01 Jul 2009 01:25 pm
Ruth Marcus has a
great column today on the unforgivable Mark Sanford (though, man, would I like an interview with that guy, because pure-bred, hi-test, four-square narcissists always make for the best interviews). Ruth argues cogently that it is not Jenny Sanford who has been humiliated here:
I admire, too, her practical vision of real love and what it takes to make a marriage work. "It wasn't exactly love at first sight," Sanford recalled about meeting her future husband at a beach party in the Hamptons. "It was more like friendship at first sight."
Now she still has her feet on the ground even as her husband is head over heels -- with another woman. "I believe enduring love is primarily a commitment and an act of will, and for a marriage to be successful, that commitment must be reciprocal," Jenny Sanford said in her statement.
And I admire her investment-banker steel. "He was told in no uncertain terms not to see her," she said in an interview with the Associated Press last week about her husband's pleas for permission to visit his mistress. And, on his decision to defy her: "You would think that a father who didn't have contact with his children, if he wanted those children, he would toe the line a little bit."
29 Jun 2009 09:28 am
Thank goodness we here in Aspen don't have problems with large-nosed burglars
like they do in Vail:
The Vail Daily newspaper last week took the brunt of a well-deserved public beat-down for publishing a sheriff's department press release in which a witness to a home break-in in Edwards described a suspect as being of "Jewish or Eastern European descent."
28 Jun 2009 11:09 pm
John Judis
didn't think much of that piece by Eli Saslow
I linked to before, on the survivors of the Red Line crash. He argues that the Washington Post has ignored systemic problems with Metro, and has instead provided its readers with "fluff":
And now in the wake of the Metro crash, how is the newspaper responding? With a front page fluff piece on three people who survived the crash. Maybe it's a wonderful piece, a real tear-jerker by an author with the skills of a Tony Lukas or Joan Didion. I don't know, because I am not wasting my time reading it. I am still waiting for the newspaper to do what local newspapers should do, and get to the bottom of what happened, and do it in a way that will prevent future crashes.
I'm not in a position to argue that the Washington Post has adequately covered problems in the Metro system; Judis makes a strong case that it hasn't. I don't think, however, that the piece today was "fluff," and I think Judis would see that if he had actually read it before he condemned it. And by the way, bringing the human tragedy of the crash to light can only help spark the outrage necessary to reform the system.
28 Jun 2009 01:36 pm
The Washington Post today
features a beautifully-written article by Eli Saslow about the people who survived the Red Line crash on the Washington Metro earlier this week. The story is deeply-reported, authoritative, riveting and altogether a reproach to those who say that newspapers are somehow unnecessary, that the Huffington sweatshop and Google and the Daily Beast will keep us sufficiently informed. Read the whole thing and tell me I'm wrong.
28 Jun 2009 12:50 am
Here's what the Hamas leader
said in a recent interview:
"The enemy's leaders call for a so-called Jewish state is a racist demand that is no different from calls by Italian Fascists and Hitler's Nazism."
Yep, Hamas is definitely moderating. Just like the mullahs.
25 Jun 2009 07:30 am
I'm not hiking it (literally or euphemistically) but I'm heading out today for Colorado, which is like the Appalachian Trail but with less air. A bunch of us from The Atlantic will be there in the coming days for the Aspen Ideas Festival. Blogging will be light for the next little while because I'll be busy testing my ideas on the elk.
24 Jun 2009 02:36 pm
He's suffering from something else entirely: Argentine Nookie Syndrome. We're watching this ridiculous man on TV now. James Bennet: "So he didn't want the stimulus money but he did want a certain kind of stimulus."
24 Jun 2009 11:39 am
Gov. Sanford's strange vanishing act -- he was thought to be hiking the Appalachian Trail alone, until he washed up in Argentina -- prompts me to wonder if he suffers from a condition known as dissociative fugue disorder. When a person is in this fugue state, he'll pick up and travel suddenly to some random point, not at all sure why he's doing it, and sometimes with little memory of who he is. For a fuller description of this unusual condition,
read this. Here's one interesting observation from the Merck Manual:
Dissociative fugue is often mistaken for malingering because both
conditions may give people an excuse to avoid their responsibilities
(as in an intolerable marriage), to avoid accountability for their
actions, or to reduce their exposure to a known hazard, such as a
battle. However, dissociative fugue, unlike malingering, occurs
spontaneously and is not faked.
If I were on Sanford's spin patrol, I'd certainly look into this.
24 Jun 2009 09:47 am
It would be a long walk from
South Carolina, but maybe the trail reaches into Argentina. Just a thought. Must ask
Bill Bryson.
