Maybe John McCain is being totally altruistic in his decision to suspend his presidential campaign so he can concentrate on fast-tracking the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Maybe he really thinks the bailout will save us from a depression, and that it won’t get passed if he and his opponent are not in Washington […]

American political campaigns are all about celebrity. The essential objective is to become more famous than one’s opponent in a short amount of time. You do this with sly commercials, and pithy put-downs, and three-word mantras chanted by supporters, and, if you’re lucky, by sheer personal attractiveness. That’s why I first thought the not-so-attractive […]

Look, we’ve all thought it, watching the young, energetic Barack Obama work the crowds in that charismatic way of his. But it took Hillary Clinton to say it: The last young, energetic, charismatic guy who was this close to the presidency got assassinated. Hillary raised the specter of Robert Kennedy during another explanation of […]