Back in the fog of war in Vietnam, LBJ super suckup Jack Valenti let the world know how he felt.

(Karl Rove & Co. knock off Paul Simon's "Slip Slidin' Away")

With the candidates in the bag, and no hope of drama, the Democratic and Republican conventions can be fairly judged only as extended advertisements for the parties that staged them.

Good sizzle can always sell a lousy steak.

A bipartisan dialogue in this election year? In New York City? During the Republican convention?! We always knew those folks at The New School were a little nutty.

A once-sleepy population of artists and their fans has emerged as a loud and active proponent of political change.

OK, I tried to watch the Republican convention on TV--I really did--but the early rounds of the US Open were playing seductively on ESPN.

Three years after 9/11.

TIM RUSSERT: But, Senator, when you testified before the Senate, you talked about some of the hearings you had observed at the Winter Soldiers meeting, and you said that peop

Labor Day has never been a very inspiring holiday, established as it was by late-nineteenth-century union bosses as a homegrown alternative to May Day, which was viewed as having uncomfortably le