You Think You Can Dance , '' made $ 22,800 for the first half of this month
Governor Palin , who used to get her hair done at the Beehive in Wasilla and shop at an Anchorage consignment shop called Out of the Closet , paid her traveling hairstylist recommended by Cindy McCain $ 10,000 for the first half of October
In The New York Times Magazine today , Robert Draper reveals that the campaign also hired a former New York stage and screen actress , Priscilla Shanks , to be her voice coach for the convention
The expense was listed in finance reports as Operating Expenditures and Get-Out-The-Vote consulting
Apparently getting out the vote includes teaching a potential vice president the correct way to pronounce `` nuclear .
The conservative big shots who have not deserted Palin and still think she can be Reagan in a Valentino skirt are furious at those who have mishandled the governor and dimmed her star power
They mourn that she may have to wait now until 2016 to get rid of the phony stench of designer populism
Makeovers are every woman 's dream
But this makeover has simply pushed back Palin 's dream of being president
It 's the Year of the Woman , all right
In a bad way
Some of the women running in high-profile races are not my cup of Tea
And some of the male candidates could be part of the Little Rascals ' He-Man , Woman-Haters Club
The misogyny reached its zenith outside a Rand Paul debate in Lexington , Ky. , on Monday night when a group of Tea Party toughs roughed up a woman from MoveOn.org because she would n't move on
One man , wearing a `` Do n't Tread on Me '' button , ripped off her wig and wrestled her to the ground with the help of another man , and a third Paul volunteer stamped his foot on her shoulder when she was down
In a campaign season when many men - and women - are taking harsh stances that could hurt women , a chivalrous voice has at last arrived
Oddly enough , it belongs to a renegade pirate whose motto is `` Keep it dark '' : Keith Richards
You 'd think that an only child whose mother killed all the pets he kept as companions would not grow up to be so positive about women
`` I put a note on her bedroom door , with a drawing of a cat , that said ` Murderer , ' '' Richards writes in `` Life , '' his new memoir
`` I never forgave her for that .
His mom , Doris , who did n't like the muss and fuss , reacted nonchalantly : `` Shut up
Do n't be soft .
But the first thing he did when he began making money with a little band called the Rolling Stones was buy Mum a house
His reaction when the Stones started to attract hordes of `` feral , body-snatching girls '' was not titillation but terror
`` I was never more in fear for my life than I was from teenage girls , '' he writes
`` The ones that choked me , tore me to shreds , if you got caught in a frenzied crowd of them - it 's hard to express how frightening they could be
You 'd rather be in a trench fighting the enemy than to be faced with this unstoppable killer wave of lust and desire , or whatever it is - it 's unknown even to them .
He continues : `` The problem is if they get their hands on you , they do n't know what to do with you
They nearly strangled me with a necklace , one grabbed one side of it , the other grabbed the other , and they 're going , ` Keith , Keith , ' and meanwhile they 're choking me .
The shy English Boy Scout and choirboy who started out with `` no chick in the world '' describes the women he was involved with - from road flings to his manager to his ex , Anita Pallenberg - with candor but generosity
Even groupies are accorded respect
`` You could look upon them more like the Red Cross , '' he says
`` They 'd wash your clothes , they 'd bathe you and stuff .
Learning that there 's a blind girl who loyally follows the band , he arranges for her to get rides from the group 's truck drivers
`` I 've been saved by chicks more times than by guys , '' he writes
`` Sometimes just that little hug and kiss and nothing else happens
Just keep me warm for the night , just hold on to each other when times are hard , times are rough .
The Prince of Darkness who got in trouble with feminists for `` Under My Thumb '' is , it turns out , a cuddler who loves strong , high-spirited women
He had the `` unlikely role of consoler '' for Mick 's girlfriends when Jagger cheated
`` The tears that have been on this shoulder from Jerry Hall , from Bianca , from Marianne , Chrissie Shrimpton ... They 've ruined so many shirts of mine .
Including when Jerry found a note from one of Mick 's girlfriends written backward that said , `` I 'll be your mistress forever .
`` Really good code , Mick !
Richards chides
The guitarist explained in an interview with NPR 's Terry Gross that the band 's so-called `` anti-girl '' songs could just as easily be about guys
`` Under My Thumb , '' he said , could 've been about a guy under a woman 's thumb and `` you 're just trying to fight back .
Besides , he says , he did n't write the lyrics - Jagger did
In the book , he explains : `` The songs also came from a lot of frustration from our point of view
You go on the road for a month , you come back , and she 's with somebody else .
The biggest `` seductress '' in his life was heroin , he writes , which he relied on to anesthetize him from the `` blah blah blah '' of show business , something he did not enjoy as much as Jagger
He said he never collected women , like Jagger and Bill Wyman , or `` paid for it , '' or indulged women who collected rock stars
`` I 've never been able to go to bed with a woman just for sex , '' writes the author , happily married for decades to the former model Patti Hansen , whom he is supporting through bladder cancer
`` I 've no interest in that
I want to hug you and kiss you and make you feel good and protect you
And get a nice note the next day , stay in touch .
The consummate gentleman
Who knew
I felt a twinge of envy when I heard that my pal Tom Friedman had played golf with the president for five hours one September Sunday
Tom learned a lot about Barack Obama 's positions on weighty issues and sporty ones
-LRB- This president does n't cheat and he does expect bets to be paid off .
My natural impulse was to shrug it off
Men have always craved private realms the golf club , men 's club , garage , workshop , shed ; a place to get away from the chatter and clatter of women and kids
-LRB- In Obama 's case , he may desire a testosterone break from his estrogen nest a wife , two daughters and a mother-in-law .
Gordon Thorburn , the British author of the book `` Men and Sheds , '' explained that the word shed derived from the Anglo-Saxon `` scead , '' or shade
It was , in a metaphorical sense , obscure , an `` intellectual pantry '' or `` spiritual home '' where a man could reflect and dawdle with tools and toys
But I do n't kid myself that the presidential playing fields are merely about play
After Tom 's golf outing , Politico ran the headline : `` Friedman jumps to the front of the influence list .
Like other bosses , presidents surround themselves with people who make them comfortable
Poppy Bush liked racy humor , but was too gentlemanly to use it with women
So male advisers bonded with him by telling dirty jokes
Obama likes to play sports , watch sports and talk sports
-LRB- Even his favorite TV shows , `` Mad Men '' and `` Entourage , '' are set in male-dominated worlds .
So the Obama aides who can do that , like Robert Gibbs , have a deeper personal connection with the president than someone like Rahm Emanuel , the former ballet dancer who prefers yoga to golf
Just as some men ca n't ingratiate themselves through sports , some women can
Condi Rice drew close to W. nudging away Dick Cheney by working out with him and talking football
As long as I 've covered politics , there were always women running up against `` The Boys .
In 1984 , Geraldine Ferraro complained about the `` smart-ass white boys '' from Walter Mondale 's campaign who tried to boss her around
As first lady , Hillary Clinton had to deal with Bill 's coterie of cocky `` white boys .
It was a bit surprising that the same dynamic recurred with the first black president
But it is the very enormity of the change Obama represents that makes him cautious at times about more change
Because Obama regards himself as the change , he did n't immediately see the need to alter what his aide Anita Dunn calls the `` optics .
His race also gives him cover ; it took quite a while for anyone to accuse Obama of being exclusionary
After stories about the frat-house atmosphere in the spheres of economics and national security , and snipes about an all-male basketball pickup game at the White House with cabinet secretaries and congressmen , the president took Melody Barnes , his chief domestic policy adviser , golfing on Sunday
`` I wanted women to still hold their heads up so I did n't want to shoot triple bogies every hole , '' said Barnes , who was hailed by the press for `` smashing the grass ceiling .
She told me she grew up golfing with her dad and shoots around 100
She and Obama were partners and beat White House trip director Marvin Nicholson and Obama 's Chicago pal Eric Whitaker
`` We laughed and gave each other a hard time and psyched each other out , '' she said
`` It was all on the line on the 18th hole and I made a clutch putt and now I 'm $ 10 richer .
Naturally , some men and women caviled that Obama should n't have caved on his Man Cave
`` Will every game now have to have a certain number of Asians , atheists , vegetarians and public-option hard-liners ?
groused one of my girlfriends
Just as the hoops-playing president is getting knocked for being too traditionally male , the hula-hooping Michelle is getting knocked for being too traditionally female
`` She 's mostly played it safe , '' Allison Samuels writes in Newsweek , `` dabbling in traditional East Wing issues much like the first ladies before her without yet gaining much traction on any particular front .
The First Couple is trying to let America digest the huge change that they signify
They know that Fox News is always ready to pounce with that `` radical '' label
Besides , if Obama starts using a quota system for recreation , it will give fuel to the Republican campaign to paint him as a hand-wringing , Mom-jeans-wearing girly-boy
Churlish Cheney charged the president with `` dithering '' on Afghanistan and nerdy potential 2012 rival Tim Pawlenty , the Terror from Minnesota , accused Obama of `` projecting potential weakness '' on national security
Since the president is finally willing to let women in on the games , I offered up my own challenge : Scrabble
I 'm curious about what X and Z words the smarty-pants Y chief executive can come up with
There might even be $ 10 in it for you , Mr. President
A HOTEL SUITE in the middle of the day in the middle of Ohio
NICOLLE WALLACE , a slender , preppie-looking blonde wearing a string of pearls is pacing and frantically thumbing her BlackBerry
She is a top McCain adviser under STEVE SCHMIDT who has been seconded to SARAH PALIN
On the TV , MSNBC 's DAVID SHUSTER is asking ANNE KORNBLUT about rumors that PALIN has gone AWOL after McCain advisers anonymously labeled her a rogue `` diva '' and a `` whack job .
TRACEY SCHMITT , another blonde sorority type in pearls , also a Bush person who became a McCain person who was then sent over to manage PALIN as her press secretary , sits slumped in a chair , dejectedly checking her BlackBerry messages
How the heck should I know
She told me she was going to the bathroom to change out of the Jimmy Choos into something more Target for the Joe the Plumber `` They 're Not Smears , They 're Just Facts '' Bus Tour
She never came back
I called Todd
He 's not picking up
Steve 's freaking out
You know how he is about message discipline , much less completely losing a candidate
He 's got enough on his plate scaring the nursing-home Jews in Florida and painting Obama as a Palestinian Marxist Madrassa Child
Maybe all of those dudes painting their chests for Sarah and screaming `` 2012 !
have her looking past the old man
Steve says he will annihilate her if she sabotages this campaign to get started on the next one , or if she plants negative stories about me I mean McCain with the base
Are the clothes gone from the belly of the plane
It 's not like we were ever gonna return them anyway
Think like a diva
Where would you go rogue
Sean Hannity 's pocket
Could he pant over her more
Or maybe she 's hiding in Elisabeth Hasselbeck 's dressing room at `` The View .
She 's probably at The Weekly Standard , plotting her shining city on the tundra with Fred Barnes and Bill Kristol
I ca n't believe Barnes called me a coward because I tried to update that $ 30 Wasilla beehive that made her look like the girlfriend in an Elvis movie and upgrade her from pleather to leather
And besides , she 's not going to find real Americans at Saks and Neiman 's
She 's got to go to Barneys and Armani for that
Between us , Nicolle , she does n't look $ 150,000 different
Maybe we should have spent that money on getting Henry Kissinger to put on his snowshoes and best leer and tutor her
Look , Tracey , maybe Sarah does n't know who Berlusconi is , but she does know who Valentino is
She saw those labels
She knew we were being sartorial socialists and spreading the wealth to Neiman 's and Saks
She liked being pampered like a movie star
We should have learned from W. If you can keep a war off budget , why ca n't you keep a wardrobe off budget
I told the press if someone wants to throw me under the bus , my personal belief is that the most graceful thing to do is lie there
That 'll be the day
I 'll be glad when this blind date from hell is over and I can get away from the dysfunctional Palin clan and back to walking my dog , Lily , in Central Park with my pinko liberal friends
I knew Katie would be brutal , but thank God I arranged that interview because now I can go back to my gig as a political analyst at CBS
I 'm gonna miss Todd
He 's hot
I wo n't miss him or his 20 calls a day playing stage dad
He 's probably the one who masterminded her breakout
-LRB- Her BlackBerry rings to the tune of `` Eye of the Tiger . ''
Uh-oh , it 's Steve
-LRB- She listens and then hangs up .
TRACEY -LRB- sardonically -RRB- Does McCain know the maverick 's maverick has gone all mavericky on him
McCain is calling off the search
He 's fed up with her getting bigger crowds and contradicting his message
He 's fed up with her interrupting him on TV interviews and taking them over
He 's fed up with her drilling him on drilling
He 's fed up with never being able to discuss anything with her , like the latest violence in the Congo
He 's weirded out by the way she keeps trying to explain the Rapture to him
His exact words to Steve were : `` For my End of Days , I 'd prefer to finish the race with Lieberman .
So forget Sarah
Let 's find Joe
The French first lady , the one in a role where wives traditionally ignored and overlooked their husbands peccadilloes for the greater gain of keeping their marriages intact and running the lys e Palace , has fled her gilded perch , acting all-American and brimming over with feelings and feminist impulses
The former American first lady , the one who s supposed to be brimming over with feminist impulses , has ignored and overlooked her husband s peccadilloes for the greater gain of keeping her marriage intact , as she tries to return to the gilded perch and run the White House
C cilia Sarkozy acts so American , while Hillary Clinton acts so French
C cilia at one point left her marriage to go to New York and seek love American-style , while Hillary lost the public love in the 90s when she tried French-style health care reform
In Essence magazine , Hillary sounded tr s French , tr s laissez-faire , talking about her marriage
Now obviously we ve had challenges as everybody in the world knows , she said
But I never doubted that it was a marriage worth investing in even in the midst of those challenges
And I m really happy that I made that decision
Again , not a decision for everybody
And I think it s so important for women to stand up for the right of women to make a decision that is best for them
In addition to the warrior strategy , the one that led Hillary to back President Bush on the Iraq war and the Iran drumbeat , the senator has a girlfriend strategy
Hillary recently told an interviewer that they should talk like two girlfriends , and last week her campaign theme was : Women Changing America
She returns to Wellesley tomorrow to launch Hillblazers , a bid to attract young Hillarys to the campaign
She will be back in the setting of her 1969 feminist triumph as the commencement speaker who described her class s desire for a more immediate , ecstatic and penetrating mode of living and who spoke truth to power , chastising Edward Brooke for being out of touch
Hillary doesn t speak truth to power any more
Now that Mark Penn believes women can carry her to victory , Hillary speaks girlfriend to girlfriend
That tack , Caitlin Flanagan writes in The Atlantic , would only work if she were willing to let us women in on the big , underlying struggle of her life that is front and center in our understanding of who she is as a woman
Her husband s sexual behavior , quite apart from the private pain that it has caused her , has also sullied her deepest and most womanly ideals and convictions , for the Clintons political partnership has demanded that she defend actions she knows to be indefensible
To call her husband a philanderer is almost to whitewash him , for he s used women far less sophisticated , educated and powerful than he women particularly susceptible to the rake s characteristic blend of cajolery and deceit for his sexual gratification
In glossing over her husband s actions and abetting his efforts to squirm away from the scrutiny and judgment they provoke , Hillary has too often lapsed into her customary hauteur and self-righteousness and added to the pain delivered upon these women
That s French hauteur , of course , the kind Nicolas Sarkozy showed when he called his press secretary an imbecile and refused to answer Lesley Stahl s question on 60 Minutes about his marriage and ripped off his microphone
He may have failed to realize that , unlike in France , he can t call his powerful buddies and simply get the story killed
Hillary surely hopes there is a harbinger in Argentina , where voters just rewarded their former president for his economic prosperity by electing his wife to succeed him
And why not
, former first lady Cristina Fern ndez de Kirchner said about Hillary yesterday
Another woman wouldn t be bad
Ms. Flanagan is not so sure
She was particularly bothered by Hillary s callousness in dumping Socks , the beloved White House cat and best-selling author , on Bill s former secretary Betty Currie
But maybe the qualities that many find off-putting in Hillary her opportunism , her triangulation , her ethical corner-cutting , her shifting convictions from pro-war to anti-war , her secrecy , her ruthlessness are the same ones that make people willing to vote for a woman
Few are concerned that Hillary is strong enough for the job
She is cold-eyed about wanting power and raising money and turning everything about her life into a commodity
Yet , the characteristics that are somewhat troubling are the same ones that convincingly show she will do what it takes to beat Obama and Rudy
She will not be soft or vulnerable
She will not melt in a crisis
And , unlike Obama , she doesn t need to talk herself into manning up
Obama whiffed in the debate last night when Brian Williams and Tim Russert teed up the first question for him to take on Hillary something the debate dominatrix never would have done
Related Searches Clinton , Hillary Rodham Sarkozy , Cecilia Presidential Election of
Barack Obama became president by brilliantly telling his own story
To stay president , he will need to show he can understand our story
At first it was exciting that Obama was the sort of brainy , cultivated Democrat who would be at home in a `` West Wing '' episode
But now he acts like he really thinks he 's on `` West Wing , '' gliding through an imaginary , amber-lit set where his righteous self-regard is bound to be rewarded by the end of the hour
Hey , dude , you 're a politician
Act like one
As the head of the Democratic Party , the president should have supported the Democratic candidate for governor in Rhode Island , the one the Democratic Governors Association had already lavished more than $ 1 million in TV ads on
If Obama was going to refuse to endorse Frank Caprio out of respect for Lincoln Chafee , the former Republican who endorsed him for president and is now running as an independent , the president should have at least stayed out of Providence
Reductio ad absurdum : After two years of taking his base for granted , the former Pied Piper of America 's youth had to spar with Jon Stewart to try to get the attention of young people who once idolized him
Obama still has the killer smile , but he 's more often sniffy than funny
When Stewart called White House legislation `` timid , '' Obama got defensive and offered a less-than-thrilling new mantra : `` Yes , we can but ... '' `` We have done things that people do n't even know about , '' said Obama , who left his Great Communicator mantle back in Grant Park on election night
In 2008 , the message was him
The promise was him
And that 's why 2010 is a referendum on him
With his coalition and governing majority shattering around him , President Obama will have to summon political skills - starting Wednesday - that he has not yet shown he has
His arrogance led him to assume : If I build it , they will understand
He ca n't get the gratitude he feels he deserves for his achievements if no one knows what he achieved and why those achievements are so vital
Once it seemed impressive that he was so comfortable in his own skin
Now that comfort comes across as an unwillingness to be wrong
We want the best people to govern us , but many voters are so turned off by Obama 's superior air that they 're rushing into the arms of disturbingly inferior pols
Obama admitted to The Times 's Peter Baker : `` There is probably a perverse pride in my administration - and I take responsibility for this ; this was blowing from the top - that we were going to do the right thing , even if short term it was unpopular .
But who defines what 's `` right ''
With the exception of Obama , most Americans seemed to agree that the `` right '' thing to do until the economy recovered was to focus on jobs instead of getting the Congress mired for months in making over health insurance and energy policy
And the `` right '' thing to do was to come down harder on the big banks for spending on bonuses instead of lending to small businesses that do n't get bailouts
Many of us thought the `` right '' thing to do was to ratify the civil rights of gay Americans in marriage and the military
-LRB- A new Pentagon study shows that most U.S. troops and their families do n't care if gays are allowed to serve openly .
In an interview with progressive bloggers , the president was asked why he was lagging behind Republicans like Ted Olson on gay marriage
Noting that he has a lot of friends and staffers in committed gay relationships , Obama conceded only that his attitude was evolving
`` I think it 's pretty clear where the trend lines are going , '' the president said
Trend lines
Really inspiring , dude
One top aide told me that the president - who perversely tried to marginalize a once-captivated press corps - was beginning to realize that he had not used his charm as effectively as he could have
His inner circle believed too much in the power of the Aura and in protecting the Brand
They did n't think they needed to sell anything or fight back when the crazies started sliming them
They did n't care that the average citizen needed an M.B.A. to understand the financial plan and a Ph.D. to fathom what the health care plan would mean
Because Obama stayed above it all on health care and delegated to Max Baucus , he missed the moment in August of 2009 when Sarah Palin and the Tea Party got oxygen with their loopy rants on death panels
It never occurred to the Icon that such wildness and gullibility would trump lofty rationality
As the president tries to ride the Tea Party tiger , let 's hope for this change : that he puts some audacity in his audacity
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster , Nietzsche said
And if you gaze for long into an abyss , the abyss gazes also into you
We re gazing into the abyss all right , and Blackwater is gazing back
Besides having an army for hire , brave kids who are paid to fight so that most Americans are not personally touched by war , we have the real mercenaries
And they re a spooky cadre , careening outside the laws of Iraq , the United States and the military
President Bush continues to preach that we must defeat the dark ideology of extremists with a more hopeful vision
But the compromises W. makes to slog on in Iraq , be it with warlords , dictators or out-of-control contractors , are spreading a dark stain on America s image
Blackwater appears to have fostered a culture of shoot first and sometimes kill , and then ask the questions , said Representative Elijah Cummings , a Democrat , yesterday at a House hearing
The Times reports today that Blackwater s explanation of an incident in Baghdad on Sept. 16 that left 17 dead and 24 wounded is sketchy
It seems as though a bullet struck an Iraqi man driving his mother to pick up his father , a pathologist , at the hospital
The dead man s weight , The Times reports , probably remained on the accelerator and propelled the car forward toward a Blackwater convoy
Blackwater guards then unleashed a spray of gunfire and explosives , even though witnesses did not see anyone shooting at the American convoy and even though Iraqis were turning their cars around and escaping the scene
Newsweek quotes the Iraqi national police as saying that Blackwater vehicles opened fire crazily and randomly , without any reason
The Blackwater desperados are a sinister symbol of how little progress we ve made in Iraq , that V.I.P. s or packages , as the contractors call them can t make a move in the country without the high-priced hired guns of the State Department
Americans have been antimercenary since the British sent 30,000 German Hessians after George Washington in the Revolutionary War
But W. outsourced his presidency to Cheney and Rummy , and Cheney and Rummy went to war on the cheap and outsourced large chunks of the Iraq occupation to Halliburton and Blackwater
The American taxpayer got gouged , and so did the American reputation
The mercenaries inflame Iraqis even as Gen. David Petraeus tries to win their trust
Henry Waxman , the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee , summoned the 38-year-old crew-cut chairman of Blackwater , Erik Prince , to defend his private security company yesterday
Once there was the military-industrial complex
Now we have the mercenary-evangelical complex
Mr. Prince , a former intern to the first President Bush and a former Navy Seal , is from a well-to-do and well-connected Republican family from Michigan
He and his father both have close ties to conservative Christian groups
His sister was a Pioneer for W. , raising $ 100,000 in 2004 , and Erik Prince has given more than $ 225,000 to Republicans
Blackwater , in turn , has been the beneficiary of $ 1 billion in federal contracts , including a no-bid contract with the State Department worth hundreds of millions
Mr. Waxman yesterday called the State Department Blackwater s enabler
His committee staff summarized State Department reports revealing a cascade of Blackwater trouble
In a high-profile incident in December 2006 , a drunken Blackwater contractor killed the guard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi
Within 36 hours after the shooting , the State Department had allowed Blackwater to transport the Blackwater contractor out of Iraq
The State Department charg d affaires suggested a $ 250,000 payment to the guard s family , but the Department s Diplomatic Security Service said this was too much and could cause Iraqis to try to get killed
In the end , they agreed on a $ 15,000 payment
The State Department took a similar approach , the report stated , upon receiving reports that Blackwater shooters killed an innocent Iraqi , except that in this case , the State Department requested only a $ 5,000 payment to put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly
Mr. Prince was pressed by Representative Paul Hodes about the penalty paid by the Blackwater employee who , while drunk and off-duty at a Christmas party , killed the Iraqi guard
The man was fired
And he had to pay his own airfare home and forfeit his bonuses , amounting to a loss of about $ 14,697 slightly less than the amount paid to the family of the Iraqi he blew away
I had hoped I was finally done with acting as an interpreter for politicians whose relationship with the English language was tumultuous
There 's W. 's gummy grammar , of course , like the classic , `` Is our children learning ?
And covering the first Bush White House required doing simultaneous translation for a president who never met a personal pronoun he liked or a wacky non sequitur he could resist
Poppy Bush drew comparisons to Warren G. Harding , whose prose reminded H. L. Mencken of `` a string of wet sponges
... It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it .
When Harding died , E. E. Cummings lamented , `` The only man , woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead .
Being mush-mouthed helped give the patrician Bushes the common touch
As Alistair Cooke observed , `` Americans seem to be more comfortable with Republican presidents because they share the common frailty of muddled syntax and because , when they attempt eloquence , they do tend to spout a kind of Frontier Baroque .
Darn right
And that , doggone it , brings us to a shout-out for the latest virtuoso of Frontier Baroque , bless her heart , the governor of the Last Frontier
Her reward 's in heaven
At Sarah Palin 's old church in Wasilla , they spoke in tongues
Maybe that 's where she picked it up
Hillary Clinton and John McCain ran against Barack Obama by sneering that their prose was meatier than The One 's poetry
Sarah 's running against the Democrat 's highfalutin eloquence by speakin ' in homespun haikus
We could , following her strenuously folksy debate performance , wonder when elite became a bad thing in America
Navy Seals are elite , and they get lots of training so they can swim underwater and invade a foreign country , but if you 're governing the country that dispatches the Seals , it 's not O.K. to be elite
Can likable still trump knowledgeable at such a vulnerable crossroads for the country
Did Joe Biden have to rhetorically rush over to Home Depot before Sarah could once more brandish `` a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street there brought to Washington , D.C. ?
With her pompom patois and sing-songy jingoism , Palin can bridge contradictory ideas that lead nowhere : One minute she promises to get `` greater oversight '' by government ; the next , she lectures : `` Government , you know , you 're not always a solution
In fact , too often you 're the problem .
Talking at the debate about how she would `` positively affect the impacts '' of the climate change for which she 's loath to acknowledge human culpability , she did a dizzying verbal loop-de-loop : `` With the impacts of climate change , what we can do about that , as governor , I was the first governor to form a climate change subcabinet to start dealing with the impacts .
That was , miraculously , richer with content than an answer she gave Katie Couric : `` You know , there are man 's activities that can be contributed to the issues that we 're dealing with now , with these impacts .
At another point , she channeled Alicia Silverstone debating in `` Clueless , '' asserting , `` Nuclear weaponry , of course , would be the be-all , end-all of just too many people in too many parts of our planet .
-LRB- Mostly the end-all .
A political jukebox , she drowned out Biden 's specifics , offering lifestyle as substance
`` In the middle class of America , which is where Todd and I have been , you know , all our lives , '' she said , making the middle class sound like it has its own ZIP code , superior to 90210 because `` real '' rules
Sometimes , her sentences have a Yoda-like `` When 900 years old you reach , look as good you will not '' splendor
When she was asked by Couric if she 'd ever negotiated with the Russians , the governor replied that when Putin `` rears his head '' he is headed for Alaska
Then she uttered yet another sentence that defies diagramming : `` It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation , Russia , because they are right there .
Reared heads reared themselves again at the debate , when she said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac `` were starting to really kind of rear the head of abuse .
She dangles gerunds , mangles prepositions , randomly exiles nouns and verbs and also `` also '' is her favorite vamping word uses verbs better left as nouns , as in , `` If Americans so bless us and privilege us with the opportunity of serving them , '' or how she tried to `` progress the agenda .
Poppy Bush dropped personal pronouns and launched straight into verbs because he was minding his mother 's admonition against `` the big I. '' Palin , by contrast , uses a heck of a lot of language to praise herself as a fresh face with new ideas who has `` joined this team that is a team of mavericks .
True mavericks do n't brand themselves
Not to become an instant millionaire with the help of Jesus and some cheesy business evangelists
Rather , I felt motivated to flee the 9-hour , $ 9.95 Get Motivated
seminar at the Verizon Center , which had devolved into a faux beach party with DJs playing '80s music and audience members tossing around plastic beach balls and dancing to Michael Jackson 's `` Thriller '' and Van Halen 's `` Jump .
But I stayed in the church of capitalism , determined to hear what wisdom headliners Colin Powell , Rudy Giuliani , Dan Rather , Steve Forbes and Terry Bradshaw would dispense
Are n't these guys affluent enough without whatever exorbitant fees they were collecting for their bromides to the beaten down
Nearby , Fortune was hosting a gathering celebrating the nation 's most powerful women , drawing speakers such as President Obama , Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton
But the sports arena featured some weird counterprogramming : famous men who once were considered prospects for president , now buck-raking and giving a patina of legitimacy to carnival barkers pushing quick-cash schemes bathed in Biblical inspiration and patriotism
Thousands of people mired in the new Age of Anxiety turned hopeful eyes to the parade of Professor Harold Hills , waiting for that one elusive diamond of advice that could change their lives
Never mind that it was all a variation on `` We are the ones we 've been waiting for , '' or the scene in `` The Wizard of Oz , '' when Glinda the Good Witch reveals to Dorothy that she has had the power to get home all along
Except at Get Motivated
, the seminar organizers entice audience members to sign up for more seminars that , for a fee , will teach them the secrets of cashing in on stocks , real estate and the Internet
I arrived at 8:30 a.m. as Steve Forbes was talking
Naturally , it was still about the flat tax , with the same lines he used when he ran a geek-chic campaign for the G.O.P. nomination in 1996
Rick Belluzzo , the former chief operating officer for Microsoft , told us we need to `` own our own development '' and that `` perseverance can pay off .
Then football analyst Terry Bradshaw lumbered on , momentarily alarmed when the shooting fireworks on stage nearly singed his backside
`` I need a woman with money , '' Bradshaw cackled , noting that he was a 62-year-old mama 's boy with three ex-wives
He seemed more like a man who could use some advice rather than one paid for giving it
`` I 've never really motivated anybody , '' he announced cheerfully
The former Steelers quarterback grumbled that quarterbacks like Peyton Manning and Donovan McNabb get paid millions more than he did to follow plays dictated by coaches
After noting that `` Jesus is my savior , '' he shared this life lesson with the would-be entrepreneurs : When your receiver is about to be tackled , `` Keep it simple
Chuck it to him anyway .
After the audience was wooed to sign up for more sure-fire money-making classes and DVDs , Colin Powell came out to a rain of red and blue streamers
He was the most charming speaker , confessing that he coped with being out of the limelight by driving a Corvette , at 73 , around suburban Washington
His advice
Be nice to the little people , the ones who clean your office and park your car
Write thank you notes on 4-by-6-inch cards
`` I write with a fountain pen , '' he said
`` Never a Sharpie
Never a ballpoint pen .
Then came another sales pitch from a guy who said he went from being a homeless drug dealer to the `` world 's No. 1 Internet wealth entrepreneur '' with a $ 2.4 million estate in Texas
He offered a course at an airport Marriott valued at $ 11,226.90 for a bargain $ 29
When it was his turn , Rudy Giuliani began with a few choice words about Al Gore and global warming , before moving on to his pearls of wisdom
The first one was : `` You have got to have a computer .
As he explained to the diminished crowd that remained : `` That other world that used to exist does n't exist anymore .
Having advised the audience to get computers , he went on to counsel on ways to `` protect yourself against the information revolution .
The first was : `` Read books .
He even got a little touchy-feely
`` The government has to have a safety net
I 'm not disputing that
But it 's not important
The one that 's really important is the one you create for yourself .
He concluded , `` You know how you do that
You love people .
I came away with one important new insight about getting rich quick : An easy way to do it is to dole out fortune-cookie maxims at get-rich-quick seminars
I did it
Everything A. said let s just use the initial because it s still hard for me to speak the name of my victim and tormentor was true
I did what I had to do and I didn t care if it ruined A. s life
I didn t even care if people thought it was obscene
I knew I was misusing my position , but I enjoyed having that kind of raw power over A. and saying the things I said
It made me tingle all over
I m not going to deny that
The liberals have turned A. into an icon
Give me a break
We are talking about a world-class know-it-all someone prissy , uptight and no fun
Not the sort of person I d like to tailgate with , listen to Marvin Gaye with , share Ripple or a Scotch and Drambuie or a blackberry brandy with if I were still drinking
Not the kind , like my wife , Ginny , I d bring along on an expedition in my custom-made motor home those idyllic times when I get away from the meanness in Washington
Can you imagine that stiff A. spending the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot or hanging at a truck stop
The liberals championed A. because they wanted to keep abortion safe
They can t stop reliving the historic face-off , reopening the wound , replaying that whole media circus , wishing it had come out the opposite way
Ginny has her heart set on having my memoir reap redemption
A lot of journalists on A. s side in the last round have come over to my side
They ve even shown the lighter side of Clarence
My new friend , ABC s Jan Crawford Greenburg , called me one of the most complex , compelling , maligned and misunderstood figures in modern history
And thank you , Steve Kroft
I never thought 60 Minutes could be so sweet
A. looks a lot different now I ve caught the TV interviews and op-ed opining but the old self-righteousness is still there
I have no apologies to make
When you re born in a backwater shack in Pin Point , Ga. ; when you grow up poor , cold and hungry ; when you get a bellyful of racial slights and condescension ; when you can t get a job after graduation , even with a degree from Yale , because you re competing with rich , white , well-connected guys who were legacies at Yale , that s when the anger boils up in you
Every Southern black who lived through Jim Crow knows the feeling
From the time I was a kid , when my white classmates made fun of me as ABC America s Blackest Child the beast of rage against The Man has gnawed at my soul
Your Yale law degree isn t worth 15 cents when everyone assumes you got special treatment because of the color of your skin , when , really , it was the witless Wonder Bread elites who got special treatment because of the color of their daddy s money
I still have a 15-cent sticker on the frame of my law degree because it s tainted
I keep it in the basement
That s why I refuse , as a justice , to give a helping hand to blacks
I don t want them to suffer from the advantages I had
Few of them will be able to climb to my heights , of course , but if they do , they will have the satisfaction of knowing that they made it on their own , as individuals
Because Poppy Bush put me on the Supreme Court after I d been a judge for only a year , I ll always wonder if I got the job just because of my race
I want to spare other blacks that kind of worry
That s why I pulled the ladder up after myself so that my brothers and sisters would have the peace of mind that comes with self-reliance
I used to have grave reservations about working at white institutions , subject to the whims of white superiors
But when Poppy s whim was to crown his son one of those privileged Yale legacy types I always resented I had to repay The Man for putting me on the court even though I was neither qualified nor honest
So I voted to shut down the vote-counting in Florida by A. oh , I ll just say it : Al because if he d kept going he might have won
I helped swing the court in case No. 00-949 , Bush v. Gore , to narrowly achieve the Bush restoration
I know it wasn t what my hero Atticus Finch would have done
But having the power to carjack the presidency and control the fate of the country did give me that old X-rated tingle
Al Gore s true claims didn t matter in that standoff any more than Anita Hill s true claims did during my confirmation
That s the beautiful thing about being a conservative
We don t push for the truth
We push to win , praise the Lord
It s a relief to finally admit it : I m proud to have hastened Al s premature political death , hanging by hanging chads
It was , you might say , a low-tech lynching
The elevator operator is n't the only black face in the building
Executives no longer sip amber highballs and puff Lucky Strikes all day long
And other things have not changed
Some women still wriggle into girdles -LRB- now called Spanx -RRB-
And some men still gravitate toward interns , nannies and secretaries -LRB- now called personal assistants -RRB-
A few years ago , I wrote that 40 years of feminism had done nothing to alter the fact that older men often see young women in staff support as sirens
For some men , it 's the very inequality of the relationship that 's alluring , the way these women revolve around them and make life easier , the way they treat Himself like the sunrise and sunset of their universe
In terms of evolutionary biology , it could be rooted in the fear that aggressive females would be more likely to cheat and the males could end up raising offspring that were not their own
In romantic terms , it could simply be the erotic pull of proximity
You covet what you see every day , as Hannibal Lecter said , and it can be seductive to get involved with someone who 's already orbiting around you , bringing you pizza with your favorite toppings late at night
Office romances abound in life and art -LRB- `` The Office '' has its interoffice wedding this week -RRB- , and sometimes young staffers are attracted to the boss , and vice versa
Les Moonves , who heads CBS , and Robert Iger , who heads ABC as the chief of Disney , both married lovely young correspondents on their networks
Barack Obama fell in love with a superior mentoring him at his law firm
On his last late-night show , Jay Leno brought out all the kids spawned from `` Tonight Show '' romances
In an ideal world , bosses would refrain from sleeping with subordinates , so as not to cause jealousy and tension in the office
But we 're not in an ideal world
Otherwise , we 'd already have health care for everyone and Glenn Beck would n't have any influence over the White House
After David Letterman acknowledged that he 'd had flings with young assistants , some commentators talked about it in the same breath as Roman Polanski , who drugged and sodomized a 13-year-old
That 's outrageous
Sexual harassment entails pressuring or penalizing a staffer or making the office atmosphere hostile
Despite the blustering of the attorney of the alleged execrable extortionist , Joe Halderman , there 's no evidence yet that Letterman was guilty of that
Working for a boss as anti-social and self-critical as Letterman , whose world is circumscribed by his show , would not be easy
-LRB- The man is obviously not joking when he goes off on his self-loathing shticks ; otherwise , he would have dated some of those gorgeous actresses flirting with him on air over the decades .
But we have n't heard that the curmudgeonly comedian , who has never lost his streak of Midwest primness , forced any staffers to listen to tales of pubic hairs on Cokes or Long Dong Silver
From what we know so far , and that may not be everything , the women who got involved with Letterman were not pressured
One former intern , Holly Hester , said she had wanted to marry him but that he broke it off because of their age disparity
Stephanie Birkitt , his former lover and assistant , described herself as his best friend
She was not punished but rewarded with a recurring on-air starring role despite the fact that she was n't funny or charming
As usual , Letterman was living out loud on the show , showing the audience his crush
His company footed the tab for Birkitt to go to law school , a loan she has now paid back ; it says it did the same for some other staffers who wanted to pursue higher education
On Monday night , when Letterman joked that he might be the first talk-show host to be impeached , Birkitt 's name was still listed in the show credits
Letterman 's talent does n't give him a free pass he described his own behavior as `` creepy '' and his wife -LRB- a former staffer at NBC -RRB- has a right to be deeply hurt and furious
But it 's absurd to compare a jester -LRB- unmarried at the time -RRB- to Bill Clinton and other philandering pols
Officeholders run as devoted family men upholding old-fashioned values
They have ambitious public agendas and loyal acolytes whose futures depend on whether these leaders succumb to reckless dalliances
As Craig Ferguson , whose show is produced by Letterman , joked : `` If we are now holding late-night talk-show hosts to the same moral accountability as we hold politicians or clergymen , I 'm out .
The main thing Letterman and Clinton had in common was that the danger of a secret affair exploding is enhanced when the staffer is immature enough to scrawl confessions in her diary , as Birkitt did , or go prattling to a prat like Linda Tripp
Unlike Clinton , Letterman trusted the public and his bond with them enough to tell the truth
Some of John McCain 's friends , from the good old days when he talked straight , feared that his Greek tragedy would be that he would be defeated by George Bush twice : once in 2000 , because of W. 's no-conscience campaigning , and again in 2008 , because of W. 's no-brains governing
But if McCain loses , he will have contributed to his own downfall by failing to live up to his personal standard of honor
John McCain has long been torn between wanting to succeed and serving a higher cause
Right now , the drive to succeed is trumping any loftier aspirations
He cynically picked a running mate with less care than theater directors give to picking a leading actor 's understudy
And he has been running a seamy campaign originally designed by the bad seed of conservative politics , Lee Atwater
It was adapted in 2000 in Atwater 's home state of South Carolina by Atwater acolytes in W. 's camp to harpoon McCain with rumors that he had fathered out of wedlock a black baby -LRB- as opposed to adopting a Bangladeshi infant girl in wedlock -RRB-
Sulfurous Atwater-style rumor-mongering by Bush supporters that McCain had come home from a Hanoi tiger cage with snakes in his head aimed to stop him during that primary after he had zoomed in New Hampshire
Atwater relished teaching rich , white Republicans to feign a connection to the common man so they could get in office and economically undermine the common man
In the 1988 campaign , the Machiavellian ran to help George Bush Sr. defeat Michael Dukakis with this unholy quintet of charges : The Democrat was a '60s - style liberal who would raise taxes and take away guns
He was weak and would not protect the country militarily
He was a member of the elite `` Harvard Yard 's boutique .
He had a foreign-sounding name and was not on `` the American side .
He was on the side of the Scary Black Man
Sound familiar
Certainly , at some level , John McCain must be disgusted with himself for using the tactics perfected by the same crowd that used these tactics to derail him in 2000
He 's now curmudgeonly , even hostile , toward the press the group he used to spend hours with every day and jokingly describe as his base
He unleashed Sarah Palin to slime their opponent and suggested that the Democrat with the foreign-sounding name who came from the Harvard Yard boutique is not on the American side
Campaigning last weekend , Palin cast their Democratic rival as `` someone who sees America , it seems , as being so imperfect that he 's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country .
The woman is sounding more Cheney than Cheney
Palin said that Obama 's relationship with the former Weatherman William Ayers proved that he did not have the `` truthfulness and judgment '' to be president
Asked by William Kristol if the Rev. Jeremiah Wright should be an issue , she said , `` I do n't know why that association is n't discussed more .
Atwater gleefully tried to paint Willie Horton as Dukakis 's running mate
With a black man running , it 's even easier for Atwater 's disciple running McCain 's campaign to warn that white Americans should not open the door to the dangerous Other , or `` That One , '' as McCain referred to Obama in Tuesday night 's debate
-LRB- A cross between `` The One '' and `` That Woman . ''
On Monday , McCain made Obama , who has been campaigning for almost two years now , sound like an ominous intruder , questioning his character and motives , telling a New Mexico crowd that `` even at this late hour in the campaign , there are essential things we do n't know about Senator Obama ... `` All people want to know is : What has this man ever actually accomplished in government
What does he plan for America
In short : Who is the real Barack Obama ?
The new McCain TV ad , `` Dangerous , '' calls Obama `` dishonorable , '' `` dangerous '' and `` too risky for America .
McCain aides have been blunt in their need to change the subject from the economy
But , as with Bush Senior 's re-election campaign , slithery character attacks do n't scare as well when Americans are already scared about keeping their jobs and retirement savings
Maybe that 's why McCain did n't bring up Ayers or Wright during the debate , instead leaving it to Sarah Barracuda
Palin finally took questions on Tuesday from her traveling press corps on her campaign plane
Asked if she thought Senator Obama was dishonest , McCain 's Mean Girl meandered : `` I 'm not saying he 's dishonest , but in terms of judgment , in terms of being able to answer a question forthrightly , it has two different parts to this
The judgment and the truthfulness and just being able to answer very candidly a simple question about when did you know him , how did you know him , is there still has there been an association continued since '02 or ' 05 , I know I 've read a couple different stories
I think it 's relevant .
Of course she does
I hope John McCain does n't throw his slippers at Sarah Palin 's head or get as acerbic as Henry Higgins did with Eliza Doolittle when she did not learn quickly enough
McCain 's Pygmalion has to be careful , because his Galatea might be armed with more than a sharp tongue
For the first time in American history , we have a `` My Fair Lady '' moment , as teams of experts bustle around the most famous woman in politics , intensely coaching her for her big moment at the ball her first unscripted interview here this week with ABC News 's Charlie Gibson
Eliza , by George , got it and brought off the coup of passing herself off as a Hungarian princess rather than a Covent Garden flower seller
Sarah 's challenge is far tougher , and that 's why she 's pulling the political equivalent of an all-nighter
She does n't have to pass herself off as a different class or change her voice or be more highfalutin
The McCain campaign is reveling in its anti-intellectual tenor
Sarah , who is now so renowned that she is known merely by one name and has a name ID of 90 percent , has to be a Kmart mom who appeals to Kmart moms and dads
She 's already shown that she can shoot the pig , put lipstick on it , bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan
Now all she has to do is also prove that she can be the leader of the free world on a moment 's notice , and field dress Putin as adeptly as she can a moose
After devilishly mocking Obama and successfully getting into his head with ads about how he was just a frothy celebrity , like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears , it turns out all the McCain camp wanted was an Obama of its own
Now that they have the electric Palin , they 've stopped arguing that celebrity is bad
All they do is worship at her cult of celebrity
As Rick Davis , a top McCain adviser , said : `` This election is not about issues
This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates .
Wasilla will be crawling with four groups ABC staffers , frantically getting ready for the big showdown ; McCain staffers , frantically tutoring Palin for the big showdown ; McCain vetters , who are belatedly doing their job checking to see if Palin is a qualified White House contender and doing their best to shut down Troopergate and assembling a `` truth squad '' posse of Palinistas to rebut any criticism and push back any prying reporters ; and journalists from Sydney to Washington who are here to draw back the curtain on the shiny reformer image that the McCain camp has conjured for their political ing nue and see what 's behind it
Gibson has his work cut out for him
His problem is n't coming up with a list of questions , but finding time to drill deeply enough into all the unknown territory of her life
It 's a task that dwarfs the drilling job the oil companies are doing on Alaska 's North Slope
In the end , none of it may matter , since Palin has rocketed in the polls , drawing women and men with her vapid if vivacious and visceral scripted cheerleading
But if you 're reading this , Charlie , we want to know everything , including : What kind of budget-cutter makes a show of getting rid of the state plane , then turns around and bills taxpayers for the travel of her husband and kids between Juneau and Wasilla and sticks the state with a per-diem tab to stay in her own home
Why was Sarah for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against the Bridge to Nowhere , and why was she for earmarks before she was against them
And does n't all this make her just as big a flip-flopper as John Kerry
What kind of fiscal conservative raises taxes and increases budgets in both her jobs as mayor and as governor
When the phone rings at 3 a.m. , will she call the Wasilla Assembly of God congregation and ask them to pray on a response , as she asked them to pray for a natural gas pipeline
Does she really think Adam , Eve , Satan and the dinosaurs mingled on the earth 5,000 years ago
Why put out a press release about her teenage daughter 's pregnancy and then spend the next few days attacking the press for covering that press release
As Troopergate unfolds here an inquiry into whether Palin inappropriately fired the commissioner of public safety for refusing to fire her ex-brother-in-law it raises this question : Who else is on her enemies list and what might she do with the F.B.I.
Does she want a federal ban on trans fat in restaurants and a ban on abortion and Harry Potter
And which books exactly would have landed on the literature bonfire if she had had her way with that Wasilla librarian
Just how is it that Fannie and Freddie have cost taxpayers money -LRB- since they have n't yet -RRB-
Does she talk in tongues or just eat caribou tongues
What does she have against polar bears
The president is everywhere , trying to get more aggressive and recapture some of his `` Yes we can '' mojo in an effort to fend off the rebuke that 's barreling toward him from voters this fall
He 's in his best buzzer-beating mode , knowing that if he loses even one house of Congress , he will be inundated by inane G.O.P. investigations that will consume the last two years of his term
House Republicans are already talking gleefully about a government shutdown
The country is more polarized than ever on race and religion , with a Florida faker holding a complicit media hostage in the Koran-burning pastor disaster
Mosque-baiting Republicans have shown again that they 're willing to tear at the fabric of the country on the issues of 9\/11 and national security in order to trample the Democrats
Obama has been bleeding independents , who flocked to him in 2008 and were the deciding factor in several swing states
The White House is more focused on stimulating the base right now , figuring that the independents wo n't be voting that heavily in the midterms
Among independent voters in 2012 , Obama strategists think they have a better chance with women than men because of the president 's abortion-rights support and health care legislation - hence the appearance by the commander in chief on `` The View .
And they reckon that he can devote more time to courting the indie ladies after November
The official Obama site for independent voters highlights his quote from the campaign about bringing `` real change '' to Washington
The sentiment was challenged by NBC 's Chuck Todd at the presidential press conference Friday
`` How have you changed Washington ?
Todd asked
The president answered that he is trying to help `` ordinary families '' and not special interests , before conceding that he , too , is frustrated by his inability to create `` a greater spirit of cooperation in Washington .
`` You know , are there , you know , things that I might have done during the course of 18 months that would , you know , at the margins have improved some of the tone in Washington ?
Obama asked
`` Probably .
Uncharacteristically valley girl , the usually eloquent president must have , you know , had a hard time acknowledging that
`` Is some of this just a core difference in approach , in terms of how we move this country forward , between Democrats and Republicans ?
he said
`` I 'd say the answer is a lot more the latter .
One of the independent voters Obama will be trying to charm over the next two years is my sister , Peggy , a formerly ardent Obamican -LRB- a Republican who changed spots to vote for Obama -RRB-
Disillusioned with her beloved W. over Iraq and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and the disdain for bipartisanship , she gave her affections - and small cash infusions - to Barack Obama in 2008
Despite being a Washington native , Peggy believed that the dazzling young newcomer could change Washington
But she has lost a lot of faith now , saying she might vote for Mitt Romney over Obama if Romney is the Republican nominee in 2012
-LRB- Sarah Palin should n't count on her vote though
In Peggy 's words , `` Are you nuts ? ''
Peggy thinks the president has done fine managing W. 's messes in Iraq and Afghanistan
And she lights up at the mention of his vice president , Joe Biden
But she thinks Obama has to get `` a backbone '' if he wants to lure her back to the fold
`` He promised us everything , saying he would turn the country around , and he did nothing the first year , '' Peggy says
`` He piddled around when he had 60 votes
He could have pushed through the health care bill but spent months haggling on it because he wanted to bring some Republicans on board
He was trying too hard to compromise when he did n't need the Republicans and they were never going to like him
Any idiot could see that
`` He could have gotten it through while Teddy Kennedy was still alive - he owed the Kennedys something - and then the bill was watered down
`` He has n't saved the economy , and now he 's admitting he 's made very little progress
You ca n't for four years blame the person who used to be president
Obama tries to compromise too much , and he does n't look like a strong leader
I do n't watch him anymore
I 'm turned off by him
I think he 's an elitist
He went down to the gulf , telling everyone to take a vacation down there , and then he goes to Martha 's Vineyard
He does what he wants but then he tells us to do other things
`` I want him in that White House acting like a president , not out on the campaign trail
Not when the country is going down the toilet .
While Obama 's out in the country trying to save Congressional Democrats , he should also think about how he 's going to save himself
Surrounded by middle-aged white guys a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men 's club Joe Wilson yelled `` You lie !
at a president who did n't
But , fair or not , what I heard was an unspoken word in the air : You lie , boy
The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention
Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero , inspiring `` You lie !
bumper stickers and T-shirts
The congressman , we learned , belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans , led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina 's state Capitol and denounced as a `` smear '' the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond , the '48 segregationist candidate for president
Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber
I 've been loath to admit that the shrieking lunacy of the summer the frantic efforts to paint our first black president as the Other , a foreigner , socialist , fascist , Marxist , racist , Commie , Nazi ; a cad who would snuff old people ; a snake who would indoctrinate kids had much to do with race
I tended to agree with some Obama advisers that Democratic presidents typically have provoked a frothing response from paranoids from Father Coughlin against F.D.R. to Joe McCarthy against Truman to the John Birchers against J.F.K. and the vast right-wing conspiracy against Bill Clinton
But Wilson 's shocking disrespect for the office of the president no Democrat ever shouted `` liar '' at W. when he was hawking a fake case for war in Iraq convinced me : Some people just ca n't believe a black man is president and will never accept it
`` A lot of these outbursts have to do with delegitimizing him as a president , '' said Congressman Jim Clyburn , a senior member of the South Carolina delegation
Clyburn , the man who called out Bill Clinton on his racially tinged attacks on Obama in the primary , pushed Pelosi to pursue a formal resolution chastising Wilson
`` In South Carolina politics , I learned that the olive branch works very seldom , '' he said
`` You have to come at these things from a position of strength
My father used to say , ` Son , always remember that silence gives consent . '
Barry Obama of the post - '60s Hawaiian ` hood did not live through the major racial struggles in American history
Maybe he had a problem relating to his white basketball coach or catching a cab in New York , but he never got beaten up for being black
Now he 's at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension
Even if he and the coterie of white male advisers around him do n't choose to openly acknowledge it , this president is the ultimate civil rights figure a black man whose legitimacy is constantly challenged by a loco fringe
For two centuries , the South has feared a takeover by blacks or the feds
In Obama , they have both
The state that fired the first shot of the Civil War has now given us this : Senator Jim DeMint exhorted conservatives to `` break '' the president by upending his health care plan
Rusty DePass , a G.O.P. activist , said that a gorilla that escaped from a zoo was `` just one of Michelle 's ancestors .
Lovelorn Mark Sanford tried to refuse the president 's stimulus money
And now Joe Wilson
`` A good many people in South Carolina really reject the notion that we 're part of the union , '' said Don Fowler , the former Democratic Party chief who teaches politics at the University of South Carolina
He observed that when slavery was destroyed by outside forces and segregation was undone by civil rights leaders and Congress , it bred xenophobia
`` We have a lot of people who really think that the world 's against us , '' Fowler said , `` so when things do n't happen the way we like them to , we blame outsiders .
He said a state legislator not long ago tried to pass a bill to nullify any federal legislation with which South Carolinians did n't agree
Shades of John C. Calhoun
It may be President Obama 's very air of elegance and erudition that raises hackles in some
`` My father used to say to me , ` Boy , do n't get above your raising , ' '' Fowler said
`` Some people are prejudiced anyway , and then they look at his education and mannerisms and get more angry at him .
Clyburn had a warning for Obama advisers who want to forgive Wilson , ignore the ignorant outbursts and move on : `` They 're going to have to develop ways in this White House to deal with things and not let them fester out there
Otherwise , they 'll see numbers moving in the wrong direction .
I 've been in Alaska only a week , but I 'm already feeling ever so much smarter about Russia
I ca n't quite see it from my hotel window , but , hey , I know it 's out there somewhere , beyond all the stuffed bears and cruise ships and glaciers and oil derricks
The proximity of the country from which William Seward bartered to buy Alaska for $ 7 million Seward 's icebox is so illuminating that I suddenly realize that we would commit a grave error by overestimating Russia 's economic strength
After all , it represents only 2.8 percent of the world 's G.D.P. , even though its gross domestic product has ballooned from $ 200 billion in 1999 to $ 1.7 trillion this year
But I overanalyze
An Arctic blast of action has swept into the 2008 race , making thinking pass
We do n't really need to hurt our brains studying the world ; we just need the world to know we 're capable of bringing a world of hurt to the world if the world continues to be hell-bent on misbehaving
Two weeks after being thrown onto a national ticket , and moments after being speed-briefed by McCain foreign-policy advisers , our new Napoleon in bunny boots -LRB- not the Pamela Anderson kind , but the knock-offs of the U.S. Army Extreme Cold Weather Vapor Barrier Boots -RRB- is ready to face down the Russkies and start a land war over Georgia , and , holy cow , what business is it of ours if Israel attacks Iran
The trigger-happy John McCain has indeed found a soul mate
Trigger squared
In Fairbanks on Thursday , at a deployment ceremony for her son who is going to Iraq , Governor Palin followed the lead of McCain and W. in fusing Osama bin Laden 's diabolical work on 9\/11 and the mission in Iraq
She told the departing troops , `` You 'll be there to defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the deaths of thousands of Americans .
Asked by Charlie Gibson what insight into Russian actions her Alaskan proximity gave her , Sarah blithely replied : `` They 're our next-door neighbors
And you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska .
Being a next-door neighbor is not quite enough , though
If Sarah had been reading about the world she feels so confident about leading rather than just parroting by rote what Randy Scheunemann and the neocons around McCain drilled into her last week Drill , baby , drill
she might have realized that as heinous as Russia 's behavior toward Georgia was , it was not completely unprovoked
The State Department has let it be known that it warned McCain 's friend , Misha , the hotheaded president of Georgia , not to send troops in to crush the rebellion in two breakaway states
And she might not have had to clench her jaw and play for time when Gibson raised the Bush doctrine , the wacko preemption philosophy that so utterly changed the world
The really scary part of the Palin interview was how much she seemed like W. in 2000 , and not just the way she pronounced nu-cue-lar
She had the same flimsy but tenacious adeptness at saying nothing , the same generalities and platitudes , the same restrained resentment at being pressed to be specific , as though specific is the province of silly eggheads , not people who clear brush at the ranch or shoot moose on the tundra
Just as W. once could not name the General-General running Pakistan , so Palin took a position on Pakistan that McCain had derided as na ve when Obama took it
`` We must not , Charlie , blink , Charlie , because , Charlie , as I 've said , Charlie , before , John McCain has said , Charlie , that and remember here , Charlie , we 're talking about John McCain , Charlie , who , Charlie , is John McCain and I wo n't be blinking , Charlie .
She tried to finesse her previous church comments about Iraq , asking worshipers to pray `` that there is a plan , and that plan is God 's plan .
Earnestly repeating after her tutors , she said she had meant to echo Abraham Lincoln , that in war we must pray that we are on God 's side rather than that he is on ours
But her original comments sounded more W. than Abe taking your policy and ideology and giving it the hallowed mantle of a mission from God
Sarah has single-handedly ushered out the `` Sex and the City '' era , and made the sexy new model for America a retro one the glamorous Pioneer Woman , packing a gun , a baby and a Bible
Her explosion onto the scene made Obama seem even more like a windy , wispy egghead
Like W. , Sarah has the power of positive unthinking
But now we may want to think about where ignorance and pride and no self-doubt has gotten us
Being quick on the trigger might be good in moose hunting , but in dealing with Putin , a little knowledge might come in handy
The 67-year-old former speaker , who has a talent for overreaching , is more unbridled than ever
He 's decided he 'll do or say anything to stay in the game -- even Palin-izing himself by making outrageous , unsubstantiated comments to appeal to the wing nuts among us
The conservative who fancies himself a historian and visionary did not use his critical faculties to resist his party 's lunacy but instead has embraced it , shamelessly
He has given a full-throated endorsement to a dangerously irresponsible and un-Christian theory by Ann Coulter-in-pants Dinesh D'Souza
Gingrich praised D'Souza 's article in Forbes , previewing an upcoming book called '' The Roots of Obama 's Rage .
Newt told The National Review Online that it was the '' most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama '' and said D'Souza shows that the president '' is so outside our comprehension '' that you can only understand him '' if you understand Kenyan , anticolonial behavior .
Newt added : '' This a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works , who happened to have played a wonderful con , as a result of which he is now president .
So the smear artists are claiming not only that the president is a socialist but that he suffers from a socialism gene .
Our president is trapped in his father 's time machine , '' D'Souza writes in Forbes , offering a genetic theory of ideology .
Incredibly , the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s
This philandering , inebriated African socialist , who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions , is now setting the nation 's agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son .
Playing into the bigotry of birthers and haters who paint Obama as '' the other , '' D'Souza writes that the president was raised offshore , spending '' his formative years -- the first 17 years of his life -- off the American mainland , in Hawaii , Indonesia and Pakistan , with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa .
The ominous-sounding time in Pakistan was merely a visit when Obama was a college student
Gingrich , who ditched two wives -LRB- the first when she was battling cancer ; the second after an affair with the third -- a House staffer -- while he was impeaching Bill Clinton -RRB- , now professes to be a good Catholic
Evidently the first two wives do n't count because he had n't converted to Catholicism
He even had a big Catholic conversion Mass here with his third wife , Callista , celebrated by a retinue of eight priests and three bishops
But he is downright un-Christian when he does not hesitate to visit the alleged sins of the father upon the son
Some of Newt 's old conservative friends worry that he has gone '' over the ledge , '' as one put it
If it was n't so sick it would be funny
It 's worse than a conspiracy theory because this conspiracy consists of a single dead individual
The idea that there 's something illegitimate about anticolonialism on the part of a Kenyan man in the 1940s , '50s and '60s is stupid
And it 's inconsistent to accuse a president who 's raining drones on bad guys in Pakistan , Somalia and Yemen of having an inherited anticolonial ideology
It 's also really low
D'Souza and Gingrich are not merely discrediting the president 's father 's ideology
They 're discrediting his character and insinuating that the son inherited not just his father 's bad ideology but a bad character , too
Newt has always displayed an impressive grandiosity
Who can forget the time during his Congressional heyday when he declared himself a '' defender of civilization , a teacher of the rules of civilization , arouser of those who form civilization ... and leader ` possibly ' of the civilizing forces ''
And he who thinks Obama is too messianic said in 1994 : '' People like me are what stand between us and Auschwitz
I see evil all around me every day .
This fear-mongering is ugly
D'Souza and Gingrich employ the tactics the Bush administration used to get us into Iraq -- cherry-picking , insinuation , half-truths and dishonest reasoning
If the conservatives are so interested in psychoanalyzing father and son relationships , why did n't they do so back when W. was rushing to avenge and one-up his father by finishing what daddy started with Saddam
On their Web site , Callista and Newt tout '' Gingrich Productions '' and promote an apocalyptic movie with the same kind of scary music that Fox uses , suggesting that the Obama administration is weak in the war against '' radical Islam .
The movie and the Web site are called '' America at Risk .
It 's Newt and D'Souza and their ilk who put America at risk
It would be a waste of time , he asserted on the House floor where , six days earlier , he had committed his conduct most unbecoming
Other Republicans stepped up to the microphone to agree that this was a distraction from the important things they could be doing
-LRB- Like stepping up their effort to kill President Obama 's attempt to provide health care for the have-nots in society ?
`` When we are done here today , '' said the man who accused the president of lying , `` we will not have taken any steps to improve the country .
Actually , Wilson is dead wrong again
When House Democrats , and a handful of Republicans , reprimanded the congressman on Tuesday evening for refusing to apologize to his colleagues for breaking the rules , it was quite a wonderful way to improve America
It was a rare triumph for civility in a country that seems to have lost all sense of it from music arenas to tennis courts to political gatherings to hallowed halls and a ratification of an institution that has relied on strict codes of conduct for two centuries to prevent a breakdown of order
`` When you look at the various incidents of misbehavior all across the spectrum , '' Representative James Clyburn , the highest ranking black lawmaker in Congress who had pushed for the reprimand , told me afterward , `` the one place we ought to be able to say that such conduct is not acceptable and just can not be tolerated is in America 's classroom , as I call Congress
Students are looking at us , and they ought not to be able to ever feel that such bad behavior would be condoned .
It was a powerful showdown between two congressmen from South Carolina , one black , one white ; one Democrat , one Republican
`` Joe Wilson has worked very hard to cultivate a sort of choir-boy image , but I think that most people realize that there 's something else going on with him , '' Clyburn said
The two started off on friendly terms long ago when Clyburn was on the board of a national bank and Wilson was on the bank 's local board in West Columbia
`` Frankly , '' Clyburn told me , `` I supported him financially the first time he ran for office .
Over the years , Clyburn tried to `` look past '' things that bothered him Wilson 's `` membership in some groups that call into question his feelings about his whole notion of white supremacy '' and his defense of the Confederate flag flying above the Columbia , S.C. , Statehouse
Clyburn said he was `` bothered a great deal '' by the `` real nasty things '' Wilson said about the black woman who turned out to be Strom Thurmond 's daughter
In August , Clyburn picked up a newspaper to see that Wilson was holding his first town hall meeting in Clyburn 's district , three minutes from his house , at the high school Clyburn 's children went to an `` in your face '' breach of Congressional protocol
`` He was being confrontational and combative , '' Clyburn said
`` And Wednesday night was just bringing his town hall meeting antics to the floor of the House of Representatives .
The black members of Congress were fed up , after a long , hot summer of sulfurous attitudes toward the first black president
Clyburn privately pressed Wilson three times last Thursday to apologize for breaking the rules Wilson 's own wife asked him who the `` nut '' was who was hollering at the president but the Republican was getting chesty with his unlikely new role as king of the rowdies
He was regarded as a hero at the anti-Obama rally in Washington last weekend that featured such classy placards as , with a picture of a lion , `` The Zoo has an African and the White House has a Lyin ' African ; '' `` Bury Obamacare with Kennedy ; '' `` We came unarmed -LRB- this time -RRB- '' and '' ` Cap ' Congress and ` Trade ' Obama back to Kenya !
A camera also caught Wilson in Washington signing for a fan a picture of himself confronting the president , and he has raised $ 2 million in the last week
Former President Jimmy Carter weighed in with Brian Williams of NBC News on Tuesday : `` I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man .
He said he felt that was true in the South and elsewhere
Clyburn won the manners round , but Wilson was back Tuesday night tweeting his rude new fans , people who , as the minority leader , John Boehner , put it , are `` scared to death that the country that they grew up in is not going to be the country that their kids and grandkids grew up in .
It 's not
That country is gone
And in terms of biases that have faded , that 's a good thing
But partly due to the Internet , the standards of behavior in this new country are terrible
If Beaver and Wally were around today , they 'd likely be writing snarky , revealing blogs about June and Ward
Carly Fiorina , the woman John McCain sent out to defend Sarah Palin and rip anyone who calls her a tabula rasa on foreign policy and the economy , admitted Tuesday that Palin was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard
That 's pretty damning coming from Fiorina , who also was not capable of running Hewlett-Packard
Carly helpfully added that McCain -LRB- not to mention Obama and Biden -RRB- could n't run a major corporation
He could n't get his immigration bill passed either , but now he 's promising to eliminate centuries of greed on Wall Street
The Wall Street Journal reported that McCain was thinking about taking Palin to the U.N. General Assembly next week so she can shake hands with some heads of state
You ca n't contract foreign policy experience like a rhinovirus
To paraphrase the sniffly Adelaide in `` Guys and Dolls , '' a poy-son could develop a cold war
The latest news from Alaska is that the governor keeps a tanning bed in the Juneau mansion
As The Los Angeles Times pointed out , when Palin declared May 2007 Skin Cancer Awareness Month in Alaska , the press release explained that skin cancer was caused by `` the sun and from tanning beds .
I saut ed myself in Sarahville last week
I wandered through the Wal-Mart , which seemed almost as large as Wasilla , a town that is a soulless strip mall without sidewalks set beside a soulful mountain and lake
Wal-Mart has all the doodads that Sarah must need in her career as a sportsman Remingtons and `` torture tested '' riflescopes , game bags for caribou , machines that imitate rabbits and young deer and coyotes to draw your quarry in so you can shoot it , and machines to squish cows into beef jerky
I talked to a Wal-Mart mom , Betty Necas , 39 , wearing sweatpants and tattoos on her wrists
She said she 's never voted , and was a teenage mom `` like Bristol .
She likes Sarah because she 's `` down home '' but said Obama `` gives me the creeps
Nothing to do with the fact that he 's black
He just seems snotty , and he looks weaselly .
Ten Obama supporters in Wasilla braved taunts and drizzle to stand on a corner between McDonald 's and Pizza Hut
They complained that Sarah runs government like a vengeful fiefdom and held up signs
A guy with a bullhorn yelled out of a passing red car : `` Go back to the city , you liberal Communists !
At gatherings in The Last Frontier , pastors pray for reporters , drilling evokes cheers and Todd Palin is hailed as a guy who likes to burn fossil fuels
I had many `` Sarahs , '' as her favorite skinny white mocha is now called , at the Mocha Moose
`` I 've seen her at 4 a.m. with no makeup , '' said manager Karena Forster , `` and she 's just as beautiful .
I stopped by Sarah 's old Pentecostal church , the Wasilla Assembly of God , and perused some books : `` The Bait of Satan , '' `` Deliverance from PMS , '' and `` Kissed the Girls and Made them Cry : Why Women Lose When They Give In .
-LRB- Author Lisa Bevere advises : `` Run to the arms of your prince and enter your dream . ''
In Anchorage Saturday , I went by a conference conducted by James Dobson 's Focus on the Family and supported by Sarah 's current church , the Wasilla Bible Church , about how to help gays and lesbians `` journey out '' of same-sex attraction
-LRB- As The Times reported recently , in 1995 , Palin , then a city councilwoman , told colleagues she had seen `` Daddy 's Roommate '' on the shelf of the library and did not approve
The Wasilla Assembly of God tried to ban `` Pastor , I Am Gay '' by Howard Bess , a liberal Christian preacher in nearby Palmer .
Anne Heche 's mother , Nancy , talked about her distress when her daughter told her she was involved with Ellen
Jeff Johnston told me he had `` a struggle '' with homosexuality `` for a season , '' but is now `` happily married with three boys .
-LRB- Books for sale there included `` Mommy , Why Are They Holding Hands ?
and `` You Do n't Have to Be Gay . ''
I covered a boisterous women against Palin rally in Anchorage , where women toted placards such as `` Fess up about troopergate , '' `` Keep your vows off my body , '' `` Barbies for war !
`` Sarah , please do n't put me on your enemies list , '' and `` McCain and Palin = McPain .
A local conservative radio personality , Eddie Burke , who had lambasted the organizers as `` a bunch of socialist , baby-killing maggots , '' was on hand with a sign reading `` Alaska is not Frisco .
`` We are one Supreme Court justice away from overturning Roe v. Wade , '' he excitedly told me
R. D. Levno , a retired school principal , flew in from Fairbanks
`` She 's a child , inexperienced and simplistic , '' she said of Sarah
`` It 's taking us back to junior high school
She 's one of the popular girls , but one of the mean girls
She is seductive , but she is invented .
Nobody wants to simply admit they made a mistake and disappear for awhile
Nobody even wants to use the weasel words : Mistakes were made
No , far better to pop right back up and get in the face of those who were savoring your absence
We should think of a name for this appalling modern phenomenon
Kissingering , perhaps
In Las Vegas , there s the loathsome O.J. , a proper candidate for shunning and stun-gunning , barging back into the picture
And on Capitol Hill , Larry Craig shocked mortified Republicans by bounding into their weekly lunch
You d think the conservative 62-year-old Idaho senator would have some shame , going from fervently opposing gay rights to provocatively tapping his toe in a Minneapolis airport toilet
-LRB- The toilet stall , now known as the Larry Craig bathroom , has become a hot local tourist attraction .
But no.
As though Republicans don t have enough problems , Mr. Craig said he is ready to go back to work while the legal hotshots he hired appeal his case
He even cast a couple votes , one against D.C. voting rights
-LRB- This creep gets to decide about my representation ?
Even if President Bush is the cockiest guy around , as the former Mexican President Vicente Fox writes in a new memoir critical of W. s grade-school-level Spanish and his grade-school-level Iraq policy , he can t be feeling good about the barbs being hurled his way by former supporters and enablers
Rummy s back in the news , giving interviews about a planned memoir and foundation designed to encourage reasoned and civil debate about global challenges and to spur more young people to go into government
It s rich
Maybe more young people would go into government if they didn t have to work for devious bullies like Rummy who make huge life-and-death mistakes and then don t apologize
In The Washington Post , he blamed the press and Congress for creating an inhospitable atmosphere that drives good people away from public service
Maybe that s why he and his evil twin , Dick Cheney , did their best to undermine the constitutional system of checks and balances so they could get more fine young people to serve
Does the man blamed for creating civil disorder in Iraq even know what the word civil means
Wasn t he the prickly Pentagon chief who got furious with anyone who didn t agree with him on global challenges
He shoved Gen. Eric Shinseki into retirement and failed to show up at his retirement party after the good general correctly told Congress that it would take several hundred thousand troops to invade and control Iraq
And he snubbed the German defense minister when Germany joined the Coalition of the Unwilling
Interviewed by GQ s Lisa DePaulo on his ranch in Taos , N.M. , with another mule named Gus nearby , the 75-year-old package of waning testosterone , as the writer called him , was asked if he misses W. Offering a wry smile , he replied , Um , no.
He now treats the son with the same contempt he treated the father with , which is why it s so odd that the son hired his dad s nemesis in the first place
He actually had the gall to imply to Ms. DePaulo that he was out of the loop on Iraq and dragged out a copy of a memo he had written outlining all the things that could go wrong
In fact , he was the one , right after 9\/11 , who began pushing to go after Saddam
He and Cheney were orchestrating the invasion from the start , guiding the dauphin with warnings about how weak he would seem if he let Saddam mock him
The ultimate bureaucratic infighter wrote the memo as part of his Socratic strategy , asking a lot of questions when he was already pushing to go into Iraq
He never did any contingency planning in case those things went wrong ; the memo was there simply so that someday he could pull it out for a reporter
In the same issue of GQ , Colin Powell tried to build up the objections he made to the president , too , in an interview with Walter Isaacson
But nobody s buying
Even though he rubber-stamped W. s tax cuts , Alan Greenspan is now upbraiding the president and vice president for profligate spending and putting politics ahead of sound economics
He also says in his new memoir that the Iraq war is largely about oil , telling Bob Woodward that he had privately told W. and Cheney that ousting Saddam was essential to keeping world oil supplies safe
Irrational exuberance , indeed
The pretty Palin Mini-Me identifies with the women of Middle Earth , comparing herself to the female characters in the `` Lord of the Rings '' novels by J. R. R. Tolkien
`` Look at the significance that he gives to Eowyn , the Lady of Rohan , '' O'Donnell said on C-Span in 2003
`` She was a warrior spirit and , to me , that 's who I love
I mean , I aspire to be soft and gentle like Arwen , but realistically , I 'm a fighter , like Eowyn .
O'Donnell said she liked Tolkien 's outlook on gender : `` On the one hand , there 's the attitude that 's normally on the conservative side - as a conservative woman , I feel I can say this - that stifles women
There 's almost the stereotypical attitude of , to be a true woman , you have to stay at home
And I 've actually had people say to me , ` Why do you choose a career over marriage ?
Honestly , I 've had only a few significant relationships , and they 've broken up with me
And one of the things I 've been told is , ` If you were n't so strong , you 'd be married by now . '
This anti-abortion , anti-masturbation , anti-premarital-sex , anti-stem-cells , anti-gay-marriage , dubious-about-evolution Christian conservative has rocked politics by snatching the Delaware Republican nomination for the Senate away from the seemingly sure-thing moderate Mike Castle
At the Values Voter Summit here on Friday , the 41-year-old O'Donnell cited another fantasy world to conjure up a Christlike image for the Tea Party
`` We 're rowdy , we 're passionate , '' she told the enraptured crowd
`` It reminds me of the C. S. Lewis Narnia books , where the little girl asks someone about Aslan the lion , who represents God , and she says with a little concern over such a fearsome lion , ` Is he safe ?
And her friend says , ` Safe
Who said anything about safe
Of course he is n't safe
But he 's good . '
She 's right that there 's an untamed beast rampaging through American politics
But this beast does not seem blessed ; rather it has loosed a kind of ugliness and wildness in the land
Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox , Karl Rove dismissed O'Donnell as an absurd choice with a sketchy background and dubious character
He alluded to facts in The Weekly Standard that chronicled her lawsuit against her former employer , the Intercollegiate Studies Institute , a conservative nonprofit based in Delaware
Although O'Donnell said in 1998 that wives should `` graciously submit '' to their husbands , her 2005 suit charged that she suffered `` mental anguish '' after being demoted and fired because the institute 's conservative philosophy deemed that women must be subordinate
We the People in the Ruling Class Elites do think O'Donnell comes across as alarmingly loopy
But maybe she 's smart as a fox in doing a Single-White-Female , Fox anchor makeover to look more like her queen-maker , Sarah Palin
She 's also smart to think of politics in terms of passion and myth - two elements Barack Obama was able to summon during his campaign that are sorely missing from his presidency
She might have gone a broom too far , though , when she once told Bill Maher that she had `` dabbled into witchcraft '' and went on a date with a witch that included `` a midnight picnic on a satanic altar .
Obama 's bloodless rationality has helped spawn the right 's bloodletting of irrationality
His ivory tower approach to the nation 's fears and anxieties about the economy gave rise to a tower of angry babble
Tea Party is basically a big tent for anger
The president 's struggle to connect and inspire passion is a dispiriting contrast to , as Yeats said , the worst , full of passionate intensity
The first African-American president , who wrote in his memoir that he trained himself as a young man not to let his anger show in a suspicious white society , now faces anger on an unprecedented scale from a mostly white movement
He seems weary of crisis management , conveying the attitude of the hero in `` The Incredibles '' who has to keep saving the world : `` Sometimes I just want it to stay saved !
The president seems put upon and impatient with reality while his foes seem happy to embrace fantasy
Obama can connect with policy
He just ca n't connect with the objects of policy
Empathy seems more like an abstract concept than something to practice
He has never shaken off that slight patronizing attitude toward the working-class voters he is losing now , the ones he dubbed `` bitter '' during his campaign
There is no premium in trying to save people 's jobs and lift them up and give them health care if they feel that you ca n't relate to them
That 's how Mayor Adrian Fenty lost his job , despite D.C. 's progress on schools and crime
The insane have achieved political respectability while the sane act too good for it all
The irrational celebrate while the rational act bored and above-it-all
When Rahm Emanuel leaves to go run for mayor in Chicago , all the blood will drain out of the White House
And Obama can go to Ben 's Chili Bowl for lunch every day and it wo n't matter
On the night we were reminded that George W. Bush ended up in the White House and heedlessly , needlessly started the war with Iraq , President Obama did his Mission Relinquished address from his redecorated man cave
The Oval Office was done over by the chichi decorator Michael Smith , who was previously paid $ 800,000 for his part in refurnishing the lair of the former Merrill Lynch C.E.O. John Thain -LRB- a $ 1.2 million project featuring the notorious $ 35,000 antique cabinet , or commode -RRB-
The Oval Office , the classiest , most powerful place on earth , is now suffused with browns and beiges and leather and resembles an upscale hotel conference room or a '70s conversation pit with a boxy coffee table that even some Obama aides find ugly
It almost made me long for the Technicolor Belle Watling swagging and swathing style of the Clintons ' Little Rock decorator , Kaki Hockersmith
The recession redo , paid for by the nonprofit White House Historical Association , was the latest tone-deaf move by a White House that was supposed to excel at connection and communication
Message : I care , but not enough to stop the fancy vacations and posh renovations
As Obama himself said in February 2009 when he released his first budget : `` There are times where you can afford to redecorate your house , and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding the foundation .
It might have been wise , given America 's slough of despond , to hark back to a time when presidents just went to work and took their office pretty much as they found it , without the need to make a personal statement
As the former White House curator Rex Scouten once told me , in the era from Taft to Truman , the green rug in the president 's office was changed only once , when it wore out , to a new green rug
The new cream-of-wheat-colored rug is made of 25 percent recycled wool and features 100 percent recycled quotes around the border that have significance for President Obama
#NAME?
If the Tea Party triumphs , it might be `` Do n't Tread on Me .
If Sarah Palin ascends , it will no doubt be a mama grizzly bear rug , personally bagged by her .
The quotations chosen by Obama include F.D.R. 's `` The only thing we have to fear is fear itself '' ; Martin Luther King Jr. 's `` The arc of the moral universe is long , but it bends towards justice '' ; Lincoln 's `` Government of the people , by the people , for the people '' ; J.F.K. 's `` No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings '' ; and Teddy Roosevelt 's `` The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us .
Given the cunning tableau created on the Mall over the weekend by Glenn Beck and Palin , in their artful and frightening mix of theology and Tea Party ideology , the president might be better served by a carpet that prompts him to get his groove back
The first thing the once inspirational orator should embroider around the rug , the maxim that sums up so much of what 's wrong with the administration now , is the immortal line from `` Cool Hand Luke '' : `` What we 've got here is failure to communicate .
Sidetracked by the mosque fight and now admirably plunging into brokering a Middle East peace , Obama clearly needs a reminder about what really counts as the Democrats prepare to get their clocks cleaned
The rug should quote James Carville 's famous admonition : `` It 's the economy , stupid !
There should be a special message for John Boehner , the Republican leader who has been strutting around as the Speaker-in-Waiting and who led the Republicans on Tuesday in their inane effort to deny Obama credit for anything by spending the day reminding people that it was W. 's war
The president should emblazon Kathleen Turner 's line from `` Body Heat '' : `` You 're not too smart , are you
I like that in a man .
Obama needs his rug to remind him to toughen up
When the self-styled Republican `` Young Guns '' - Eric Cantor , Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy - pull their wacky ideas out of their policy holsters , they should have to look down and read the warning from Al `` Scarface '' Pacino about his machine gun : `` Say hello to my little friend .
While he 's at it , the president who na vely yearned for unanimity when he had a majority might put this legend around the border of his carpet : `` Post-partisanship does n't work with Mitch McConnell .
And for all of us who have that sinking feeling that the economic rug is being pulled out from under us , the president might stitch in the famous warning from `` Jaws '' : `` We 're going to need a bigger boat .
In the early '70s , breaking out of the domestic cocoon , leaving their mothers ' circumscribed lives behind , young women felt exhilarated and bold
But the more women have achieved , the more they seem aggrieved
Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women
According to the General Social Survey , which has tracked Americans ' mood since 1972 , and five other major studies around the world , women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier
Before the '70s , there was a gender gap in America in which women felt greater well-being
Now there 's a gender gap in which men feel better about their lives
As Arianna Huffington points out in a blog post headlined `` The Sad , Shocking Truth About How Women Are Feeling '' : `` It does n't matter what their marital status is , how much money they make , whether or not they have children , their ethnic background , or the country they live in
Women around the world are in a funk .
-LRB- The one exception is black women in America , who are a bit happier than they were in 1972 , but still not as happy as black men .
Marcus Buckingham , a former Gallup researcher who has a new book out called `` Find Your Strongest Life : What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently , '' says that men and women passed each other midpoint on the graph of life
`` Though women begin their lives more fulfilled than men , as they age , they gradually become less happy , '' Buckingham writes in his new blog on The Huffington Post , pointing out that this darker view covers feelings about marriage , money and material goods
`` Men , in contrast , get happier as they get older .
Buckingham and other experts dispute the idea that the variance in happiness is caused by women carrying a bigger burden of work at home , the `` second shift .
They say that while women still do more cooking , cleaning and child-caring , the trend lines are moving toward more parity , which should make them less stressed
When women stepped into male - dominated realms , they put more demands and stress on themselves
If they once judged themselves on looks , kids , hubbies , gardens and dinner parties , now they judge themselves on looks , kids , hubbies , gardens , dinner parties and grad school , work , office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage
`` Choice is inherently stressful , '' Buckingham said in an interview
`` And women are being driven to distraction .
One area of extreme distraction is kids
`` Across the happiness data , the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children , '' said Betsey Stevenson , an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called `` The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness .
`` It 's true whether you 're wealthy or poor , if you have kids late or kids early
Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they had n't had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness .
The more important things that are crowded into their lives , the less attention women are able to give to each thing
Add this to the fact that women are hormonally more complicated and biologically more vulnerable
Women are much harder on themselves than men
They tend to attach to other people more strongly , beat themselves up more when they lose attachments , take things more personally at work and pop far more antidepressants
`` Women have lives that become increasingly empty , '' Buckingham said
`` They 're doing more and feeling less .
Another daunting thing : America is more youth and looks obsessed than ever , with an array of expensive cosmetic procedures that allow women to be their own Frankenstein Barbies
Men can age in an attractive way while women are expected to replicate and Restylane their 20s into their 60s
Buckingham says that greater prosperity has made men happier
And they are also relieved of bearing sole responsibility for their family finances , and no longer have the pressure of having women totally dependent on them
Men also tend to fare better romantically as time wears on
There are more widows than widowers , and men have an easier time getting younger mates
Stevenson looks on the bright side of the dark trend , suggesting that happiness is beside the point
We 're happy to have our newfound abundance of choices , she said , even if those choices end up making us unhappier
A paradox , indeed
Now that he 's finally fired up on the soup-line economy , Barack Obama knows he ca n't fade out again
He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom -- not to mention a surreptitious smoke -- and less fraternal rivalry
I called the '' West Wing '' creator Aaron Sorkin -LRB- yes , truly -RRB- to get a read-out of the meeting
This is his account : BARACK OBAMA knocks on the front door of a 300-year-old New Hampshire farmhouse while his Secret Service detail waits in the driveway
The door opens and OBAMA is standing face to face with former President JED BARTLET
BARTLET Senator
OBAMA Mr. President
BARTLET You seem startled
OBAMA I did n't expect you to answer the door yourself
BARTLET I did n't expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lanc me rep who thinks '' The Flintstones '' was based on a true story , so let 's call it even
OBAMA Yes , sir
BARTLET Come on in
BARTLET leads OBAMA into his study
BARTLET That was a hell of a convention
OBAMA Thank you , I was proud of it
BARTLET I meant the Republicans
The Us versus Them-a-thon
As a Democrat I was surprised to learn that I do n't like small towns , God , people with jobs or America
I 've been a little out of touch but is there a mandate that the vice president be skilled at field dressing a moose -- OBAMA Look -- BARTLET -- and selling Air Force Two on eBay
OBAMA Joke all you want , Mr. President , but it worked
BARTLET Imagine my surprise
What can I do for you , kid
OBAMA I 'm interested in your advice
BARTLET I ca n't give it to you
OBAMA Why not
BARTLET I 'm supporting McCain
OBAMA Why
BARTLET He 's promised to eradicate evil and that was always on my '' to do '' list
OBAMA O.K. -- BARTLET And he 's surrounded himself , I think , with the best possible team to get us out of an economic crisis
Why , Sarah Palin just said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had '' gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers .
Can you spot the error in that statement
OBAMA Yes , Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are n't funded by taxpayers
BARTLET Well , at least they are now
Kind of reminds you of the time Bush said that Social Security was n't a government program
He was only off by a little -- Social Security is the largest government program
OBAMA I appreciate your sense of humor , sir , but I really could use your advice
BARTLET Well , it seems to me your problem is a lot like the problem I had twice
OBAMA Which was
BARTLET A huge number of Americans thought I thought I was superior to them
OBAMA And
OBAMA I mean , how did you overcome that
BARTLET I wo n't lie to you , being fictional was a big advantage
OBAMA What do you mean
BARTLET I 'm a fictional president
You 're dreaming right now , Senator
OBAMA I 'm asleep
BARTLET Yes , and you 're losing a ton of white women
OBAMA Yes , sir
BARTLET I mean tons
OBAMA I understand
BARTLET I did n't even think there were that many white women
OBAMA I see the numbers , sir
What do they want from me
BARTLET I 've been married to a white woman for 40 years and I still do n't know what she wants from me
OBAMA How did you do it
BARTLET Well , I say I 'm sorry a lot
OBAMA I do n't mean your marriage , sir
I mean how did you get America on your side
BARTLET There again , I did n't have to be president of America , I just had to be president of the people who watched '' The West Wing .
OBAMA That would make it easier
BARTLET You 'd do very well on NBC
Thursday nights in the old '' ER '' time slot with '' 30 Rock '' as your lead-in , you 'd get seven , seven-five in the demo with a 20 , 22 share -- you 'd be selling $ 450,000 minutes
OBAMA What the hell does that mean
BARTLET TV talk
I thought you 'd be interested
OBAMA I 'm not
They pivoted off the argument that I was inexperienced to the criticism that I 'm -- wait for it -- the Messiah , who , by the way , was a community organizer
When I speak I try to lead with inspiration and aptitude
How is that a liability
BARTLET Because the idea of American exceptionalism does n't extend to Americans being exceptional
If you excelled academically and are able to casually use 690 SAT words then you might as well have the press shoot video of you giving the finger to the Statue of Liberty while the Dixie Chicks sing the University of the Taliban fight song
The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it
OBAMA You 're saying race does n't have anything to do with it
BARTLET I would n't go that far
Brains made me look arrogant but they make you look uppity
Plus , if you had a black daughter -- OBAMA I have two
The last time the phrase `` lust in your heart '' swept through American politics was in 1976 when Carter admitted to Playboy that , while he had always been faithful to soul -LRB- and sole -RRB- mate Rosalynn , he had committed adultery in his heart
`` I dropped 15 percentage points , and I almost lost the election , '' Carter , about to turn 86 , recalled in a chat during his book tour in Manhattan this week , adding with some wry hyperbole : `` It was the most copies of Playboy ever sold .
O'Donnell 's stance on the auto-erotic is auto-idiotic
`` The Bible says that lust in your heart is committing adultery , '' she once said
`` So you ca n't masturbate without lust .
Carter , who liked to recite the Bible in Spanish with Rosalynn just for fun , told me that while the Old Testament story of Onan warns against wasting thy seed on the ground , he does n't agree with O'Donnell
It 's not easy being Jimmy
When Carter brags about how his `` role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents , '' Pat Buchanan mocks him on MSNBC for making a `` very gauche and very offensive '' comment
When he bites old rivals , accusing Teddy Kennedy of squashing his health care plan and crediting Mikhail Gorbachev 's `` enlightened administration '' rather than Ronald Reagan for toppling the Berlin Wall , former Carter aides shrug , calling such bluntness `` pure Jimmy .
One of his military commanders admiringly called Carter `` tough as woodpecker lips .
His former strategists still cringe when they recall the flash of contemptuous blue steel the president would level at them when they would go into the Oval Office to suggest a politically expedient move
Famously and infamously candid , Carter is just as hard on himself , writing in an afterword that he could have been `` somewhat less rigid '' and `` autocratic , '' that he was not `` a natural politician '' and that he 's sorry he alienated Jews and the press
In the last 30 years , Carter has accomplished many grand and important things in the world
Yet it must hurt , I say , that his name is synonymous with presidential ineptitude
Before he got elected , Barack Obama praised Reagan as a `` transformative '' president
Now in a slump , Obama morphs into Carter , an eat-your-peas president for an ice-cream-sundae nation
Carter agrees that unfavorable comparisons are odious , before protesting : `` But I do n't think I failed .
In an era of Protean populist pols who can go from fresh face to sorceress to scofflaw in a matter of days , Jimmy Carter is who he is
In 1976 , the former peanut farmer from Georgia exploded out of his shell , buoyed by the same sort of antiestablishment frenzy - or `` malaise , '' as he puts it , recycling the word that caused him so many problems - that we see now
Carter does not consider the Tea Party to be racist , noting `` strangely enough , my approach to politics is very similar to what the Tea Party is doing .
But he does worry about anti-intellectualism becoming `` a political advantage , '' and about kowtowing to extremism
`` I think the Newt Gingrich of five years ago would be embarrassed by the Newt Gingrich of today , '' he says of his fellow Georgian
He thinks Gingrich 's wacko Kenyan rant and Carl Paladino 's e-mail to friends showing an African tribal dance with the caption , `` Obama Inauguration Rehearsal , '' are `` slightly concealed racism .
Carter says Obama has it worse than he did because of the psycho-polarization and because for most of his presidency there was no cable news
`` Fox News deliberately lies about Obama 's religion and about his beliefs and about what he has in mind for the country and about his racial background , '' Pure Jimmy says , adding that Fox has kept up an anti-Islamic drumbeat as well
-LRB- Continuing his nonsensical insinuations against Obama , Newt said the U.S. should pass a bill that outlaws Shariah , or Islamic law .
I asked about the strange evangelist feel of the Beck-Palin rally on the Mall
`` I worship the Prince of Peace , '' Carter said , emphasizing the peace part
`` But I think nowadays faith is being used by Glenn Beck and Ms. Palin and others as a political ploy .
Bill Clinton calls Sarah Palin `` somebody to be reckoned with .
But when I ask Carter if he thinks she will run for president , he responds crisply : `` I do n't think she should
I do n't think she will .
He said he believes that `` the strange series of mishaps '' that upended his attempt to rescue the American hostages in Iran upended his presidency , but he is still disappointed that we have not been communicating with Iran
`` I think it 's always best to have diplomatic relations with countries with whom we have differences of opinion , '' he says
`` America , more than any other country , does n't do that
If we have a falling out with a particular faction that 's in authority , we sever all relations with them
I think to constantly threaten Iran with atomic attack is one of the incentives that might lead them to move toward a nuclear arsenal , even if they were n't otherwise inclined to do so .
Finally , he wants you to know , as he told Jon Stewart : He was never a teenage witch
The press piled into a hall near a pile of N.R.A. swag bags to watch Rudy stride into the ballroom
Would the tough guy kowtow to the powerful lobby he once lambasted as extremist
Would he pull a Romney and pretend to be an avid hunter of small varmints
Would he have an epiphany about the Second Amendment the way he did about the First when he blew a gasket over that painting of the Madonna daubed with elephant dung and reinterpret the Bill of Rights to suit his needs
The heat was on
Fred Thompson had already spoken to the group , recalling palling around with Charlton Heston , shooting skeet with some good ol boys from the N.R.A. , and hanging out at gun stores and gun shows
After guns , sports , Moses and a reference to his young uns , there was only one other ingredient needed for Flintstone Fred s testosterone cocktail : a sexy blonde
Introducing his wife , Jeri , he drawled , I think she d make a much better first lady than Bill Clinton
Rudy was going to have to think fast to keep up with that
He kept it simple , selling himself as the Gotham crime fighter , because , after all , if you don t have a reasonable degree of safety , you can t exercise your other rights : the right of free speech ... even your right to bear arms is all based on a reasonable degree of safety that you have to have
It s an interesting bit of casuistry : I m going to make you safe by enforcing gun laws in case you want guns to keep you safe
Also , given that he was criticized for undermining free speech at the first sign of a little dung , his audience might not have been reassured
Asked about a lawsuit he initiated in New York against American handgun manufacturers , Rudy said that 9\/11 cast somewhat of a different light on Second Amendment rights
He said that maybe it highlights the necessity for them more
What , exactly , is that different light
You need some assault weapons to shoot at terrorists planting dirty bombs beneath your tulips
In the end , no one was deconstructing Rudy s swerving stance because they were too busy obsessing on his strange interlude with his cell
Right in the middle of a disquisition about a legal decision underscoring the doctrine that a person s home is their castle , the tiara-crowned queen of Rudy s castle called
Hello , dear , he said , with his toothy grin
To the amazement of the audience , he interrupted his speech to have a lovey-dovey chat with Judi , who was about to get on a plane back from London
After telling her that he was talking to the N.R.A. a big speech that you would imagine she would know about , and not want to interrupt he asked if she wanted to give a shout out to the gun-lovers and then paused while she spoke to him
After saying I love you twice and signing off with another dear , he joked to the audience that he would have been in trouble if he hadn t taken the call , noting that this is one of the great blessings of the modern age , being always available
Or maybe it isn t ; I m not sure
It almost made Bill and Hillary seem like a model of normalcy
The odd interval triggered a fusillade of analysis : was it creepy , cute , staged , spontaneous , rude , awkward or downright weird
Shouldn t Rudy have left the phone with an aide , or silenced it
Was this a harbinger that President Rudy would interrupt other important stuff to talk to Judi in the White House
If Ahmadinejad goes crazy O.K. , more crazy would Rudy be focused like a laser , or would he take a call from Judi about whether she could redecorate Air Force One in Louis Vuitton
First The Times s Marc Santora noted that it wasn t the first time Rudy had interrupted an appearance to take a call from his Princess Bride , as Vanity Fair dubbed her
He did the same thing in June in Hialeah , Fla. , with more mushy talk during a rally
This suggests either that Friday s call was staged to humanize the dictatorial former mayor , or that Rudy is afraid of Judi s digital wrath , or that the candidate is still struggling with how to integrate his third wife into his campaign , after her puppy-killing , husband-hiding , cabinet-sitting rough start
The episode also provided ammunition to Mitt Romney s camp , which sensed an opportunity to highlight their candidate s scary-perfect wife and scary-perfect kids
They found video of the first cellus interruptus and sent reporters links to YouTube clips of both calls
On CNN , Carol Costello grilled the N.R.A. s Wayne LaPierre about the conjugal intermission
At first he called it a lighthearted moment , but then conceded that he found it odd
I don t know that I would have a cellphone in my pocket on during a speech , he said
Who knows
It might be a valuable lesson for Rudy that guns and marriage don t mix
Related Searches Giuliani , Rudolph W Gun Control Presidential Election of
On Monday , his debut as a dancing fool -LRB- or just a fool , depending on whom you talk to -RRB- , he had started at 10 a.m. and ended at 10 p.m. , and his pre-stress fracture was acting up
`` It swole up a little bit , '' he said , on the phone from Los Angeles
`` The doctor says to keep icing it .
That meant a delay in learning the tango from Cheryl Burke , his partner on ABC 's `` Dancing With the Stars '' who blessedly had never heard of the guy once dubbed `` The Meanest Man in Congress '' when he was first assigned to her
`` Cheryl says the tango 's macho , arrogant and aggressive , and I said , ` That 's me , ' '' he recalled
The Hammer , who in rehearsal admitted to feeling like `` a complete goose '' and not simply because he had his golf shirt tucked into his sweat pants is clinging to his Texas machismo even as he follows Cheryl 's instruction to find his `` feminine side .
`` I 'm being more feminine and a little prissy , '' he said , using a word that smacks of ber-alpha `` I am not gay even though I have on heels and sparkles and want a disco-ball trophy '' overcompensation
`` My brain is telling my hips , ` We do n't do that .
It 's not like a speech or a press conference
This is exposing your soul
`` At the beginning , I told Cheryl , ` No rhinestones , no frilly shirts and no pink .
Well , it did n't take Cheryl two seconds to put rhinestones on me
And she swears she 's going to put ruffles on me for the tango probably pink .
It might be a sign of the apocalypse a frilly Tom DeLay shimmying away from an indictment and onto `` Dancing .
It 's certainly a blazing reminder that in our lowbrow-loving , no-attention-span culture , most any scoundrel can do the redemption tango simply by being a good sport
`` I 'm very excited for people to see the real Tom DeLay , '' the former House majority leader said
The Hammer vigorously flipped his fanny and played air guitar to the tune of the Troggs ' `` Wild Thing , '' a song that came out in the mid-60s when the teenager was starting at Baylor University in Waco
`` I used to gator to this song in my wild days before I was kicked out of Baylor , '' he said
`` I was so good they nicknamed me ` Gator . '
No gatoring on campus , though
The Southern Baptist college banned dancing for 151 years , relenting in 1996
`` Somebody gave the school a student union building that had the most beautiful dance floor you ever saw with the provision that if we ever had a dance , they 'd tear it down , '' he said
`` We had our dances off campus in hotel rooms and parking lots .
So DeLay , 62 , cutting loose in his orthopedic shoes with the cha-cha and his Texas mugshot grin , was the Lipitor version of the finale of `` Footloose .
The judges gave him tepid scores in Monday 's male dance-off , but a scandal-plagued former Dallas Cowboy and George Hamilton 's glossy son rated lower
The man whose house was christened `` Macho Manor '' back in his party-boy , `` Hot Tub Tom '' days in the Texas Legislature compared looking for his feminine side to `` knocking on a closed door .
But he gave it a shot during his cha-cha by winking and pointing at Bruno Tonioli , the effervescently effeminate judge
`` You 're crazier than Sarah Palin !
Bruno shouted when a winded DeLay was done swiveling in a leopard-skin-sequin-trimmed brown get-up
`` I think that 's a great compliment , '' DeLay told me afterward
Once the Hammer tried to outfox Democrats
Now he 's trying to outfox-trot Donny Osmond
Once he whipped Republicans relentlessly to keep their votes in line
Now he says he and his daughter have `` a strategy to whip the vote '' on `` Dancing .
`` Nothing complicated , '' he said
`` Twitter
My daughter taught me how to tweet .
The former exterminator drove the loony Clinton impeachment , pushed the nutty Terri Schiavo legislation , gutted the House ethics committee , engaged in gerrymandering schemes , enhanced the pay-to-play political culture and made the Republican Party so sulfurously partisan , ethically suspect and God-centric that voters recoiled
He dropped out of politics in 2006 after a campaign finance violation indictment and ties to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal
I asked DeLay about Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics , a watchdog group that had a `` Dancing '' watching party at a bar here featuring Hammer-tinis an occasion to reiterate that DeLay was corrupt and should go to jail
`` I wish I could have gone , '' said a cheery DeLay , adding that he 's not worried that his foes will skew the voting
`` You ca n't vote against somebody
You can only vote for me or somebody else .
Would he want to be on another reality show
`` No , '' he said
`` I 'd probably end up killing somebody on ` Big Brother . '
I do n't agree with those muttering darkly that the picture of Gov. Sarah Palin with a perky smile and shapely gams posing with a pleased Henry Kissinger , famous for calling power the ultimate aphrodisiac , is a sign of the apocalypse
It is n't even a sign of the apocalipstick
How the mighty 85-year-old Henry the K has fallen from his days chasing Jill St. John and running the world to his hour briefing of a 44-year-old Wasilla hockey mom who may end up running the world
Governor Palin knows a lot about the End of Days from her years at the Pentecostal Wasilla Assembly of God , which had preached -LRB- after a war in the Middle East about light vanquishing darkness -RRB- that Alaska would be a shelter for Rapturous `` saved '' Christians at the end of times when they ascend to heaven
Sarah was motorcading around Manhattan even as a `` greed is good '' Wall Street experienced an End of Days vibe while a world gone sour on America descended on the United Nations
After losing its moral superiority abroad with phony evidence for attacking Iraq , the U.S. has now lost its moral superiority in the financial arena
Once more , W. took the ball , carried it off the cliff and went biking
It 's hard to imagine that John McCain and Sarah Palin still want advice from the Unwise Man Kissinger
It 's sort of like villagers in those old movies who bring in the wizened witch doctor to shake a stick over them
Doctor K prolonged the war in Vietnam to help Nixon get re-elected and then advised W. on Iraq that the only way to beat an insurgency and save face is to stick it out , no matter how many American kids and foreign civilians die
Sarah speed-dated diplomacy on Tuesday
She had her very first national security briefing from the director of national intelligence and then went to a meeting with the Afghan president , Hamid Karzai
He thanked her for the help of the Alaskan National Guard in Afghanistan and told her about his young son , Mirwais , which means `` the Light of the House .
Then she met with President lvaro Uribe of Colombia
Finally , Sarah huddled with Henry in his Park Avenue office , next to pictures of Ford and Reagan
The two made an odd couple : the last impure Rockefeller Republican and the first pure Rovian Republican , grown totally in the petri dish of cultural crusaderism
Summoning his old Harvard teaching days , Kissinger surely looked for a common didactic starting point : She has seen Russia
`` Goot
I haff seen it , too .
-LRB- A senior Palin campaign aide told CBS News 's Scott Conroy that the governor 's foreign-policy experience was atmospheric , akin to the way someone from Miami might obtain a feel for Latin America
`` It is very much being able to look off the tip of Alaska , '' the aide said
`` Metaphorically , I 'm talking about . ''
Kissinger probably explained d tente and Metternich to Palin , while she explained the Iditarod and moose carving to him
They talked Russia , which is relevant
Republicans , who have won so many elections painting Democrats as socialists and pinkos , have now done so much irresponsible deregulating and deficit spending that they have to avoid fiscal Armageddon by turning America into a socialist , pinko society with nationalized financial institutions and a financial czar accountable to no one and no law
And Governor Palin spends so much time ostracizing reporters who might quiz her on NATO or the liquidity crunch that her press strategy is beginning to smack of Putin 's but less lethal
Even if she blows off the First Amendment and lets McCain 's Rove , Steve Schmidt , demonize the press even though she disdains women politicians who whine Bill Clinton is still a fan
Besides talking about what a great man John McCain is on `` The View '' and `` David Letterman , '' Bill praised Palin at his Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York and will receive her there on Thursday
`` I come from Arkansas
I get why she is hot out there , '' he said authoritatively , adding : `` People look at her , and they say , ` All those kids
Something that happens in everybody 's family
I 'm glad she loves her daughter and she 's not ashamed of her
Glad that girl 's going around with her boyfriend
Glad they 're going to get married . '
He said voters would think : `` I like that little Down syndrome kid
One of them lives down the street
They 're wonderful
... And I like the idea that this guy does those long-distance races
Stayed in the race for 500 miles with a broken arm
My kind of guy .
On `` The View , '' he said he understood that some women might vote for Palin on the basis of gender , even if it was against their economic interest
`` You ca n't tell someone else that the ground on which they make their voting decision is irrational , '' he said primly
Well , actually you could , if you were n't still sulking and plotting for 2012
First , we break Iraq and hand it over to the Shiites , putting in a puppet who leans toward Iran and is aligned with the Shiite militias bankrolled by Iran
Then , as Peter Galbraith writes in The New York Review of Books , President Bush facilitates the takeover of a large part of the country by an Iranian-backed militia , with the ironic twist that there is now substantially more personal freedom in Iran than in Southern Iraq
And on top of all that , we help build up the self-serving doofus Iranian president , a frontman with a Ph.D. in traffic management , into the sort of larger-than-life demon that the real powers in Iran the mullahs can love
New York s hot blast of nastiness , jingoism and xenophobia toward its guest , Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , only served to pump him up for his domestic audience
Iranians felt that their president had tied everyone in knots , including the Zionist Jews , as Iranian state television said
The Times reports that Mohsen Rezai , a former head of the Revolutionary Guards , was on TV criticizing the rude treatment his president received : It is shocking that a country that claims to be civilized treats him that way
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Katie Couric dryly has told people that she remembers how to pronounce his name with the mnemonic I m a dinner jacket .
After the Bay of Pigs , J.F.K. and his advisers worried that American foreign policy would no longer seem intelligent
W. doesn t even try for an intelligent foreign policy
He wallows in a willfully ignorant foreign policy
And this week , his irrational ways were contagious
The Daily News headline , The Evil Has Landed , was one of the milder imprecations
Consider this reasoned analysis from Greg Gutfeld of Fox News : So the foul-smelling fruitbat Ahmadinejad spoke at that crack house known as Columbia University today
The heavy-handed , small-minded reaction that played into the hands of the slippery I m a dinner jacket is not excused by Iran wishing the U.S. and Israel gone
The Soviet Union s stated policy for 70 years was the total eradication of American capitalism and democracy backed up during the cold war with actual nuclear weapons
But while challenging the policies and ideology of the Evil Empire , Ronald Reagan understood he had to engage Mikhail Gorbachev , not ignore or insult him
Reagan was able to help the Soviet Union and world communism to fall apart
All W. has managed to do is destroy the country he wanted to turn into a democracy and make Iran more powerful than it was before
In a sad testimony to how bollixed up things are in Iraq , Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki told the Council on Foreign Relations Monday that civil war has been averted in Iraq not
and that Iranian intervention has ceased to exist
Gen. David Petraeus recently said that Iran was providing lethal support to Iraqi militias
The president s irrelevant U.N. speech was a bad combo with the schoolyard name-calling of Lee Bollinger
Even some in the anti-Ahmadinejad audience gasped a bit as Columbia s president gave the meanest introduction in the history of introductions one that only managed to elevate the creep sitting on stage with his thugs
Once you ve made the decision to invite a tyrannical leader , you can t undo it by belittling him in public
Universities are supposed to be places where you can debate and hear dissenting voices ; it would have been far better just to hand the mike to the students and let it rip
Given the repressive and confused stance of some of our Middle East allies on women and gays , isn t it insane to get into a war of ideas on homosexuality in the Muslim world
President Bush is the one who hardened the Iranian resolve to get a nuclear weapon with his policy of negotiating with countries like North Korea that have nukes and invading countries that don t , like Iraq
W. and his advisers always act shocked that Iran is meddling in Iraq
Why wouldn t Iran inflate itself at the expense of its former foe and current enemy
Even after the Iranian hostage crisis , America never really tried to comprehend the tribal politics in Iran or Iraq or bolster the Arab speakers in the intelligence community
As Mr. Galbraith wrote , Iran s nuclear program is about prestige
Iranians want to be seen as a populous , powerful , and responsible country that is heir to a great empire and home to a 2,500-year-old civilization
In Iranian eyes , the U.S. has behaved in a way that continually diminishes their country from U.S. involvement in the 1953 coup that reinstated the Shah to W. s branding them as part of the axis of evil
Wouldn t sticks and carrots cultural fluency , smart psychology and Reaganesque dialogue be a better way to bring the Iranians around than sticks and stones
Bill Maher continued his video torment of O'Donnell by releasing another old clip of her on his HBO show on Friday night , this time showing one in which she argued that `` Evolution is a myth .
Maher shot back , `` Have you ever looked at a monkey ?
To which O'Donnell rebutted , `` Why are n't monkeys still evolving into humans ?
The comedian has a soft spot for the sweet-faced Republican Senate candidate from Delaware , but as he told me on Friday , it 's `` powerful stupid to think primate evolution could happen fast enough to observe it
That 's bacteria
`` I find it so much more damaging than the witch stuff because she could be in a position to make decisions about scientific issues , like global warming and stem cells , and she thinks primate evolution can happen in a week and mice have human brains .
In the Republican primary , O'Donnell beat Congressman Mike Castle , who had the temerity to support stem-cell research and acknowledge global warming
O'Donnell 's numbers are dropping , while Castle is still beating the Democratic candidate , Chris Coons , by almost 20 points in a theoretical matchup
In 2007 , O'Donnell frantically warned Bill O'Reilly , `` American scientific companies are crossbreeding humans and animals and coming up with mice with fully functioning human brains .
The field of human-animal experiments is dubbed `` chimera '' research , named for the she-monster in Greek mythology that has a lion 's head , a goat 's body and a serpent 's tail
Dr. Irving Weissman , director of Stanford 's Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine , did the first experiments injecting human brain-forming stem cells into the brains of immune-deficient mice 10 years ago
He assured me that the mice did not suddenly start acting human
`` There were no requests for coffee from Minnie , '' he said
`` The total number of human brain cells in the mouse brain was less than one in a thousand
I do n't think we would get a mouse with a full human brain
And even if the mouse made it to a human mouse it would still have a mouse-brain offspring .
Dr. Weissman is sensitive to ethical questions and has tried to ensure that `` the nightmare scenario '' wo n't happen : putting embryonic stem cells into mice at the earliest stages , which could give rise to every tissue in the body including human sperm and eggs , which could lead to two mice mating and the early formation of human fetuses in the body of a mouse
He is working toward breakthroughs on multiple sclerosis , Parkinson 's , Alzheimer 's , spinal cord injuries , strokes , breast cancer and a host of other diseases , and is worried by the retrogressive attitude about science and medicine among the new crop of Tea Partiers
Sarah Palin will believe global warming is a hoax until she 's doing aerial hunting of wolves underwater
And in a 2009 clip , Sharron Angle , the Republican Senate candidate from Nevada , suggested that autism - a word she uttered with air quotes - is a phony rubric
She suggested that people are taking advantage of such maladies to get extra health benefits , adding that she does n't see why she should have to subsidize maternity benefits for other people either , especially since , as she said , she 's not having any more babies
Dr. Weissman said , `` The question they should be asked is , if it were their child or wife or selves or parents and there was this whole list of diseases treated by stem cells , would they deny these therapies ?
Maybe the problem is not so much chimeras in science as chimeras in politics
We seem beset with spellbinding hybrids with the looks of Fox News anchors , the brains of mice and the power of changing the direction of the country
President Obama was supposed to be a giant leap forward in modernity , the brainy , rational first black president leading us out of the scientific darkness of the W. years
But by letting nutters get a foothold , he may usher us into the past
Newt Gingrich , Sarah Palin , John Boehner , Jim DeMint and some Tea Party types do n't merely yearn for the country they idealize from the 1950s
They want to go back to the 1750s
Joe Miller , the Palin-blessed Republican nominee for Senate in Alaska , suggests that Social Security is unconstitutional because it was n't in the Constitution
The Constitution is a dazzling document , but do these originalists really think things have n't changed since then
If James Madison beamed down now , he would no doubt be stunned at the idea that America had evolved so far but was hemming itself in by the strictest interpretation of his handiwork
He might even tweet about it
Evolution is no myth , but we may be evolving backward
Christine O'Donnell had better hope they do n't bring back witch burning
With modern presidencies , we have to watch the poignant tableau of such leaders realizing that they have squandered their chance for greatness even as they suffer the indignity of rejection by those who once sought their blessing
These painful periods for W. and Bill Clinton , falling low after starting with such grand hopes , are recounted in two new books
The pen-and-tell by Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer , `` Speech-less , '' is being denounced by some former Bushies and Republican commentators as a `` Devil Wears Prada '' betrayal
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Preparing to make a prime-time address explaining why the 2008 economic bailout was n't socialism `` We got to make this understandable for the average cat , '' the president tells his speechwriters W. pads around the White House in Crocs , an image that 's hard to get out of your head .
`` The guy is a worm , '' Bill Bennett told Wolf Blitzer about Latimer , adding : `` He needs to read his Dante
He probably has n't read ` The Inferno .
The lowest circles of hell are for people who are disloyal in the way this guy is disloyal , and at the very lowest point Satan chews on their bodies .
Despite all the devilish critiques , the book is not that hard on W. , except to state the obvious : that he was a Decider who made bold but bad decisions
And it 's positively dewy-eyed about two of the worst decisions , Dick Cheney and Rummy
-LRB- Latimer wrote speeches for Rummy at the Pentagon and is now helping the former defense chief with his memoir .
My favorite part is when the White House political office suggests that W. go to Monticello and make a speech pointing out that his legacy matched Thomas Jefferson 's
`` Jefferson had founded the University of Virginia , '' Latimer writes , describing the aides ' reasoning
`` Well , they said , Bush had gotten the No Child Left Behind Act passed
Jefferson had authored the Declaration of Independence
Well , Bush had launched the Freedom Agenda in Afghanistan and Iraq
Jefferson had authored the Virginia statute for religious freedom
Well , that was just like the president 's faith-based initiative .
Latimer balked , noting that `` if Bush actually went to Monticello to proclaim himself the Thomas Jefferson of our day , there 'd be grounds to question his sanity .
His book ends with the downbeat time when Bush supports McCain simply because `` a McCain defeat would be a repudiation of the Bush administration .
Both Republicans were uncomfortable
McCain was distancing himself from the unpopular Republican president and W. `` was clearly not impressed with the McCain operation .
One day , W. was told that a joint appearance in Phoenix with McCain , designed to show the two men could stand to be on the same stage together , was going to be closed to the press
`` If he does n't want me to go , fine , '' W. snapped
`` I 've got better things to do .
Then the president was informed that the event was going to be closed because McCain was having trouble drawing a crowd
Latimer writes that an incredulous Bush mordantly asked : `` He ca n't get five hundred people to show up for an event in his hometown ?
Happy he was n't the only political wallflower , W. drove home the point : `` I could get that many people to turn out in Crawford
This is a five-spiral crash , boys .
Like W. , Bill Clinton had an awkward final act supporting Gore , even though Gore was distancing himself from Clinton , and Bubba was chafing at the misguided Gore campaign
Like W. with McCain , he felt a Gore defeat would be bad for his legacy
In his new book , `` The Clinton Tapes , '' Taylor Branch describes an explosive meeting between Clinton and Gore after the election characterized by Clinton as `` surreal .
Gore said people around him blamed Clinton 's scandalous shadow for the defeat
And Clinton , who told Branch that W. was `` an empty suit , meaner than his dad , '' shot back that if Gore had used him more in the last 10 days in places where he was still popular , he could have swung the election
He chastised Gore for not running on bigger themes and for dropping the issue he was most passionate about : the environment
Gore asked Clinton for an explanation of Monica Lewinsky ; he wanted an apology
Clinton blew up
Focusing on his mistakes , he told his V.P. , demeaned voters and ignored the public 's business
Branch summed up Clinton 's bottom line to Gore : `` By God , Hillary had a helluva lot more reason to resent Clinton than Gore did , and yet she ran unabashedly on the Clinton-Gore record '' for the Senate and won handily
Gore , Clinton said , was in `` Neverland .
The wrong turns Clinton and W. took made it harder for Gore and McCain to get elected
But in the final analyses , Clinton and W. , both clever pols , were right : Gore and McCain tripped themselves up with awful campaigns
The first debate seemed like the perfect moment for Barack Obama to re-enact the Code Red courtroom scene from `` A Few Good Men , '' to slide under John McCain 's skin and irritate until he goaded McCain into doing exactly what he really wanted to do : tell off the whippersnapper who 'd never bled for his country
It would have been easy for smarty-pants Obama to get in the face of the temperamental older guy , just as Tom Cruise did with Jack Nicholson , to push him into erupting into some version of that climactic speech , like , `` Deep down , in places you do n't talk about at your fancy faculty club , you want me on that wall , you need me on that wall .
The timing was ideal
McCain was so aggressively erratic as he did his free-form break dance around the economy last week that it seemed the only possible explanation was that he was creating a wild diversion to distract people from Sarah Palin 's stunningly junior varsity appearance with Katie Couric
Once Garbo began to speak , and people realized that Palin had a few key lacunae in her understanding of the globe and even of her running mate 's record , the myth of the Alaska superwoman continued to unravel
Between her nonsensical answers and his complicity in the deregulation that led to the financial catastrophe , he felt he needed to take another crazy gamble
So he theatrically suspended his campaign and rushed back to get in the way of a bipartisan solution to the economic turmoil
When the two macho guys of the Republican Party W. and McCain took extreme measures not to look emasculated , they ended up emasculating themselves
The president , who is so insecure that he could only choose a vice president he knew would never hold his title , and so insecure that he needs proof of presidency emblazoned everywhere , even riding a Trek bike with the presidential seal affixed , was suddenly faced with his b te noire : sitting at a table in the White House with the two men who want his job , either of whom would do a better job , given that nearly everyone in the country thinks things are going horribly
McCain lost control of his campaign and then , in a gimmicky attempt to gain back ground , ended up in the Cabinet Room with W. when the bipartisan economic meeting collapsed in a humiliating nondeal , causing President Bush to lose control of his White House
It was quite a memorable moment in history for the M.B.A. president and the nominee of the party of business
Who would have dreamed that when socialism finally came to the U.S.A. it would be brought not by Bolsheviks in blue jeans but Wall Street bankers in Gucci loafers
The Republicans had a lot to answer for
The Bush administration had been warned about Osama bin Laden attacking and did nothing
It had been warned that there would be a civil war and insurgency if it attacked Iraq
It had been warned that Katrina was coming
It had been warned that the country 's financial casinos were courting disaster
W. biked through all those eves of destruction
Given the past week , the debate should have been a cinch for Obama
But , just as in the primaries , he willfully refuses to accept what debates are about
It 's not a lecture hall ; it 's a joust
It 's not how cerebral you are
It 's how visceral you are
You need memorable , sharp , forceful and witty lines
Even when McCain sneered , `` I do n't need any on-the-job training , I 'm ready to go at it right now , '' Obama did n't directly respond , but veered off into a story about his father being from Kenya and how he got his name
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It 's great for a memoir , but not a debate .
McCain kept painting Obama as na ve , and dangerous , insisting that he `` does n't quite understand or does n't get it .
Obama should have responded `` Senator , I understand perfectly , I 'm just saying you 're wrong .
On the surge , he could have said that McCain was the arsonist who wanted to be praised for the great job he 's doing putting out the fire he started
When Obama took quiet umbrage at McCain 's attack about troop-funding , he could have pounded the lectern and said with real anger : `` John , I am sick and tired of you suggesting that I would take funds away from our brave soldiers
I no more voted for that than you did when you voted against our funding proposals that would have imposed a timetable
And unlike you , I did not vote against funding increases for the troops that have come home with devastating physical and mental injuries .
And who cares what Henry Kissinger thinks
He was wrong 35 years ago , and it 's only gotten worse since then
Obama did a poor job of getting under McCain 's skin
Or maybe McCain did an exceptional job of not letting Obama get under his skin
McCain nattered about earmarks and Obama ran out of gas
We 're left waiting for a knockout debate
On to Palin-Biden
Maybe it s fitting that a woman who first sashayed into the national consciousness with an equation two for the price of one may have her fate determined by the arithmetic of dynasty
The town is divided into two camps : those who think that , after 16 years of Hillary pushing herself forward , the public will get worn out and reject her , and those who think that , after 16 years of Hillary pushing herself forward , the public will get worn down and give in to her
In his new book , The Evangelical President , Bill Sammon interviewed President Bush and his senior aides about the 08 election
Mr. Bush told the author that Hillary Clinton would beat Barack Obama , because she is a formidable candidate and better known the better to raise money
Despite all he has done to help Democrats , W. maintains that Republicans can hold the White House
But just in case the Clinton dynasty once more succeeds the Bush one , the Texas president has been sending the New York senator messages to maintain some political wiggle room in your campaign rhetoric about Iraq , as Mr. Sammon puts it
Whoever gets the White House , W. contends , faced with the prospect of a vicious Middle East vacuum , will begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy
-LRB- As Dana Perino noted on Friday , on a different topic , The president does not have second thoughts .
Some of W. s advisers were more cutting about Hillary in the Sammon book
This process is not going to serve her well , one said , adding : She s going to be essentially saying , Elect me president after I ve spent the last 16 years in your face
And you didn t like me much when I was there last
Give me eight more years so I can be a presence in your life for 24 years
Others do not underestimate her relentlessness
As Leon Wieseltier , the literary editor of The New Republic , once told me : She s never going to get out of our faces
... She s like some hellish housewife who has seen something that she really , really wants and won t stop nagging you about it until finally you say , fine , take it , be the damn president , just leave me alone
That s why Hillary is laughing a lot now , big belly laughs , in response to tough questions or comments , to soften her image as she confidently knocks her male opponents out of the way
From nag to wag
An earlier generation had the entwined political dynasties of the Roosevelts and the Kennedys
Now , as Nancy Benac of The Associated Press wrote on Friday , 116 million Americans nearly 40 percent of the nation have never lived when there wasn t a Bush or a Clinton in the White House
The Clintons try and bat back the dynasty issue by presenting themselves as a meritocracy
On Friday , Hillary pushed a level-playing-field theme when she proposed giving every baby born in America a $ 5,000 governmental baby bond that would blossom into college tuition or home down payments
When asked by Tim Russert at the New Hampshire debate about the d-word , as Poppy Bush calls it , Hillary replied : I m running on my own
I m going to the people on my own
Without nepotism , Hillary would be running for the president of Vassar
But then , without nepotism , W. would be pumping gas in Midland and not out of the ground
At the debate , Joe Biden took a rare poke at the former first lady and pointed out that all the old stuff might get in the way of passing legislation
The special interests , with regard to Hillary , he said , they feed on this , you know , this Clinton-Bush thing
Obama , tiptoeing gingerly around Hillary , as usual , skittered away from a Russert query about whether his campaign theme of turning the page was a reference to the Bushes or the Clintons
Conceding to Charlie Gibson last week that dynasties are not good for America , Bill said : If you go out and you fight fair , and you win it on your own , that s not a dynasty
... You re not going out to vote for me for a third term
Of course , Hillary is never on her own
From the beginning , her campaign has relied on her husband s donors , network , strategies and strong-arming
GQ killed a 7,000-word article about infighting in Hillaryland after Bill Clinton s aide told the magazine that running the piece might imperil access to Bill
The incident , as Howie Kurtz wrote in The Washington Post , reflected pressure tactics that may be practiced with unprecedented aggressiveness by the tightly controlled Clinton media operation
On Friday , Bill gave an interview to Al Hunt dissing Obama s experience level a brazen assist to his wife
We can only hope that Laura Bush s comments on the crisis in Burma don t signal a sudden interest in politics
President Laura following President Hillary would be too much , especially with W. back as the second First Laddie
He had an imposing office in `` murderers ' row , '' as he dubbed the hall where we worked , full of English antiques , Oriental rugs and a couple of old ties he kept for those rare moments when he needed one
He was sitting in an armchair reading that bodice-ripping best seller , The Starr Report
`` There 's a word here I do n't know , '' said The Times 's wordsmith
`` What is a thong ?
I flushed and stammered that it was a scanty panty with a string for the back
His hazel eyes glinted with curiosity
Trying to elucidate , I blurted : `` Maybe you 're thinking of thong sandals , where thong is an adjective
With Monica , it 's used as a noun .
He smiled
`` It 's like a G-string , '' he said
`` That brings back memories of some clubs I went to as a young man in Union City , N.J. '' Bill Safire was anything but a nattering nabob of negativity
He had none of the vile and vitriol of today 's howling pack of conservative pundits : Limbaugh , Beck , Coulter and Malkin
Even though we disagreed on the Iraq war , he chastised me only once about it , for writing that Cheney & Co. had shoehorned all their `` meshugas '' about Saddam 's W.M.D. and Al Qaeda links into Colin Powell 's U.N. speech
`` Mishegoss , '' he wrote in his language column , would have been a better spelling of the word
One of my proudest moments was when I proved to him that `` jade '' could be a noun referring to a woman , citing Edith Wharton 's `` The Gods Arrive .
He walked with a Walter Matthau shamble , and he always dressed down in tweeds , earth tones and Hush Puppies
But there was a natural elegance about the guy
Married to the gorgeous English rose Helene , he was a man who loved women ; his novels , even the one about the founding fathers , were full of zesty sex scenes
He told me the story of how when Barbara Walters worked for him at the famous New York P.R. company of Tex McCrary , back in the `` Mad Men '' era , he wanted to loosen up Barbara , who was very serious
So one Christmas he gave her a sheer black shorty nightgown with matching panties
`` Today I would have had to take him to Human Resources , '' she recalled dryly
`` But then , I loved it .
When he learned that my mom shared his love of weird head meats , he would buy tongue sandwiches from Loeb 's Deli to send home to her
He had a rough time with his transition from the Nixon White House to The Times
He told me that many of the liberal reporters stiffed him for the first couple of years until he dove into a pool to save a drowning child at an office party
When I became his `` colleague in columny , '' as he called me , we shared a bathroom , and I teased him for being the one who kept hair spray there
He always had interesting advice
`` Put a phone in your office that does n't go through the switchboard , '' he told me
If White House officials would n't call you back , leave them a single-word message about what you wanted to talk about : `` Malfeasance .
I saw him having lunch once in the '80s with Bert Lance , the former Carter official
I asked him afterward why he was hanging out with the Georgian he had eviscerated ; his columns on Lance 's irregular banking practices had won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1978 and lost Lance his job
`` Only hit people when they 're up , '' he told me
The only time I ever saw a shred of doubt was after the famous dust-up when he wrote that Hillary Clinton , then the first lady , was `` a congenital liar .
A congenital pot-stirrer , he acted delighted with Bill Clinton 's subsequent threat to punch him in the nose
But , as a famous expert on etymology , he must have known he had used the wrong word
Congenital usually connotes a condition existing at birth
Was that really what he intended
Shortly after that happened I went into his office to talk to him
He was n't there , but I noticed a piece of paper on a table on which he 'd written two words : `` chronic '' and `` habitual .
A rare case of Safire second thoughts
He would have appreciated the fact that his obits ran on Yom Kippur
He had a famous dinner every year at his home in Chevy Chase , Md. , to break the fast that gathered many of the city 's most influential players
Curious , I pestered him for years for an invite
He patiently explained it was just for Jews or people who were , or had been , married to Jews
After years of pleading , including many protestations that I had had Jewish boyfriends and that I would one day find a Jewish husband , he broke down and let me come
He was a mensch
And that 's no mishegoss
For many years , reality was out of vogue with Republicans
They ignored the reality of Iraq and Katrina , of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden
When confronted with their colossal carelessness around the globe and here at home , their mantra was , as Rummy put it , `` Stuff happens .
Now reality , in all its messy , crazy , funky glory , has flooded the party , in the comely , crackling form of Sarah Palin
Unable to stop the onslaught of wild soap opera storylines erupting from the Palin family and the Alaska wilderness , McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt offered caterwauling reporters a new mantra : `` Life happens .
Indeed , it does
Only four days into her reign as John McCain 's `` soul mate , '' or `` Trophy Vice , '' as some bloggers are calling her , on the ticket known as `` Maverick Squared , '' Palin , the governor of Alaska , has already accrued two gates -LRB- Troopergate and Broken-watergate -RRB- , a lawyer -LRB- for Troopergate -RRB- , a future son-in-law named Levi -LRB- a high school ice hockey player , described by New York magazine as `` sex on skates '' -RRB- , and a National Enquirer headline about the `` Teen Prego Crisis '' with 17-year-old daughter Bristol
It seems like a long time since Vice President Dan Quayle denounced Murphy Brown for having a baby out of wedlock , bemoaning a `` poverty of values .
It also seems like a long time and another McCain ago that Republicans supporting W. smeared the old John McCain by spreading rumors that he had fathered an illegitimate black child
This week , the anti-abortion forces celebrated the news of Bristol 's pregnancy , using it as further proof that their beloved Governor Palin who will no more support sex education than polar bears was committed to the cause
Since John McCain played craps first and sent the vetters to Alaska afterward , Republicans have been defending Governor Palin by saying that , while she has no foreign policy experience except , as Cindy McCain pointed out , that `` Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia '' she has a lot of domestic policy experience as a supercharged P.T.A. and hockey mom
As more and more titillating details spill out about the Palins , Republicans riposte by simply arguing that things like Todd 's old D.U.I. arrest or Sarah 's messy family vengeance story will just let them relate better to average Americans unlike the lofty Obamas
`` If this does n't resonate with every woman in America , I 'll eat my hat , '' Bill Noll , an Alaska delegate whose daughter got pregnant at a young age and kept the baby , told The Times 's Ashley Parker
Even as they push Sarah Barracuda as the glamorous but tough hunting and fishing mom who can juggle it all she 's the only nominee , as Fred Thompson bragged in his convention speech , `` who knows how to properly field dress a moose '' they rant at reporters who wonder how she will juggle it all and question some of her judgments
At a Washington , Pa. , rally on Saturday , as her two other daughters stood with her , Ms. Palin left Bristol baby-sitting Trig , who has Down syndrome
`` Then we have our daughter Bristol , '' the new conservative Republican star said
`` She 's on the bus with the newborn
... It 's his naptime , so he is with his big sister on the bus
But we thank them for being here .
And this while Bristol was still absorbing the shocking news that she was about to turn into tabloid roadkill and oh , yeah , she 's getting married sooner rather than later
When you make a gimmicky pick of an unknown , without proper vetting , there 's bound to be a sticky press conference sooner or later
I watched it happen with Ferraro and Quayle , and I watched Mondale and Poppy Bush curdle with embarrassment but plow through
The political unknowns , of course , want that tantalizing brass ring , so they 're not always completely forthcoming about their skeletons , if they 're lucky enough to be ineptly vetted
This is ironic , since the nominee who gets blindsided with these crises Did McCain really know that this Palin reality show was about to pop and swallow his convention is presenting them to voters as the most trustworthy people to inherit the nuclear codes
Because Ferraro grabbed at the chance , without revealing to Mondale 's incompetent vetting team how damaging some of her husband 's financial imbroglios could be , she went from being a female icon to part of the reason it 's taken a quarter-century for another party to take a chance on a woman
When McCain gets in trouble , he pulls out the P.O.W. card
Now Republicans are pulling out the sexist card
Hillary cried sexism to cover up her incompetent management of her campaign , and now Republicans have picked up that trick
But when you use sexism as an across-the-board shield for any legitimate question , you only hurt women
And that 's just another splash of reality
He 's too rabbity brisk , too doggedly modern
The most proficient spinner since Rumpelstiltskin lacks introspection
The self-described `` manipulator '' is still in denial about being manipulated
The Economist 's review of `` A Journey , '' the new autobiography of the former British prime minister , says it sounds less like Disraeli and Churchill and more like `` the memoirs of a transatlantic business tycoon .
Yet in the section on Iraq , Blair loses his C.E.O. fluency and engages in tortured arguments , including one on how many people really died in the war , and does a Shylock lament
He says he does not regret serving as the voice for W. 's gut when the inexperienced American princeling galloped into war with Iraq
As for `` the nightmare that unfolded '' - giving the lie to all their faux rationales and glib promises - Tony wants everyone to know he has feelings
`` Do they really suppose I do n't care , do n't feel , do n't regret with every fiber of my being the loss of those who died ?
he asks of his critics
In Iraq , marking the transition to the `` post-combat mission '' for American troops , Defense Secretary Robert Gates was eloquent with an economy of words
Asked by a reporter if Iraq would have to be a democratic state for the war to benefit U.S. national security , Gates cut to core : `` The problem with this war for , I think , many Americans is that the premise on which we justified going to war proved not to be valid - that is , Saddam having weapons of mass destruction .
He added , candidly : `` It will always be clouded by how it began .
Iraq will be `` a work in progress for a long time , '' Gates said , and , `` how it all weighs in the balance over time , I think remains to be seen .
Blair writes that he thought he was right and that he and W. rid the world of a tyrant
But he winds up with a bitter anecdote : `` I still keep in my desk a letter from an Iraqi woman who came to see me before the war began
She told me of the appalling torture and death her family had experienced having fallen foul of Saddam 's son
She begged me to act
After the fall of Saddam she returned to Iraq
She was murdered by sectarians a few months later
What would she say to me now ?
There is no apology , but Blair sounds like a man with a guilty conscience
He concedes that the invasion of Iraq was more about symbols than immediate security , about sending `` a message of total clarity to the world , '' after 9\/11 , that defying the will of the international community would no longer be tolerated
In other words , Osama bin Laden had emasculated America , and America had to hit back , and did so against a country that had nothing to do with him or 9\/11
Blair did not want to be W. 's peripheral poodle
He wanted to `` stand tall internationally '' with Britain 's main ally and not `` wet our knickers , '' to use a Blair phrase , when the going got tough -LRB- or delusional -RRB-
Blair fantasized that Saddam might someday give W.M.D. to terrorists
This , even though the dictator did n't like terrorists because they were impossible to control , and even though , as Blair admits , -LRB- the secular -RRB- Saddam and -LRB- the fundamentalist -RRB- Osama were on opposite sides
-LRB- When Saudi Arabia felt threatened by Saddam 's invasion of Kuwait , Osama offered to fight the Iraqi dictator .
It is criminally na ve , given the billions spent on intelligence , that Blair and W. muffed the postwar planning because they never perceived what Blair now acknowledges as `` the true threat '' : outside interference by Al Qaeda and Iran
So the reasoning of the man known in England as Phony Tony or Bliar amounts to this : They had to invade Iraq because Saddam could hypothetically hook up with Al Qaeda
But they did n't properly prepare for the insurgency because they knew that Saddam had no link to Al Qaeda
He knew Dick Cheney had a grandiose plan to remake the world and no patience for `` namby-pamby peacenikery .
`` He would have worked through the whole lot , Iraq , Syria , Iran , '' as well as `` Hezbollah , Hamas , etc. , '' Blair writes of Cheney , adding : `` He was for hard , hard power
No ifs , no buts , no maybes
We 're coming after you , so change or be changed .
The religious Blair fancied himself a conviction politician who had intervened for good in Kosovo and Sierra Leone and would do so again in Iraq
So he did not , as he said others did , `` reach for the garlic and crucifixes '' when Dick hatched his sulfurous schemes
If he had challenged W. and Cheney instead of enabling them , Blair might have stopped the farcical rush to war
Instead , he became the midwife for a weaker Iraq that is no longer a counterweight to Iran - which actually is a nuclear threat - and that seems doomed to be run one day by another brutal strongman
Maybe Blair should have realized the destructive Oedipal path W. was on
At their first meeting at Camp David , W. screened `` Meet the Parents .
If Barack Obama had chosen Hillary Clinton as his running mate , we would now be looking forward to the greatest night in the history of American politics : the Oct. 2 vice presidential debate between Ma Barker and Sarah Barracuda
Now , alas , we 'll have to wait until 2012 when the two fiercest competitors on the trail will no doubt face off in the presidential debate , with Palin still riding high from her 2008 field-dressing of Obama -LRB- who 's now back in the Senate convening his subcommittee on Afghanistan -RRB-
The two women are both aggressive pols who take disagreement personally , accruing a body count of rivals , and who have been known to exaggerate their accomplishments
But in ideological terms , the gun-toting hockey mom and the shot-swilling Warrior Queen of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pantsuits are opposites
By 2012 , the 76-year-old John McCain will be on his way out
His vice president will wear him down , making him change the name of the White House to Rouge Cou the name Sarah licensed in 2005 in case she ever got into business and turn Camp David into a caribou hunting ranch
Then she 'll scare him , informing him that if he tries for a second term , she 'll challenge him in the primary
`` How would you like this pit bull grandma to clean your grandfather clock ?
she 'll tell President McCain in her flat `` Fargo '' accent
He 'll confide in his pal Joe that being a P.O.W. was nothing compared with being trapped in the White House with `` that woman .
It 's delicious imagining the Debate of the Century between Big Mama , as Bill 's male aides called Hillary , and `` Hottie Granny , '' as People magazine will doubtless dub Sarah
ESPN will want in
PALIN : Before we start , Hillary , I want to honor your achievement in 2008
You nicked the glass ceiling
But in the end , as my friend Cheryl Metiva from Wasilla Bible Church said , I was more of a woman and more of a man than you , so I was the one who actually busted up the old boys ' club
Sorry I called you a whiner about sexism
That was before I realized how handy the victim card can be against the press wolves
In Alaska , we just gun down wolves from the air
CLINTON : I do give you and John credit , Sarah , for following my blueprint to reveal Obama as all cage , no bird
But now the Democrats have crawled back to me and I will close the deal
So pack up your snow boots and antlers and backwoods brood and scram
PALIN : I 've got a little news flash for you , Hillary
Your night-shift , blue-collar-waitress , boilermaker routine did n't fool me
It 's in your polls but it 's in my D.N.A. I 've actually been up at 3 a.m. gutting moose
While you got to go to your snooty Wellesley , I had to switch colleges six times in six years
While you got to go to Yale Law , I had to enter beauty contests and turn my back to judges in a bathing suit to get scholarship money
CLINTON : I 've got a little news flash for you , Annie Oakley
Dinosaurs disappeared a lot longer than 4,000 years ago
I admit you 've had a profound influence on America , and I 'm not just talking about all the women wearing up-dos and rimless titanium $ 375 Kazuo Kawasaki designer frames
You and John are now at war with four countries Russia , Iran , Iraq and Afghanistan , even as Osama bin Laden has opened a storefront in a strip mall in Pakistan to make TV ads
PALIN : Those wars are tasks from God
CLINTON : You said you wanted to help women , but you 've only hurt them with your silly mantra that women can have it all if they just work harder and pray harder
You put Medicare on eBay
You cut funding for special-needs children
The Dobson Supreme Court has outlawed abortion , evolution and gun control
With sex education banned , baby bumps in high schools are rampant
And the head of your Abstinence Outreach Program , Levi Johnston , has failed to force any other teenage fathers to marry their prom dates
PALIN : Life is always welcome
Unless it 's on four legs
CLINTON : When it comes to Big Oil , you make Dick Cheney look small bore
You had secret energy meetings to eliminate polar bears
You 've turned Alaska into Kuwait without the sand
Gas is $ 50 a gallon and global warming has changed the Rose Garden into the Palm Court
Your only energy plan is to give tax credits to people who put do-it-yourself oil rigs in their backyards
You created a Department of Drilling and More Drilling and put double-dipping Todd in charge
PALIN : You 're chiding me about nepotism
At least I know how to control my First Dude
If you think that fake sniper fire in Bosnia was bad , wait till you get a load of my hunting rifle
CLINTON : Adios , Sister Sarah
You 're tough , but I 've been tougher longer
Slide out of town on that oil slick you made on the Mall
And take that Grizzly throw with you
We went sledding there and played hide and seek , rolled Easter eggs and stole our first kisses
We could be dragged away only when we heard our mom 's vibrant whistle , signaling dinner
When we were little , Fort Stevens was just a cool playground , with dry moats and tall mounds and a couple of cannons , located across the street from our Catholic grade school and down the block from our house
My mom , an ardent student of the Civil War , explained that the fort was an important part of history - the scene of a battle in which a sitting American president came under enemy fire and the only time the nation 's capital was attacked by the Confederate Army
My brother Kevin nervously stood on the ramparts to sneak his first cigarette on the very spot where Abe Lincoln coolly stood and faced Confederate sniper fire in 1864 - until he was ordered down by his alarmed general
Kevin made a video this summer celebrating Fort Stevens , a mournful response to the news that the Civil War Preservation Trust had put the fort on its annual list of endangered battlefields
The trust fears that a five-story building planned by the Emory United Methodist Church next door will block the line of sight from the fort and make it harder for visitors to visualize history
On the eve of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War , the trust also warns that the Wilderness battlefield west of Fredericksburg , Va. , the site of the first bloody confrontation between the commanders Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee , could be violated by a huge development featuring a Wal-Mart at its gateway
Gettysburg made the list because of a plan to build a casino half a mile from the park , along the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Scenic Byway
I can hear the Gen. Robert E. Lee slot machines jingling now
Fort Stevens - located in a working-class , mostly black neighborhood near President Lincoln 's summer cottage at the Soldiers ' Home - had been neglected and forgotten in recent decades
Some stimulus money came its way , and the National Park Service cleaned it up in hopes of making it more visitor-friendly
But the day I went , touring the fort with representatives of the trust and the park service , a D.C. policeman got out of his car and came over to ask us what we were doing there
`` It 's the first time I came here and saw people during the day , '' the suspicious officer explained , puncturing the attempt of Fort Stevens defenders to argue that the fort is a tourist attraction
Pastor Joseph Daniels of the Emory United Methodist Church defended his expansion , saying that it was not a halfway house , as some critics feared , but a combo community center and low-cost housing
He said they would put in a Fort Stevens visitor center and gift shop
`` For years , Fort Stevens was a place where many prostitutes and drug addicts and the like would practice their difficulty , '' the pastor said
`` They would get drunk and get high and participate in prostitution at the fort and sell their drugs behind the cannons
It was not unusual for us to find used condoms and used syringes in and around the stairwell of the church , along with empty bottles and beer cans .
He rebutted that the glimpse through the church grounds of Georgia Avenue , where the Confederate troops marched in from the North , was n't very good anyhow , which is true
Still , in a day and age when people do n't remember what happened last year , we 've got to be careful to protect our history
Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early 's `` great rebel raid , '' as The New York Times called it , began in the night on Sunday , July 10 , 1864
Without Lincoln 's knowledge , an assistant Navy secretary had arranged to have a getaway gunboat on the Potomac waiting for the president if things should go badly for the Union
As Marc Leepson writes in the book `` Desperate Engagement , '' a Baltimore Sun correspondent reported that Early 's men , bloated with confidence , `` frequently could be heard to indulge in little controversies as to what buildings should be allowed to stand , and what should be destroyed .
The fort was undermanned -LRB- though Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was a soldier there -RRB- , so bureaucrats and others were urged to drop their pens and take up arms
Lincoln and his wife , Mary , took their carriage to Fort Stevens to watch the skirmish within five miles of the White House and even closer to the summer White House
The 6-foot-4 Abe stood on the parapet until Gen. Horatio Wright ordered him out of the line of fire
As Lincoln 's secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay wrote in their 1890 biography , the president `` stood , apparently unconscious of danger , watching , with that grave and passive countenance , the progress of the right amid the whizzing bullets of the sharp-shooters , until an officer fell mortally wounded within three feet of him .
Afterward , General Early drawled that he may not have taken Washington from the Yankees , but `` we 've scared Abe Lincoln like hell .
He was going to be the kind of guy who whipped you up and then , when you were all excited , left you flat , and then , when you were deflated and exasperated and time was running out , ensorcelled you again with some sparkly fairy dust
It 's an irritating pattern
Not as puerile as Bill Clinton 's pattern of wasting time and plunging into personal chaos , or as horrifying as Dick Cheney 's routine of bullying and cutting paper dolls out of the Constitution
But not as reliably uplifting as Jed Bartlet either
After keeping his great powers of persuasion and elucidation under wraps all summer , the president at long last comes forward to explain his health care plan to an utterly confused and increasingly skeptical and wary public
He should have done this speech back in June and conjured up a better glossary
You ca n't combat a scintillating term like `` death panels '' with a somnambulant one like `` public option .
President Obama is so wrapped up in his desire to be a different , more conciliatory , beer-summit kind of leader , he ignores some verities
Sometimes , when you 've got the mojo , you have to keep your foot on your opponent 's neck
When you 're trying to get a Sisyphean agenda passed , it 's good if people in the way including rebellious elements in your own party fear you
Civil discourse is fine , but when the other side is fighting dirty , you should get angry
Do n't let the bully kick sand in your face
The White House should have impaled death panel malarkey as soon as it came up
By the time the president got feisty in a speech on Monday , the inmates had taken over cable TV , much like the spooky spirits swarming up over Bald Mountain in `` Fantasia .
Even Steve Hildebrand , the strategist who helped shape Obama 's historic win in the Iowa caucuses , complains that his former hero `` needs to be more bold in his leadership .
Disenchanted at Obama 's disengaged approach on health care and gay rights , Hildebrand told Politico 's Ben Smith that he was `` losing patience .
It was one thing for Obama to delegate freely when he was on the Harvard Law Review , but it 's madness to go play golf and delegate freely to Congress , letting Nancy Pelosi make your case
After signaling that there was nothing he 'd fall on his sword for on health care ; after dropping Van Jones at the first objection from Glenn Beck a demagoon who called Obama a `` racist '' the president is getting to be seen as an easy mark
If Obama did n't have a knife-thrower like Rahmbo in the Oval , Democrats would be totally convinced that the president would fold in a heartbeat
In the absence of more vivid presidential leadership , the Democrats have reverted to their old DNA self-destructive scrapping and spending
And the Republicans are sticking to theirs being mean-spirited and shameless , attacking big government spending while taking no blame for their own
Just as he let Hillary breathe new life into her faltering campaign in New Hampshire , Obama let the moribund Republicans revivify themselves in the slashing image of Limbaugh and Palin
Administration officials have been chortling that Republicans overreached in criticizing the president for giving a speech urging kids to study hard , write their own destiny and wash their hands
It 's true that Republicans who objected looked risible
On MSNBC , Joe Watkins , a G.O.P. strategist , explained the perils of letting `` one of the most gifted speakers that the world has ever seen '' speak to impressionable children
What if next time , he asked , the president made a strong argument to kids about the Defense of Marriage Act
`` What if , '' he wondered , `` kids come back home and say to their mom and dad , when the president who they like and who they agree with , tells them marriage is not necessarily between a man and a woman ?
But if such Republicans seem loco , and the far left looks easily outmaneuvered , the president seems lame , too , for letting the crazies and uglies get on offense all summer , showcased by a superficial media beast
Laura Bush had to ride to Obama 's rescue and explain that he was n't a brain-washing alien , that it was a good thing for a president to inspire kids
It should n't take a superhuman effort by the Democrats , with an assist from a Republican former first lady , to beat back the most obviously nutty , stupid things that Republicans say
The president told students on Tuesday that `` being successful is hard '' and `` you wo n't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try .
He should take his own words to heart
He can live long and prosper by being less Spocky and more RockyGC
