Reagan didn't socialize with the press. He spent his evenings with Nancy, watching TV with dinner trays. But he knew that to transcend, you can't condescend.
The C.E.O. of Google doesn't look like a Dick Cheney World Domination sort whom we should worry about as Google ogles our houses, our oceans, our foibles, our movements and our tastes.
The Obamas, especially Michelle, have radiated the sense that Americans do not appreciate what they sacrifice by living in a gilded cage. They've forgotten Rule No. 1 of politics: No one sheds tears for anyone lucky enough to live at the White House.
Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you're not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements.
As blue chips turn into penny stocks, Wall Street seems less like a symbol of America's macho capitalism and more like that famous Jane Austen character Mrs. Bennet, a flibbertigibbet always anxious about getting richer and her 'poor nerves.'
If Americans are worried about money in politics, there is no larger concern than the Clintons, who are cosseted in a world where rich people endlessly scratch the backs of rich people.
If there's one thing white men have never had a problem with in this clubby, white marble enclave of Washington, it's getting pulled up the ladder by other men.
It's passing strange that Obama, carried to a second term by women, blacks and Latinos, chooses to give away the plumiest Cabinet and White House jobs to white dudes.
The Clintons want to do big worthy things, but they also want to squeeze money from rich people wherever they live on planet Earth, insatiably gobbling up cash for politics and charity and themselves from the same incestuous swirl.
The wound-tight, travel-light Obama has a distaste for the adversarial and the random. But if you stick too rigidly to a 'No Drama' rule in the White House, you risk keeping reality at bay. Presidencies are always about crisis management.
When I started as a White House correspondent, there was a lot of criticism from guys saying, 'She focuses too much on the person but not enough on policy.' I never understood that argument at all. I just didn't agree with the premise.
