"VERY PROUD OF THE PERSON HE BELIEVES HIMSELF TO BE." On the Daily Show on Wednesday, Jon Stewart interviewed Robert Draper , the author of Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush . In the course of the interview, Stewart gave what may be the most concise, insightful description of George W. Bush , the man, that has been offered in the last eight years: "After reading this book, I get the sense of a man who is very proud of the person he believes himself to be, but he is in fact the opposite of that person." Hard to say it better than that. As I was watching the president last night, I couldn't help but ask myself: what, as a writer, am I going to do when he's gone? Between a book, a couple of hundred columns, and innumerable blog posts, I'd estimate that I've written somewhere between a quarter million and a half million words about him over the last five years. When his presidency started, I was a graduate student intending to spend my days as an academic, penning articles on...

What must have gone through Larry Craig’s mind that day in June, when he looked down to the bottom of the wall separating his stall from the next, expecting to see a reciprocation of his signaled desire, and instead saw that policeman’s badge? “I can get out of this,” he may have said to himself. Or perhaps, “So this is where it ends, finally.” Of course, we can’t say for sure that Craig was in that restroom hoping to get some action, or if he was the victim of one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of western civilization. But whatever lies in the recesses of Craig’s heart, he probably didn’t expect the ferocious speed with which his Republican colleagues would toss him off, shaking frantically to rid themselves of the scent of what many of them no doubt regard as perversion. In a matter of days, a career of decades came to an abrupt end as millions learned of Craig’s intimate secrets both shocking and banal, and a tidal wave of snickers, contempt, and ridicule...