8.9.74

We think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat, that all is ended. We think, as T.R. said, that the light had left his life forever. Not true. It’s only a beginning — always. The...

Worth A Thousand Words (Or 1053, Anyway)

On July 29 of last year Vanity Fair’s website put up a portrait of President George W. Bush by that eminent visual satirist Drew Friedman.  In it, the President was made up to look like that latterday icon of villainy, the late Heath Ledger in his Oscar-winning...

A Memory Of 8/8/74

It is often said that you can judge a leader by the quality of the people with which he surrounds himself. Thirty-five years ago today, I came in brief contact with a member of President Nixon’s White House staff whose deep sense of humanity, even in the midst of what...

Two Anniversaries

Last month the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, and of Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin’s historic moonwalk, was the subject of many hours of TV coverage and commentary, and of innumerable column-inches of articles and op-eds in...