Jamie Malanowski

Anyone who spends any time watching cable television is bound to develop a fairly depressed view of the American character. Vain housewives, self-absorbed designers, responsibility-denying restauranteurs, narcissistic chefs, fascistic dance teachers, scheming survivors, snide judges–altogether we see a whining, insecure, blame-shifting, easily-insulted mass of humanity at its shabbiest. Throw in the political channels, where we […]

Shane Smith is the 42 year-old (b. 1970) co-founder and CEO of Vice, the international media company. In March, he also began serving as one of the three lead correspondents of Vice, the new HBO news magazine series, a show that aims, as he says, “to be more provocative, more aggrressive and more daring than […]

Ed Koch died last Friday at the age of 88. In retirement, he became a beloved figure, a loud, opinionated uncle, unhip in his easy gracelessness, comfortable in his blotchy skin. But in his prime, he was a large figure, with a great intellect and enormous confidence, vain, nasty, ebullient, fun. One of his greatest […]

As my friend James Rosen of Fox News has reported at Greta Van Susteren ‘s blog, in the aftermath of the Newtown mass murder, NRA membership actually increased. “A source at the NRA tells Fox News, based on his access to an internal memo prepared by the organization’s membership division, that since the Newtown massacre, […]

Over the last twenty years or so, you could talk with people about great political books, like Game Change or what have you, and then somebody would remember that Richard Ben Cramer had written What It Takes, and that ended the conversation. None was better, and none would ever be better. Working on a big […]

This year that is fast disappearing will not be remembered in these quarters with very much warmth. It was a fairly hideous, sickening year, the year that I felt I got old. But like all good things, the bad ones come to an end as well, and thanks to some much appreciated end of the […]

Like a political Punxatawny Phil seeing his shadow, George Will has seen the president re-elected, Democrats returned to their majority in the Senate and Republicans to theirs in the House, and proclaimed four more years of winter, or at least gridlock. “A nation vocally disgusted with the status quo has reinforced it by ratifying existing […]

Thank goodness this crap campaign is over. It turned out to be a bit of nail-biter, but it should never had been so close. Obama should have walloped Romney, who was a man with no rational to his candidacy other than that he wasn’t the incumbent. In some other era this might have been enough, […]

Why isn’t President Obama running harder against Congress? The president was effective in Tuesday’s debate, but he won only narrowly, even though Mitt Romney revealed an ugly side of himself that fits all the stereotypes about bullying bosses. Everything about the way he handled himself underscored the old “I love firing people” image. When he […]