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The House of Representatives Is the Scariest Circus on Earth
Tweet Share on Facebook May 22, 2012 CommentA comment in The Nation published in the Gilded Age noted a circus clown telling people the best days of the circus were over. We've noticed the same thing lately, bemoaning a scarcity of clown talent at the circus. What's to be done? One reason given, then and now: Fewer youths are running away from home to join the circus.
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My Mother's Zest for Adventure
Tweet Share on Facebook May 14, 2012 CommentFor a change, I saw my mother Judith for Mother's Day. I hugged her goodbye early in the morning before she left my living room for the airport to fly to Bogota—just for fun, because she likes to go to places she's never seen before. She has three daughters and her husband, a droll and healthy doctor—but we find it hard to keep up with her sheer exuberant energy apace while seeing the world, including strife-torn Namibia and Bosnia. Only my Dad comes close.
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Why Barack Obama's Old Girlfriend Matters
Tweet Share on Facebook May 8, 2012 Comment (4)No ordinary girlfriend, Genevieve Cook is a biographer's dream.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce's autobiographical coming of age novel, captured the growing pains of a writer in Dublin a century ago. Now we have a brilliantly insightful portrait of the president as a young man making his way in the human ocean of New York, seen through the eyes of a 25-year-old woman who loved him. Barack Obama was then a Columbia College graduate who felt like a stranger and sojourner in the city.
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The Republicans Are Burning Down the House of Democracy
Tweet Share on Facebook April 30, 2012 Comment (35)Remind me to send a thank you note to Norman J. Ornstein and Thomas E. Mann for their heralded Outlook piece sounding a fire alarm about the Republican party burning down the house of democracy in the Washington Post Sunday. Here is its essence:
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Boris Johnson and the Theater of London Politics
Tweet Share on Facebook April 24, 2012 Comment (1)Only in England might you find such a set piece. Correction! Only in London. The best theater in the world is to be found there—some charge admission, but much of it is free.
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Ann Romney, 'Stay-at-Home Moms,' and the 'Choice' Trap
Tweet Share on Facebook April 16, 2012 Comment (25)"Stay-at-home mom" has entered our political lexicon with a vengeance, and we all know why. The Hilary Rosen-Ann Romney cable brou-haha. I won't belabor the particulars. Whoever dreamed that clever one up to update "just a housewife" had a passive-aggressive streak. The phrase is a conversation stopper, but not for the reasons Clark Judge, my bloleague, gives. At least not for me.
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The Bush Family: An American Tragedy
Tweet Share on Facebook April 9, 2012 Comment (43)My father's question about George W. Bush gone missing from public sight during the 2012 campaign—grounded at the Crawford ranch?—prompted thoughts on the best and worst of the family from whence he came. Nobody running for president has even uttered his name. I wonder why.
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In Healthcare Case, the Supreme Court Is Risking Its Legitimacy
Tweet Share on Facebook April 2, 2012 Comment (33)April first has not rinsed the Supreme Court out of my hair.
Disturbing my peace of mind: the arrogance of Antonin "Nino" Scalia and his four fellow "conservatives" (almost too good a name for what they are if they dismantle President Obama's healthcare law). Piquing my patience: the journalistic myopia leading up to this moment.
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America Safe for the Dick Cheneys But Not the Trayvon Martins
Tweet Share on Facebook March 27, 2012 Comment (32)The heart just given to Dick Cheney...was Trayvon Martin's. One is 71, the other 17.
What if that were literally true?
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Generation Y Is Unlucky, Not Lazy
Tweet Share on Facebook March 19, 2012 Comment (6)Hurting Generation Y, who are young people nowadays, doesn't even have a decent name to go by: the "Go-Nowhere Generation" isn't something you want to hang your hat on. Nor is "Children of the Great Recession" much to write home about. Facing a tight labor market, they are stressed out and anxious about their lot, as are their families. The brunt of hard times falls on the young in a particularly cruel way, with high unemployment resulting in lost earnings and skills hard to regain in the workplace.
