For lots of reasons, good and bad, poetry is not thought of as a popular medium. This is true despite so many great, plain-spoken American poets writing right now–Tony Hoagland, Matthew Dickman, and Louise Gluck, to name just three. But the Presidential Inauguration is still a time when the nation reflects on poetry. This time [...]

One more thought that came from watching Obama at the Lincoln Memorial concert yesterday: A year ago, I was at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to see Obama speak. He was about to take the pulpit at Martin Luther King Jr’s old church, on the day before King’s birthday, and the whole experience seemed just [...]

Joe is not the only Biden given to a slip of the tongue here and there: The wife of Vice President-elect Joe Biden let it slip to Oprah Winfrey Monday that her husband had a pick of two jobs in the Obama administration. Jill Biden said President-elect Barack Obama gave Biden the choice of being [...]

Reading this NYT story about Obama’s relationship with John McCain post-election, it strikes me that Obama–alone among virtually every politician I can think of–does not appear to hold grudges. The ability to forgive and forget is probably a necessary character trait if you’re going to try to follow through on promises to end partisanship. But [...]

President Bush has commuted the sentences of the two U.S. Border Patrol agents who were convicted over the shooting of a Mexican drug dealer. Over the last couple years, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean have became martyred folk heroes on conservative talk radio, for seal-the-borders activists and for CNN’s Lou Dobbs. Bush met the folk [...]

Afghanistan’s foreign minister is apparently upset because Hillary Clinton called his country a “Narco State” in her testimony last week. He says: “But if somebody believes that our government, the government of President (Hamid) Karzai is involved as a government entity in the production of drugs, this is absolutely wrong.” That may, or may not, [...]

Cryptome.org has obtained a federal threat assessment for inauguration week in Washington, D.C., a document that is marked unclassified and meant for area law enforcement officials. Much of the news is good. As of January 7, when the document was released, there were “no credible reports indicating a threat to the inauguration from international terrorists,” [...]

In the thousands they came Saturday, alone or as families, bundled against the arctic cold, jumping, waving, and screaming out as the silver train with the blue caboose whizzed by. In their hands they held posters, magazine covers, cameras, flags and hand-made signs. “Fired Up,” said one. “We Did It,” went another. “Happy Birthday Michelle,” [...]

Looking ahead to the stimulus, here’s a profile for your weekend reading pleasure of Congress’s infrastructure guru. The House dropped its version yesterday and the Senate is expected to have theirs ready by next week. Though similar, the two are not identical and will have to be reconciled in the coming weeks. Barring complications, the [...]