Jamie Malanowski

Sometimes writing for a weekly newsmagazine means being willing to ask a dumb question. Writing Time‘s cover story this week on the sexual trespasses of Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Dominique Strauss-Kahn and other powerful who did not happen to specifically get into trouble this week, Nancy Gibbs, one of the best to ever write in this format, […]

Haley Barbour is out; so is Donald Trump; so is Mike Huckabee. Newt Gingrich is in, but has almost immediately shot himself in the foot; looking fat and tired, muffing a question on Meet the Press, ineffectively trying to wave away a question about spending a half million dollars at Tiffany’s, taking punches from a […]

The US Marshals Service and the General Services Administration has begun the process of auctioning off some of the personal effects of Theodore Kaczynski, the infamous Unabomber. There are 58 lots in the auction, which ends June 2; the bidding can be followed (and entered) here. The lots include banal items like a hatchet and […]

It feels odd to say, but it may well turn out to be the case that the major literary figure of my generation (or the one right after me, depending how thinly you’d like to slice the generational lines) is Aaron Sorkin. No one seems to have done a better job of capturing the underpinnings […]

Donald Trump‘s presidential publicity stunt reached its natural and entirely predictable denouement yesterday when, boosted by press coverage generated by yet another pretend flirtation with a political campaign, his reality television show was renewed by a hit-starved NBC. For a good example of the news media’s maddeningly narcissistic role in our national political life, see […]

Yesterday was a beautiful day for predicting the end of the world. Apparently life as we know it will come to an abrupt halt a week from tomorrow. That, at least, is the opinion of Harold Camping, a preacher from Oakland, California. At about 6pm (PST, I’m assuming), he is predicting that about two percent […]

It has always shocked me that it took nearly four years after the Crash of 1929 for the famous Pecora hearings to take place. One cannot believe that all that time passed before the Senate held hearings that exposed the corrupt and short-sighted practices that ruined the economy. Well, here we are, coming up on […]

Apparently Newt Gingrich is going to announce today that he is forming a presidential exploratory committee (or its equivalent). Many people on the left scoff at the notion of Gingrich being able to mount a serious campaign, pointing to his embarrassed departure from the speakership in 1998, his messy private life, and the sickbed divorces. […]