Sam Rosenfeld

RUNNING MAN. Back in my misspent youth, which was so long ago that track and field still mattered to well over 200 American sports fans, Jim Ryun was a bona fide star. In 1966, when he was 19, he smashed the world-record in both the mile and the half-mile, and he was named Sports Illustrated‘s […]

DON’T TAKE IT FROM ME. My latest piece for New York Times Select (sorry, subscription req�d.) looks at the geography of the coming electoral storm of 2006. Some key graphs on the House side of the equation: Blizzard is the most applicable term for the brewing cataclysm. Why? Because if Mother Nature sweeps a new […]

KNOCK IT OFF, FELLAS. Senator Barack Obama had better do a little more reading and a little less presidential-positioning before going on Meet the Press again. It’s understandably tempting to make a name for oneself by mocking Democrats. It’s also a surefire way to gain plaudits from everyone from Tim Russert to Sean Hannity. But […]

KIM JONG IL AND DAVID KUO. Unable to match Brother Ezra‘s heartfelt post about David Kuo and the compassion agenda, I offer readers a rueful laugh in the form of the title of a piece by Jason T. Christy of The Church Report, a right-wing political publication dressed in a cassock: “David Kuo: An Addition […]

THE TILLMAN FAMILY IS NOT GOING AWAY. If there’s an iconic tale of the betrayal of the national unity and resolve in the wake of the 9/11 atrocities, it’s what happened to Pat Tillman when he left the Arizona Cardinals and went off to war. His death occasioned one of the very first grotesque and […]

POLL BAN. Thirty years ago, when I was doing field organizing for Mo Udall‘s presidential campaign, I made it a practice about three weeks out from every primary to establish a series of fines in my storefronts. Anyone bringing in a newspaper was assessed a quarter, and any mention at all of poll results cost […]

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON IS CONCERNED. As I am old, and therefore new to life on the Internets, I haven’t had a chance to catalogue personally all the fauna contained therein, but, I must say, that this fellow here strikes me as quite likely the silliest gibbering gibbon in the high forest. This isn’t a column. […]

CONSPIRACY. Ezra had an interesting post over at his place the other day about the problematic relationship between Serious People and what they dismiss as conspiracy theories. He then thanks someone for passing along the details of the MK-Ultra fiasco. (By the way, according to recent reports, everything old is new again.) It’s all a […]

CONSPICUOUSLY ABSENT. Not for nothing, Senator Obama, but you should probably run for cover. Joe Klein may be about to subject you to one of his big old man-crushes. This can’t be easy for Joe. After all, the last one of these he had was on that smiling hunk o’ red-hot centrism from the Ozarks […]

CHARACTER COUNTS. Posted without comment. You may now release the hounds. –Charles P. Pierce