Diary
Last week I was reminded again of the sage observations that real life generates stories that no fiction writer could ever imagine. Who would have thought that the prosecutor who went after prostitution rings would fall with lightening speed precisely because he was involved with the kind of ring in his previous role as attorney general of New York? To his credit he stepped down swiftly after his sky-high hypocrisy rendered him politically impotent. What made this sex scandal different the Lewinsky affair or senator Craig’s airport arrest was that from beginning to end it only took 48 hours. Spitzer in my mind was even more reckless than Clinton. Clinton only jeopardized being an effective president while the Republicans were trying to use Lewinsky affair to throw people out of office. Clinton stayed and continued to be a high popular elder statesman until he momentarily became the bulldog for his wife’s pre-presidential bid. But Spitzer threw-away his entire political career that might have led to the presidency for 22-year old hooker. Unlike many other politicians, he already had a beautiful wife. Why? Why are politicians often so reckless? N. R. Kleinfield of the NY Times provides some answers.The Fall of Eliot Spitzer
Diary
It is a leap year again. I barely noticed it until I read this fascinating article. WHEN Frederic, the hero of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance,” learns that his Feb. 29 birthday means that he is not 21 years old but 5, he figures he’ll have to serve out his apprenticeship to the Pirate King for 60 more years, and swears to the love of his life that he will return in his 80s and marry her. Such are the tales that have always been told about today’s date. But now we’re in the 21st century, and time is measured according to oscillations of vaporized atoms of cesium-133. Why do we still need something as oddly quaint as leap year?Stealing 11 days from history
A Great Leap Forward By CHRIS TURNEY
Diary
By PEGGY NOONAN (WSJ)Can Mrs. Clinton Lose?
If Hillary Clinton loses, does she know how to lose? What will that be, if she loses? Will she just say, “I concede” and go on vacation at a friend’s house on an island, and then go back to the Senate and wait? Is it possible she could be so normal? Politicians lose battles, it’s part of what they do, win and lose. But she does not know how to lose. Can she lose with grace? But she does grace the way George W. Bush does nuance.She often talks about how tough she is. She has fought “the Republican attack machine” that has tried to “stop” her, “end” her, and she knows “how to fight them.” She is preoccupied to an unusual degree with toughness. A man so preoccupied would seem weak. But a woman obsessed with how tough she is just may be lethal.
Diary
This is the second story I read today about the primary that is funny. Confessions of a Young Hillary Supporter
By Alex Joseph in Slate
I’m a young male Democrat, and I support ... Hillary Clinton. I may be the loneliest man at Georgetown University, where I’m practically a social pariah. Supporting Hillary on a college campus this year is like being a Yankees fan at a Red Sox game, a Barry Manilow lover at a Radiohead concert. At Georgetown, the Obama supporters—devotees? cultists?—are everywhere. He’s the best thing to happen to college since campuses went co-ed. Red, white, and blue O’s line the windows of dorm rooms. It won’t take long for someone to invent a drinking game where you count the words change and hope in the senator’s stirring stump speech. (That would be 16 shots of headache, if his speech after the South Carolina primary was any indication.)
Diary
As an Obama supporter, I was disappointed to read that the NY Times endorsed Hillary Clinton. Now one of editorial writers has gone to an Obama rally in California and is preparing himself for the defeat of Hillary. EDITORIAL OBSERVER By ANDREW ROSENTHAL Los Angeles Forty-eight hours before the closest thing America has ever had to a national primary, four extraordinary women put on the best campaign rally I’ve seen in 20 years of covering presidential politics. The pitch-perfect event in U.C.L.A.‘s basketball arena started like every other Barack Obama event—chants of “yes we can” and signs pitching the power of hope. Mr. Obama campaigned on the East Coast Sunday, but by the time this rally ended, Michelle Obama, Caroline Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey and Maria Shriver had crystallized the challenge Senator Hillary Clinton will face if she wins the Democratic nomination. She will have to figure out how to preserve the energy and excitement that Mr. Obama has stirred in his supporters, especially in once-alienated young voters.The New York Times Editorial Board for the first time has second thoughts
Michelle, Maria, Caroline and Oprah on the Hustings in California
Diary
I did not realize just how deeply families across the country are divided over who should be the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. Fortunately the air will clear within a few weeks. In Democratic Families, Politics Makes for Estranged Bedfellows By JODI KANTORThere is static above the dinner table many Democratic families
Maria Shriver woke up Sunday morning and decided to surprise the audience at a rally for Senator Barack Obama in Los Angeles, materializing alongside Oprah Winfrey and telling the crowd she was there because she sought “an America that’s about unity.” But not the family kind. Ms. Shriver is a member of the Kennedy clan, and in the past week, her relatives have split over the Democratic race, publicizing their preferences on opinion pages and at campaign events.
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