Editorials and Opinions

Gary Tischler • March 16, 2016

Somebody somewhere talked about Jim Kimsey as Washington’s John Wayne. Washington sports king and Ted Leonsis, Kimsey’s good friend and partner at AOL, the internet access company which Kinsey helped found, said on his blog, “He reminded me of a local Clint Eastwood type of hero. He had that kind of charisma.”

Kimsey, who died at the age of 76 of melanoma, had all kinds of charisma, as a point of fact, which perhaps accounts for the fact that he could move like a light-footed dancer through board rooms and bars with equal grace, always adding to occasions and places by his presence and considerable charm.

If you want to think of Kimsey as embodied, you might want to think of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, blessed with being able to move in and inhabit the American dream.  Kimsey achieved much: He was blessed with intelligence, an ability to combine style with a certain Irish raffishness. He had a personable quality that was probably pretty hard to resist. He had the gift of gab, hard work and a little luck to go with it. He was generous with the rewards of his success and with the gift of his friendship. He made money — lots of it — and he made  friends — lots of them.

Everyone says and knows the same thing — that when all was said and then done, that when was introduced to a small tech company called Control Video, history shifted. Steve Case, a young marketer who had made his bones at Pizza and Kimsey got together and would eventually turn Control Video into America On Line, with Kimsey as founding chairman and chief executive, and Case taking on the role of executive vice president.

The rest as they say is history, with the company shooting off like a hot train.  Kimsey, it’s probably fair to say, provided leadership, connections, vision and optimism, if not digital know-how. Some years later, when the Georgetowner interviewed Kimsey in his office, we saw a computer in his office, but Kimsey, in typically off-handed humor said that he had never really learned to use it properly.

Kimsey’s shares in AOL brought him wealth of the kind that Gatsby dreamed about.  He left in 1995 and became an icon of charitable giving, power-brokering, a supporter of the arts and culture, especially the Kennedy Center and he lived large and moved about the city and its upper echelon environs, at parties, galas, receptions, the opera and board meetings with a certain swagger.   There was never anything boorish about that — his pictures was constantly in the glossies, the society pages, almost always in the company of spectacular women, including Queen Noor of Jordan, and other classy ladies.

He looked good doing what he did — whether it was Fight Night or the symphony.

Not bad for a kid who grew up in Washington in less than wealthy circumstances, got ejected from Gonzaga College High School, got re-instated, went to West Point, served as a legendary Ranger in the U.S. Army in Viet Nam, where he also supported an orphanage, got involved in the restaurant business in Washington and owned some famous spots, including Bullfeathers and the Exchange.

He is survived by three sons — Mark, of McLean, Michael of Prague and Raymond of Washington.

When people who knew him, intimately or in passing, learned of his death, it’s not difficult to imagine they felt the loss, as if a little bit of an original kind of energy had left the room, replaced  briefly by memories, whether truckloads or just as a moment. 

Jim Kimsey gave wealth and wealthy people, often the target of resentment these days, a good name — and enjoyed his wealth of family and friends for all the best reasons.

(There will be a funeral Mass at 10 a.m., Saturday, March 5, at the Cathedral of St. Matthew.)

Georgetowner •

On Sunday, we learned that former first lady Nancy Reagan had died of congestive heart failure in California at the age of 94. We learned this amid the cacophony of pronouncements from the men and the woman who would be president, several of whom invoked the name of Ronald Reagan. We learned this even as a movie company had been reenacting the 1963 funeral of President John F. Kennedy for the film “Jackie,” starring actress Natalie Portman as a first lady, who, like Nancy Reagan, seemed to embody glamour and class.

The news, the day, the time, summoned thoughts of a more recent presidential funeral, when the life of Nancy Reagan’s husband was celebrated at the National Cathedral in 2004. The iconography and the memories, 40 years apart, ran parallel: de Gaulle, the brothers Kennedy, John John saluting the coffin, the widow, the former presidents; then, later, the son of Reagan’s vice president (and a president himself), Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher and Mikhail Gorbachev. In California, where the president was laid to rest, Nancy Reagan laid her head on the coffin and kissed him goodbye.

Presidents and their families and extended families are never far from our minds, especially during a year when we will choose the next occupant of the highest office in the land. So the news of the passing of Nancy Reagan triggered a host of emotions, especially if you’ve lived in Washington, D.C., for any length of time. What we know mixed with what we remember: inauguration day, the Reagans waving to the crowds, jets overhead, hearing about the release of the hostages. Yes, Nancy was wearing red.

The more time that passes, one realizes that there are not only second acts in American life, but third and fourth acts — especially, it would seem, among actors and presidents. Not only was Ronald Reagan the first actor to become president, but Nancy was the first actress to become first lady. Now they were playing out their roles in public.

He was the jovial, magnetic, charismatic, eternally optimistic and sunny conservative. She was the adoring wife, the fashion plate, the small, thin queen, a very protective and often controversial first lady.

The thing people seem to remember most was how tightly and intensely held a marriage the Reagans had, the kind that few couples achieve. But Nancy had her own style — sometimes bordering on the ostentatious in times that were often difficult for lesser beings — and she brought dazzle and light to a time that her husband had decreed to be “morning in America.”

They lived in a drama: the assassination attempt, the overture to the Soviet Union, White House controversies, “Just Say No,” the AIDS epidemic, Iran-Contra and so on.

Maybe the bravest things she did came after. In Reagan’s fading and twilight years, she showed the depth of her devotion, caring for him as he moved through the stages of Alzheimer’s, which finally robbed him of the memories of his own large life and their life together. In so doing, she battled the GOP on stem cell research, which may yet help in the fight against the disease.

After more than 50 years by her husband’s side, in the end she was alone, diminished physically, but grown to a size that matters in the imagination, in history, in our collective memory.

Gary Tischler •

On Sunday, amid the cacophony of the latest heated pronouncements from the people who would be president,  many of them invoking the name of conservative icon Ronald Reagan, and even as a movie company had been re-enacting the 1963 funeral of President John F. Kennedy for the film, “Jackie,” starring actress Natalie Portman as the first lady who seemed to embody glamour and class, word came that former first lady Nancy Reagan, who was also known as a high fashion-conscious icon, had died at the age of 94 in California of heart congestion.

The news, the day, the time, brought on conflicting and intense feelings and memories, including thoughts of another presidential funeral not so long ago, when the life of Nancy Reagan’s husband, the hugely popular Republican president Ronald Reagan was celebrated at his state funeral at the National Cathedral in 2004.  The iconography and the memories, 40 years apart, ran parallel — De Gaulle, the brothers Kennedy, John John saluting the coffin, the widow Jackie in 1963, former presidents remembering, and later the son of Reagan’s vice president and a president himself, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and  the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sitting along. In California, where the president was laid to rest,  Nancy Reagan laid her head on the coffin and kissed him goodbye.

Presidents and their extended as well as actual families are never far from our minds, especially during an election year in which we choose our next president. So news of the passing of Nancy Reagan immediately invoked a host of memories and feelings, especially if you’ve lived in Washington, D.C., for any length of time.   What we know mixed with what we remember —inauguration day, the Reagans waving to the crowds, jets overhead, the news, triumphant and hopeful and that the Iranian hostages had been released this day. Yes, Nancy was wearing red.

The more time passes, among presidents and their loved ones, the more the image and the life changes, and you realize that there are not only second acts in American life, but third, and fourth acts, especially, it would seem, among actors. Ronald Reagan was not only the first actor to become president, but Nancy was also the first actress to become first lady, and those jobs became roles they played out daily in public.  He was the jovial, magnetic, charismatic, eternally optimistic and sunny conservative. She was the adoring wife, the fashion plate, the small, thin queen, a very protective and often controversial first lady. The two had risen from being second-tier actors to the state house in California and on to the U.S. presidency.

The thing that people seem to remember most was how tightly and intensely held a marriage the Reagans had, the kind that few couples achieve. But Nancy herself did have style — sometimes bordering on the ostentatious in times that were often difficult for lesser beings — and she brought dazzle and light to a time that her husband had decreed to be “morning in America.”

They lived in a drama: the assassination attempt, the overture to the Soviet Union, White House controversies, “Just say, ‘No,’ ” the AIDs epidemic, Iran-Contra and so on.

Maybe the bravest things she did came after.  It was when she showed the depth of her devotion, care for Reagan in his fading and twilight years as he moved through the stages of Alzheimer’s which finally robbed him of the memories of his own large life and their life together.  In so doing, she battled the GOP on stem cell research, which might help in the fight against Alzheimer’s, and was always near or at the side of the man with whom she spent more than 50 years of married life.

In the end, she was alone, diminished physically, but grown to a size that matters in the imagination, in history, in our collective memory.

Georgetowner •

Somebody somewhere talked about Jim Kimsey as Washington’s John Wayne. Washington sports king Ted Leonsis, Kimsey’s good friend and partner at AOL, the internet-access company that Kimsey helped found, said on his blog, “He reminded me of a local Clint Eastwood type of hero. He had that kind of charisma.”

Kimsey, who died at the age of 76 of melanoma, had all kinds of charisma, which perhaps accounts for the fact that he could move like a light-footed dancer through boardrooms and bars with equal grace. He seemed to embody the American Dream, in a way reminiscent of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby.

Blessed with intelligence, plus the ability to combine style with a certain Irish raffishness, Kimsey achieved much. He had a personable quality that was probably pretty hard to resist. He had the gift of gab, a taste for hard work and a dash of luck to go with it. He made money — lots of it — and he made friends — lots of them. Unlike many, he was as generous with his friendship as he was with the rewards of his success.

Everyone says and knows the same thing: when Kimsey was introduced to a small tech company called Control Video, history shifted. He got together with Steve Case, a young marketer who had made his bones at Pizza Hut, and the two eventually turned Control Video into America Online. Kimsey was founding chairman and chief executive and Case was executive vice president.

The company shot off like a hot train. Kimsey, it’s probably fair to say, provided leadership, connections, vision and optimism, if not digital know-how. Some years later, when the Georgetowner interviewed him in his office, we observed a computer, but Kimsey, with typically offhand humor, said that he’d never really learned to use it properly.

Kimsey’s shares in AOL made him as wealthy as Gatsby. He left in 1995, becoming an icon of charitable giving and power-brokering, a supporter of the arts and culture, especially the Kennedy Center. He lived large and moved about the city and its upper-echelon environs — parties, galas, receptions, the opera and board meetings — with a certain swagger. There was never anything boorish about that. His picture was constantly in the glossies, the society pages, almost always in the company of classy and spectacular women such as Queen Noor of Jordan.

He looked good doing what he did — whether it was Fight Night or the symphony. Not bad for a kid who grew up in Washington in less than wealthy circumstances, got ejected from Gonzaga College High School, got reinstated, went to West Point, served as a U.S. Army Ranger in Vietnam (where he also supported an orphanage) and got involved in the restaurant business in Washington, owning some famous spots, including Bullfeathers and the Exchange.

He is survived by three sons: Mark of McLean, Michael of Prague and Raymond of Washington.

When people who knew him, intimately or in passing, learned of his death, it’s not difficult to imagine that they felt as if a little bit of an original kind of energy had left the room, replaced briefly by memories, whether truckloads or moments.

Jim Kimsey gave wealth and wealthy people, often the target of resentment these days, a good name — and enjoyed his wealth of family and friends for all the best reasons.

Gary Tischler • March 10, 2016

In the end, it was not the end, and the end itself is not yet clearly in sight.

Super Tuesday, the large-scale presidential primary election brawls in both parties came and went, but the beat goes on to the point that the process itself is becoming the daily bread of our lives, the elephant in the living room, the Moby Dick whereby we have all become the crew of the Pequod.

Put the blame on Donald Trump.

After a volatile, hard-to-stomach debate in Houston last week and awesomely childish brawls among Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz leading up to Super Tuesday, Trump more or less lived up to expectations in the race for the Republican nomination, winning seven states — not only in the South, but also in the Northeast — and picking up delegates and votes across a swath of the body electorate.   

Almost everybody agrees that mogul-reality-show-host-celebrity Trump is clearly in command of the race, so much so that some members of the so-called Republican establishment — Mitt Romney and the frayed remnants of Jeb Bush supporters and donors most notably among them — are trying desperately to find a way to stop him.  Rubio, their chosen vehicle, although he won a late-night primary in Minnesota, fared badly, with results that one observer called “garbage-can on fire,” making a tight run in Virginia, but finishing third and second in all of the others.  Rubio’s contribution to the political dialogue included references to “small hands” and “stained pants,” which might make a good title for a country song, but not a source of inspiration. The schoolyard—sixth grade version—was taking over the campaign.

Ted Cruz, the assumed choice of Christian evangelists, managed to win his home state of Texas and neighboring Oklahoma plus north in Alaska, a state few people knew was having an election.  Still, Cruz is now making the valid claim that he has beaten Trump four times, and the less valid claim that he can stop Trump and beat Hillary Clinton in the general election.

With each debate and  with each primary election — from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina to Super Tuesday — the GOP version of the campaign has taken on a feverish quality in which we’re all running hot and cold, sweaty and dizzy.

If you watch the talk shows and the late night shows and the election campaigns result shows and the debates and read twitter feeds, you feel swamped, inundated, at sea on a leaky boat, distracted.   It’s a little like the most unreasonable version of young love — which easily flips into obsession.  Everyone’s a predictor and predicator, everybody’s got a passionately held opinion, everybody loves somebody, and more importantly, everybody hates somebody, the candidates, the Mexicans at the border, the Muslims in our midst, the tax collector, the police and the demonstrators.

For this, we can blame the presence of Donald Trump.

Imagine for a moment the political landscape if Trump — perhaps on a whim as before or because of a curiosity-ego-driven decision — had not decided to enter the fray or enter it in the way he did.

We might be discussing Jeb Bush’s vice-presidential choice: Carly? Marco? Or talking about the danger of Ted Cruz or when Chris Christie was going to have an impact.  We might talking at least part of the time about the Clinton-Sanders ruckus among the Democrats.   We probably wouldn’t be talking about a wall, about torture, about someone’s hair, and we might not have ever heard the word “p—-” uttered by a presidential candidate. Megyn Kelly might not have made the cover of Vanity Fair. Maybe we would be seriously talking about climate change, executive orders, a comprehensive immigration plan, the pope or the quality of daily life in our cities.  David Dukes might never seen the light of day again. Maybe the death of Justice Anthony Scalia might be historic instead of a piece in a political campaign strategy. Maybe we wouldn’t be dreaming feverish dreams in which we cannot trump Trump.

Instead, we have a three-ring circus about all this.  If you watch the debates or the result nights,it seems surreal — a world full of maps and voter blocks, and data drivel and strategists almost weeping over the failures of their favorites. Predictions are made by experts from every political arena and are instantly proven wrong, especially those made about Trump.

You can’t trump Trump.  The media—whom he’s treated with disdain, contempt or outright threatening hostility—can’t help but cover him slavishly, showering him with free publicity of the kind that everyone else has Super PACs for.   He cajoles—be nice to me—he threatens—if you’re not, you’re going to pay a price (this to the Speaker of the House of Representatives).

By now, everybody has identified the source of Trump’s appeal.  It is the anger of disaffected, working class whites, mostly men, and their resentments of foreigners, immigrants, the rich (but not Trump) and, yes indeed, political correctness.

At his rallies, they and he feel unchained to say whatever they want and trash interlopers in their presence. In a Rolling Stone story, there’s a big photograph of Trump against the backdrop of his audience at one of his rallies.  The expression is self-pleased, but it’s the audience that tells the story. Take Trump out of it, and you’re at a hockey game — almost all young-to-middle-aged, white men having a good time.

You can’t blame Trump for everything.   The anger has been there a long time — anger with government, politics and politicians, the settled way of doing things, anger with a culture in which the rich get very rich indeed, the poor get poorer and the working class stops working. The cultural matters — abortion, Obama,  race, crime, gay marriage — come with the territory.

That anger and the political dysfunction that went with it has been there a long time — and got going with Mitch McConnell, who vowed to block every Obama initiative, the back bencher yelling liar at the president, the government shut down. Trump is only a master stoker.

It’s hard in a climate like this to think of anything else.

But we should, and we can.

Think for a moment that life goes on, that joy is there, and so is tragedy that can wound us in a way that the better angels in us weep, and we come together.

Think of the death of Prince Williams County Police Officer Ashley Guindon who was killed on the first day of her job, one day after receiving her badge. In her twenties, she was an American exemplar of service and living and giving in life with her service in the military, her education, her ambition.  Think of the long line of police officers and community members alike mourning her. The chief of police said she accomplished “more in her 28 years than I think I could in 100.”  “Hold each other up,” he told officers and mourners.  Members of the community also gathered together in a vigil for the other victim of the shooting, Crystal Hamilton, who was shot by her husband. She died protecting her son. They held candles for her, also, and I think most of us, and Jesus, too, would have wept at this, but also honored those who were lost.

Amid all the political turmoil, these things happened in life and our lives, too.

Tonight, it’s Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Megyn Kelly and the circus-as-politics continues under the big top of our lives.

Robert Devaney • March 7, 2016

The death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia on Feb. 13 has shaken political Washington as it ponders what comes next for the Supreme Court—and the nation—just as it recounts its stories about Scalia and his colleagues and friends that worrying sense of continued lost civility between idealogical opponents we face today.

The most compelling story is that of the friendship between Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the long-serving justice whom she called one of her “best buddies” in her statement on Sunday, Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day.

Ginsburg wrote: “He was a jurist of captivating brilliance and wit, with a rare talent to make even the most sober judge laugh. The press referred to his ‘energetic fervor,’ ‘astringent intellect,’ ‘peppery prose,’ ‘acumen,’ and ‘affability,’ all apt descriptions. He was eminently quotable, his pungent opinions so clearly stated that his words never slipped from the reader’s grasp.

“Justice Scalia once described as the peak of his days on the bench an evening at the Opera Ball when he joined two Washington National Opera tenors at the piano for a medley of songs. He called it the famous Three Tenors performance. He was, indeed, a magnificent performer. It was my great good fortune to have known him as working colleague and treasured friend.”

It is curious to take note that “Scalia/Ginsburg,” an American comic opera by Derrick Wang made its debut last July at Lorin Maazel’s Castleton Festival in Virginia. Promoters stressed the one-act opera was about “law, music and the power of friendship in a divided world,” while adding, “Justice will be sung.”

In March 2015, Scalia himself was portrayed by Shakespearean actor Edward Gero in the Arena Stage production of “The Originalist.” Indeed, playing now at Arena is “The City of Conversation,” a drama centered around the failed nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. If not pleased with some of the rhetoric, Scalia would no doubt be pleased with the theatrics.

Scalia was born in 1936 in Trenton, N.J., and moved to Queen, N.Y., attending public school before entering Manhattan’s premier Jesuit Xavier High School, graduating first in his class and went to the nation’s capital, attending Georgetown University, America’s oldest Catholic and Jesuit institution of higher learning. He was a debater in its Philodemic Society, an actor in student plays and the valedictorian of the class of 1957. He went on to Harvard Law School and was later a law professor at the University of Virginia. President Ronald Reagan nominated Scalia for the Supreme Court, where he began his work on Sept. 26, 1986.

Washington became his town but he travelled the world, whether seen with his friend Ginsburg in India and just a few weeks ago in Singapore with a writing colleague. Even the manager at al Tiramisu restaurant, where Scalia was a frequent diner, had something to say about the 79-year-old judge.

“Scalia’s greatest strength, his steadfastness, was also his greatest weakness” was the headline for an opinion in the Washington Post by legal expert Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University.

Turley offered a telling summary of Scalia: “Like Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes, he was a ‘great dissenter’ who refused to compromise on his core beliefs. He was entirely comfortable being a dissent of one. And he was greatly discomfited by the idea of exchanging principle for some plurality of votes on a decision. . . .

“Ironically, Scalia’s passing comes at a time when the public is craving precisely the type of authenticity that he personified. The rejection of establishment candidates in both the Republican and Democratic races reflects this desire for leaders who are not beholden to others and unyielding in their principles. That was Nino Scalia. Love him or hate him, he was the genuine article. . . .

“Scalia clearly relished a debate and often seemed to court controversy. It was a tendency familiar for anyone who grew up in a large Italian family: If you really cared for others, you argued with passion. Fights around the table were a sign of love and respect. Perhaps it was this upbringing that made it so hard for Scalia to resist a good argument inside or outside the court. He sometimes spoke on issues involved in cases coming before him, which was ill-advised. He was the arguably first celebrity justice. . . .

“Scalia resisted the legal indeterminacy and intellectual dishonesty that he saw as a corruption of modern constitutional analysis. He believed that the law was not something that should be moved for convenience or popularity. Neither was he. He finished in the very same place he began in 1986. In the end, he is one of the few justices who can claim that he changed the Supreme Court more than the court changed him.”
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Gary Tischler •

It’s hard to say what Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice who passed away apparently in his sleep while staying at a resort ranch near Marfa, Texas, this past weekend would have thought of the reaction to his death. 

He might have been either dismayed by the political indignities wrought by the news of his death almost at the moment that the news spread across the country, just hours before a Saturday night GOP debate in South Carolina.  On the other hand, given that Scalia was noted for a healthy sense of humor, he might have been amused at the almost instantaneous eruption of partisan demands and arguments that arose as a perfect illustration of our current dysfunctional political and governmental processes.

The 2016 presidential election campaign—on both sides—rose up like a chomping, ravenous dragon, devouring the news of Scalia’s death as just more grist for the primary and election campaign. 

The reaction on the Republican side and the Democratic side of those wishing and wanting to be and thinking they can be president was a call to arms against each other. GOP contenders to a man agreed and, in fact, insisted that President Barack Obama could not, and therefore should not, and therefore must not nominate a candidate to replace Scalia, a staunch conservative on the often 5-4 court, now reduced to 4-4, and therefore more or less frozen court.

Prompted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky—who said the Senate would not accept, would block, or delay, delay, any attempt by the president to bring a nomination—all the remaining GOP presidential candidates insisted that the next president, and only the next president could do such a thing on pain of: well, nobody knows, perhaps sanctions, impeachments or calling him a liar from the back benches of congress.

This is a campaign thanks in large part to the almost daily piece of outrageousness provided by the GOP poll leader and entertainer Donald Trump, but not excluding such matters as the rise of Bernie Sanders as a challenger to the now-delayed coronation of Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side—which has swallowed up the news whole.

It is almost as if even the death of Scalia, which affects the campaign mightily, is only an ingredient, not the essence of the daily news which is now the standing headline of the election campaign and its various plots and counterplots, polls and pot of polls.

Were it not for Scalia’s death, we might not be talking about or writing about anything else at all except how Hillary Clinton, her much diminished husband standing at her side, is trying to fend off the political advances of a smallish man from Vermont who suddenly finds himself the leader of a children’s crusade in which much is promised — and very little is likely to be given and forgiven.  We might only have been talking about the GOP primary debate in South Carolina, which, by any standards, once the joint obeisance was given to never, ever letting Obama nominate a justice, which is his responsibility and obligation—was a wrecking ball that Miley Cyrus might have admired.

Had it not been for Scalia’s life, and long tenure on the court which made him a giant in the land, a legal scholar of note, a champion of right wing opposition to gay marriage, Obama Care, abortion and every conservative shibboleth in the land, we might still be talking about who was to blame for 9/11, a subject of intense argument and shouting at the South Carolina debate.

As it was, Scalia deserved a little respect and honor, to say the least, even if you opposed just about every stand he took and vote he made, as some in Washington of the liberal sort probably did.

He was an outsized man, the first American of Italian descent on the court, who insisted that he was not interested in the intent of the framers of the law but had a passion for the meaning of the law itself and how it should be processed.  He loved opera, a passion he shared with his ideological opposite on the bench, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and which had made them friends without changing an iota of their opinions or inclinations.   He was the subject of a play called “The Originalist” and was portrayed by actor Edward Gero at Arena Stage, a performance which showed his stubbornness, humanity and a certain strongly held irascibility.

Still, most of the news was not so much about the obituary, as the causes and effect which resulted in a lot of grandstanding, especially on the part of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who seemed to think they could demand loyalty oaths on this matter, that they as individuals, could force the selection of someone just like Scalia to the court.  They sounded, at best, like the guys in the poker game who want to keep playing until they win their money back.  McConnell pitched in, saying that the people should vote on the matter, but, having already done so, they could do no more.

At the debate, which had fewer participants, but more arguments and fights, the newly relevant John Kasich tried to calm down the combat among Trump, Jeb Bush, Cruz and Rubio.  Rubio was Rubio—he understood his audience, better than most and played to it.  Just as he had tried to court the evangelists in Iowa by practically introducing himself as a relative and certainly close friend of Jesus, he now became a Bush fan in South Carolina in an audience strong with Bush supporters. “I thank God every morning when I wake up that George W. Bush was president on 9/11,” he said, then blamed President Bill Clinton for 9/11.  Trump, on the other hand, blamed George W. Bush for it.  Personally, I think the guys that flew the planes did it, but I am, like Mr. Rubio, only your humble servant.  

The gang of six, if you count Ben Carson, were remarkable for their combativeness in front of an audience that booed them every time they fought.   And yet, Trump, who was the most combative of them all, was never attacked by anyone except Bush, who took remarks made by Trump about his brother, his mother and himself, personally.

And so it goes. Pope Francis visited Mexico, a story that got five seconds on the nightly news.  It snowed again.  The Grammy Awards Show was last night. What’s her name won the main award, but  Lady Gaga channeled David Bowie and Kendrick Lamar reminded anybody that was watching that there is another great division in the land with an electric rap performance. Leonardo Di Caprio won best actor at the British Oscars for the relevant, the revenant, or the revered, not sure which.  There was no lottery winner this week, but there are primary elections coming up in South Carolina (this Saturday) and Nevada — and March 1 is Super Tuesday.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. But of course, we already are.