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SENIOR EDITOR
Michael Crowley
Michael Crowley is senior editor at The New Republic. He joined TNR in 2000 after working for The Boston Globe and The Boston Phoenix. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, GQ, Slate, and other publications. He is also a contributing editor for Readers Digest and a frequent political commentator on MSNBC. He is a 1994 graduate of Yale University and lives in Washington, D.C.
Post date 10 22, 07
When Fred Thompson finally joined the presidential field last month, Newsweek greeted him with a cover story that bored into the essential question about the man: Is he too lazy to win? The answer seems to be yes, and, for evidence, the article cited Thompson's reluctance at the Minnesota State Fair to meet the sculptor of the Butter Princess, a 90-pound female bust carved from pure butter. He apparently wanted a strawberry milkshake instead and had to be coaxed into greeting the dairy sculptor. It was, Newsweek decreed, "a small but telling moment," a reminder of doubts about Thompson's willingness "to work hard enough" to become president. |
Post date 09 10, 07
What made Ted Stevens such a famously bitter and vindictive man? Some people will tell you that the defining moment in the life of the powerful Alaska Republican senator, currently the target of a federal bribery investigation that threatens to end his storied career in disgrace, occurred at the end of an airport runway in 1978. In early December, Stevens was flying in a friend's small private plane from Juneau to Anchorage. The descending plane was just a few feet above the runway when it was caught by a sudden gust of wind that slammed it into the ground. Stevens somehow survived the crash. But five others aboard, including the senator's beloved wife, Anne, did not. |
Post date 10 08, 07
A few weeks ago, Barack Obama added a new coda to his stump speech. In the telling, versions of which I heard about six times earlier this month, Obama wakes up at the crack of dawn. His staff reminds him that, for reasons he can't remember, he has promised to visit a supporter in the tiny town of Greenwood, South Carolina, more than an hour's drive from where he has overnighted. Departure time: six a.m. He opens the morning's paper to find "a bad story" about himself. Tired and cranky, he steps out into a downpour, and his umbrella blows inside out. On the interminable drive, "my staff's not talking to me because they know I'm in a bad mood." Obama arrives at a small building to find a mere 20 supporters. "And they don't look too happy to be there, either." The mood shifts, however, when an elderly woman in the back strikes up a call-and-response cheer. "Fire it up!" she shouts. "Ready to go!" answers the group. Obama describes being baffled at first. But then, he says, "I'm startin' to feel fired up! I'm feeling ready to go!" At big rallies, the recitation of the anecdote culminates with Obama himself leading a spirited call and response with his crowd. "Fire it up!" "Ready to go!" "Fire it up!" "Ready to go!" |
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