Columns, pieces and posts
The scene: Midnight, Tuesday, in a mansion in the city. Inside, on the second floor, a handsome man with dark hair and sharp but fleshy features thrashes about on a king-size bed. He can’t sleep. It’s the noise. They’re chanting outside, across the street—“GET OUT OF DICK CHENEY’S HOUSE! GET OUT OF DICK CHENEY’S HOUSE!” […]
We must fight. And we all know it. And it’s fine. We like to complain, those of us of a certain age, that history has never given us the gaudy challenges it gave our parents and grandparents. But we’ve had our traumas, and from the time we were children: assassinations, riots, Vietnam, Watergate, the ayatollah, […]
For many years there has been a famous phrase that derives from the 12-step recovery movement. It refers to a thing that is very big, and obvious, and of crucial importance, that people around it refuse for whatever reason to acknowledge. It’s called the elephant in the living room. There is an elephant in the […]
Why did Hillary win, and win so big? She won because she chose to run in a state that has two million more registered Democrats than Republicans, a state with a strong liberal infrastructure, a state in which her husband is adored. She won because the Democratic nominee for president beat the Republican in New […]
We will never forget this night as long as we live. We will never stop talking about it. What a moment in our democracy—and it was Al Gore who captured with what now seems a certain prescience how the whole election might turn out. In one of his last, dramatic rallies Monday morning, Mr. Gore […]
I will vote Tuesday and so will most readers of this page because we love politics and history. We are interested, engaged, highly motivated. We not only care about our country but see the direct connection between the decisions made at the polls and the country’s literal future. But not everyone votes, as we well […]
You’re in danger. What you do or fail to do now could conceivably change the outcome Tuesday. So breathe deep, get serious and don’t get stubborn. Let’s start with the facts, which in many ways are on your side. It happened a quarter century ago. You always said that when you were young and irresponsible […]
Readers of this page are familiar with the policy questions at issue in the election. As president, George W. Bush’s natural inclination and stated intention is and will be to lower taxes, not raise them, to clear away regulation rather than create it, and to reform Social Security in a way that makes it more […]
On Saturday I went to the opening game of the World Series, at Yankee Stadium. I felt so lucky: I had a friend with tickets. It was so exciting, really inspiring. It had been two years since I’d been to the stadium, enough time for everything to look new to me—the soft, thick-striped grass, the […]
The third presidential debate was a public good, both informative and, once again, revealing of both presidential candidates. It seems to me that all three debates, now that they’re history, have been a paradoxical triumph: They were at times rote, stilted and even cringe-making, especially when Al Gore would take over and show his manly […]