A President’s Proud Legacy

On NPR’s weekly comedy —at least they claim it’s comedy— news-based quiz show Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, the final segment is a round robin of the panelists making humorous predictions about the future. Today’s edition featured...

Watchmen: Five Checkers

Although I haven’t yet seen Watchmen (and almost certainly won’t until it’s on DVD and works its way up my Netflix queue), I unhesitatingly confer the ultimate accolade of 5 Checkers on the film simply on the basis of its basic premise: The events...

Presidential Apocrypha

If, like me, you find the following funny, then you’ll probably enjoy the several other “More Apocryphal Stories of the Presidents” by Yoni Brenner in last week’s New Yorker: On a rainy night in 1793, the Van Buren family ox slipped in the mud,...

The Dog Beneath The Skin

Clive Crook, whose column from and about America in the Financial Times usually has something interesting to say, yesterday tendered an apology to his Republican readers. As you recall, in the debate over the fiscal stimulus, Republicans accused the president of...