I Was In A Bad Mood When

Journalism Has A Special, Hallowed Place For Stories Of Its Practitioners' Persecution.

As You May Recall, Truman Was Extremely Unpopular When He Finally Left Washington In 1953, Thanks Largely To The Korean War. Today, However, He Is Thought To Have Been A Solidly Good President, A 'near Great' Even, In The Terminology Of Those Surveys Of Historians They Do Every Now And Then.

Conservatives May Believe That Impoverished Borrowers Destroyed Wall Street. But We Liberals Will Not Fool Ourselves That Stupid Bankers Sank Conservatism For Good.

There Are Few Things In Politics More Annoying Than The Right's Utter Conviction That It Owns The Patent On The Word 'freedom' That When Its Leaders Stand Up For The Rights Of Banks To Be Unregulated Or Capital Gains To Be Untaxed, That It Is Actually And Obviously Standing Up For Human Liberty, The Noblest Cause Of Them All.

This Aesthetic Quality, Then, Is What Politics Is All About. It's Authenticity That Separates Winners From Losers, Good Politics From Bad, And He-man Leader-types From Consultant-directed Puppet-boys.