The Biographer's Problem Is That He Never

Now Scarcely A Week Goes By Without A News Story About The Cops Swooping Down On Some Adolescent Prowler Who Is As Skilled At Breaking Into Computer Systems As Defense Contractors Are At Breaking Into The Federal Budget.

Few Expected Very Much Of Franklin Roosevelt On Inauguration Day In 1933. Like Barack Obama Seventy-six Years Later, He Was Succeeding A Failed Republican President, And Americans Had Voted For Change. What That Change Might Be Roosevelt Never Clearly Said, Probably Because He Himself Didn't Know.

There Is No Business Like Show Business, Irving Berlin Once Proclaimed, And Thirty Years Ago He May Have Been Right, But Not Anymore. Nowadays Almost Every Business Is Like Show Business, Including Politics, Which Has Become More Like Show Business Than Show Business Is.

The Worst Thing About Being A Tourist Is Having Other Tourists Recognize You As A Tourist.

Voters Inclined To Loathe And Fear Elite Ivy League Schools Rarely Make Fine Distinctions Between Yale And Harvard. All They Know Is That Both Are Full Of Rich, Fancy, Stuck-up And Possibly Dangerous Intellectuals Who Never Sit Down To Supper In Their Undershirt No Matter How Hot The Weather Gets.