The New Republic

Love affairs between the press corps and flacks are highly unusual, but they do happen. And, for years, Mike McCurry has been deeply involved in one. In January 1995, when Bill Clinton appointed the former State Department spokesman to press secretary, one of the White House's most high-profile (and high-pressure) positions, The Washington Post celebrated the arrival of "a jolly fellow" who had won "high marks from ... the media." The New York Times looked forward to the "equanimity and wit" that McCurry would bring to the READ MORE >>

Love affairs between the press corps and flacks are highly unusual, but they do happen. And, for years, Mike McCurry has been deeply involved in one. In January 1995, when Bill Clinton appointed the former State Department spokesman to press secretary, one of the White House's most high-profile (and high-pressure) positions, The Washington Post celebrated the arrival of "a jolly fellow" who had won "high marks from…the media." The New York Times looked forward to the "equanimity and wit" that McCurry would bring to the White House briefing room. READ MORE >>

The French love political dramas, but lately the plots have all looked suspiciously similar. The basic trajectory goes something like this: France is contentedly savoring its role as the birthplace of continental democracy and high culture. The country even modernizes, just a little, to keep pace with the new global economy and to compete with its ambitious EU partners. Unemployment and a burgeoning Muslim population complicate things, but the reliable social welfare system is there to reassure. But then, the inciting incident: A renegade politician or party attempts to reform France. READ MORE >>

Nature, in its limited wisdom, gave us four seasons. The New York Times and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have added a fifth: Oscar season--the time of year when movie studios advertise their most "important" films, when over 6,000 members ponder whom or what to grant Academy honors, and when millions of Times readers slog through tens of thousands of words of Oscar news. The forecast: parties and celebrities with a chance of irrelevant gossip. READ MORE >>

The public editor's office of The New York Times has been busy this year. Byron Calame, the second journalist after Daniel Okrent to fill the post, has so far been called to editorialize on two particularly controversial Times pieces: James Risen and Eric Lichtblau's report on NSA wiretapping and Kurt Eichenwald's article on a teenager involved in child pornography on the Web. (Both first appeared in December 2005.) Late last month, Calame interrogated the managing editor in charge of the "space budget"--that is, divvying up column inches. READ MORE >>

"I have been hired, temporarily, to write about the news," NPR contributor Sarah Vowell announced during her first stint last July as a guest columnist for The New York Times. Her six attempts evidently pleased her employers at the editorial page because now she is back, again temporarily, to write about the news. So far this month we have been treated to her take on the president's State of the Union speech (she is displeased) and on torture (she is confused). Along the way the following bits of coruscating wisdom have emerged: The electoral victories of Hamas in Palestine and George W. READ MORE >>

When Harold Pinter, one of Great Britain's most distinguished playwrights, accepted his 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature last week, he unleashed a biting critique of the United States and its foreign policy. It was hardly the first time a Nobel Laureate had delivered a politically charged speech. The Nobel Lecture, the annual address given by the winner of the literary prize, has over the years touched on political traumas ranging from the Korean War to the membership rules of the United Nations. READ MORE >>

In the spring of 2003, as the Iraq war got underway, I spent many hours learning about violence in a creaky lecture hall at the Sorbonne. It was a sensitive time to be an American in Paris. "La guerre" had made the city's formerly convivial atmosphere heavy and indignant, and I expected my new class-- "Shattered Texts," a literature course about the effects of destruction on people and cultures--to be mired in contemporary despair and maybe even hostility. To my surprise, the news of the day was of little READ MORE >>

In the spring of 2003, as the Iraq war got underway, I spent many hours learning about violence in a creaky lecture hall at the Sorbonne. It was a sensitive time to be an American in Paris. "La guerre" had made the city's formerly convivial atmosphere heavy and indignant, and I expected my new class--"Shattered Texts," a literature course about the effects of destruction on people and cultures--to be mired in contemporary despair and maybe even hostility. To my surprise, the news of the day was of little analogical interest to my professor. READ MORE >>

When rioting broke out two weeks ago in Clichy-sous-Bois, an impoverished Parisian suburb with a largely Arab and African population, France turned as usual to its triumvirate of top government officials: President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. Chirac, still chastened by last summer's defeat of the EU constitution, provided little solace. READ MORE >>