Columns, pieces and posts
It was a sparkling and unusual event, a dinner that was as interesting as a Democrat’s (the talk was culturally broad, if sober— “life is real and earnest”) and as handsomely done as a Republican’s (the flowers were white, crisp, so expertly arranged they seemed a natural outgrowth of the mirrored table. Life should be […]
Here is what has been said the past week or so that sparked argument: Bill Maher, on HBO, said a lot of lives would be saved if Vice President Cheney had died, and Ann Coulter, at a conservative political meeting, suggested John Edwards is a “faggot.” She was trying to be funny and get a […]
Wednesday night John McCain made it official. “I am announcing that I will be a candidate for president of the United States,” he told David Letterman, adding that this was actually an announcement that he will make a formal announcement in April. Best line of the night came from bandleader Paul Shaffer: “He’s doing the […]
Republicans and conservatives have been trying to sink Mrs. Clinton for years, but she keeps bob-bob-bobbing along. “Oh those Clinton haters, what’s wrong with them?” Only a Democrat could hurt her, and a Democrat just did. Hollywood titan David Geffen, who now supports Barack Obama, this week famously retagged the Clintons as an Ivy League […]
“Why do you think everyone is obsessing on the presidential race so early?” The question came from a friend who works in magazines. I told her I’d been thinking about the exact same thing. We’re barely less than two years out and yet paying attention to presidential politics as if it were October 2008. Part […]
According to polls, Hillary Clinton holds an early and significant lead among Democratic voters (43%, compared with 22% for Barack Obama in a Fox News poll 10 days ago). She is of course the killer fund-raiser of the race, with one of her contributors crowing this week that she’ll raise more money than all the […]
Next Tuesday would have been Ronald Reagan’s 96th birthday, which is amazing when you consider he is, in a way, more with us than ever: his memory and meaning summoned in political conversation, his name evoked by candidates. I remember 10 years ago when there was controversy over the movement to name things for him—buildings […]
We all complain, and with justice, about the falseness of much that is said in Washington, and the cowardice that leaves a great deal unsaid. But I found myself impressed and grateful for the words of Chuck Hagel, the Republican senator from Nebraska, in a meeting of the Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. Because his […]
The president’s State of the Union Address is Tuesday night, and right now his speechwriters are likely still caught in staffing hell, receiving last-minute suggested changes from agencies and offices throughout the government. The speech is probably frozen—writers have been working on it since before Christmas, and this is an orderly White House—but in the […]
I had the odd and wholly unexpected experience of feeling supportive of a troop increase until I saw the president’s speech arguing for it. What a jarring, furtive-seeming thing it was. Surely the Iraq endeavor and those who’ve fought in it and put their hopes in it deserve more than collapse, withdrawal and calamity. But […]