All the Truth Is Out: The Week Politics Went Tabloid

Like JFK, like LBJ, Gary Hart had multiple affairs. The one that really plagued him was with a bookish actor/writer named Donna Rice. Hart and Rice spent some time on a boat--the "Monkey Business"--and Rice was photographed on top of Hart's groin. Hart then said he hadn't had any kind of dalliance with Rice; the two were just talking about possible job opportunities.

During damage control, Rice asked Hart's people not to leak her name. She also disclosed an embarrassing moment from her past--a semi-nude photo--imagining that this was just a topic for her brief phone call. Hart's people immediately threw Rice under the bus, volunteering her name and the details about her past, hoping that this would put out the fire. For years thereafter, Hart made no effort to contact Rice. (He did eventually call her to apologize.)

Given Rice's formidable brain power, a second act was inevitable. Rice became an important crusader against child pornography. Hart had a rockier epilogue. He pleaded with Clinton for a professional gig; Clinton was (typically) wishy washy. Hart did (does) have extraordinary talents; he eventually wrote a trenchant report on stateless terrorists. Two years before 9/11, Hart warned, in print, that large numbers of Americans would die in a terrorist attack--likely on American soil. Dubyah ignored the report.

Matt Bai's excellent narrative covers Hart's life--but it also reaches surprising conclusions. Bai says that the Hart affair permanently altered journalism and politics; Newt Gingrich began to understand that the way to take down opponents was not through electoral strategizing. Just find a scandal, invent a purity test, and the politician will have to resign. Bai says that not one president since the Hart era has been notably impressive or effective. He includes Obama in that damning statement. Now, you are judged successful not because you are a visionary, but because you can survive ridiculous attacks in the tabloids.

What, exactly, did Obama believe? What vision of governance guided his thinking, and what new argument did he bring to the arena? This was hard to know, then and later. His twin mantras were HOPE and CHANGE, the rhetorical equivalent of rainbows and unicorns. There were those who spent time with him, myself included, who came away thinking he was a pragmatist who disrupted orthodoxies of the last generation. There were others who assumed that he was in fact a doctrinaire liberal. In office, Obama made a practice of disappointing both groups. He reacted ably to near cataclysmic events, but his grasp on the machinery of government often seemed tenuous. With the exception of his party's health care law, he did little to change the global or economic trajectory of the country.

The truth was that Obama had neither the time nor the inclination to work out his ideas or master the intricacies of governing before ascending to the Oval Office, and we in the media hadn't been interested in that side of him, anyway.....

Dazzling writing.

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

My Favorite Pop Song

One thing I admire about Prince is his weirdly pretentious verses: Dream, if you can, a courtyard-- An ocean of violets in bloom. Also: Touch, if you will, my stomach. Feel how it trembles inside. No one else writes like this. Did people try to shoot down these choices? Did a producer say, "We'd like to rethink this one... Touch, if you will, my stomach...." I can't help but wonder. But it's the chorus that makes this a classic. It's direct and universal--and it ends with that bizarre flourish, the allusion to "the crying doves." (Prince's song was number one in America for quite a while; it defeated Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark.") How can you just leave me standing-- Alone in a world that's so cold? Maybe I'm just too demanding. Maybe I'm just like my father--too bold. Maybe you're just like my mother; She's never satisfied. Why do we scream at each other? This is what it sounds like when doves cr...

Raymond Carver: "What's in Alaska?"

Outside, Mary held Jack's arm and walked with her head down. They moved slowly on the sidewalk. He listened to the scuffing sounds her shoes made. He heard the sharp and separate sound of a dog barking and above that a murmuring of very distant traffic. She raised her head. "When we get home, Jack, I want to be fucked, talked to, diverted. Divert me, Jack. I need to be diverted tonight." She tightened her hold on his arm. He could feel the dampness in that shoe. He unlocked the door and flipped the light. "Come to bed," she said. "I'm coming," he said. He went to the kitchen and drank two glasses of water. He turned off the living-room light and felt his way along the wall into the bedroom. "Jack!" she yelled. "Jack!" "Jesus Christ, it's me!" he said. "I'm trying to get the light on." He found the lamp, and she sat up in bed. Her eyes were bright. He pulled the stem on the alarm and b...

Liars and Saints

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