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The gang that couldn't shoot straight

December 30, 2018

In one of the interactive exhibits at Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home in Virginia, you’re asked to flip open the doors of his “cabinet,” each of which contains a portrait of its members — Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox and Attorney General Edmund Randolph. As I opened the drawers, I couldn’t help but think of how one 19th century journalist crystallized America as “a nation created by geniuses to be run by idiots.”

Charles Wilson Peale’s “Col. George Washington” (1772), oil on canvas. It’s on loan to Mount Vernon from Washington and Lee University.

In George (Washington) we trust

December 26, 2018

Standing in George Washington’s study at Mount Vernon, his Virginia estate, I was unexpectedly overcome by emotion. It was there that he would dress at 4:30 in the morning so as not to disturb wife Martha upstairs, perhaps getting down to the business of running his farm at a small desk with its fan chair. (You pedaled it and a fan moved back and forth overhead, the technology of the day.) In the corner stood a handsome, polished secretary.

Home Secretary Theresa May with Prime Minister David Cameron in 2010. It’s her show now. Courtesy UK Home Office.

Saving face while losing themselves?

December 18, 2018

It was no minor metaphor when British Prime Minister Theresa May’s car door stuck as she strove to exit recently to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who waited with characteristic stoicism on the red carpet for yet another go-round in May’s futile attempt to negotiate a better Brexit deal. Brexit has been the ultimate stuck car door for May and the British people, a frustrating rigmarole with no satisfactory conclusion in sight.

“The Rainbow Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I” (1600-02), oil on canvas, Hatfield House.

Queen to pawn in a game of love and death

December 12, 2018

The new movie “Mary, Queen of Scots” — which I am reluctant to see for reasons that will become clear — belongs to what I like to call the Sylvia Plath school of storytelling. That is, if your telling the story of the suicidal poet, the husband will always be the villain. (That he had two wives who killed themselves in exactly the same way doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in him as a spouse. You know what they say. Once is a tragedy. Twice is an unsettling coincidence.)

The quiet man

December 5, 2018

The passing of President George H.W. Bush – whom the nation mourned officially Wednesday – was a reminder of all that we have lost and that still remains.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greets Secretary of Defense James Mattis earlier this year in Washington D.C. The Senate seems to have had it up to its bipartisan ears with the Trump Administration’s defense of MbS, whom the CIA has implicate… — Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman greets Secretary of Defense James Mattis earlier this year in Washington D.C. The Senate seems to have had it up to its bipartisan ears with the Trump Administration’s defense of MbS, whom the CIA has implicated in the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Photograph by Navy Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kathryn E. Holm.

Business as usual for Trump?

November 28, 2018

For someone who’s supposed to be such a brilliant businessman, President Donald J. Trump seems to have no understanding about how business really works.