Eat what's on your plate

graffiti in Miami

Forty democratic senators were gathered for a lunch in March just off the Senate floor. I was there as a guest speaker. Joe Biden was telling a story, a story about the president. ''I was in the Oval Office a few months after we swept into Baghdad,'' he began, ''and I was telling the president of my many concerns'' -- concerns about growing problems winning the peace, the explosive mix of Shiite and Sunni, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army and problems securing the oil fields. Bush, Biden recalled, just looked at him, unflappably sure that the United States was on the right course and that all was well. '''Mr. President,' I finally said, 'How can you be so sure when you know you don't know the facts?'''

Biden said that Bush stood up and put his hand on the senator's shoulder. ''My instincts,'' he said. ''My instincts.''

Biden paused and shook his head, recalling it all as the room grew quiet. ''I said, 'Mr. President, your instincts aren't good enough!'''

What Ari Fleischer and Scott McLellan wake up to at the 4 am nighsweat time


1. For the second time in five years, I have booked a flight departing at 6 am, having thought I was booking a flight departing at 6 pm. Perhaps a reason I have only booked three flights in the last five years. Fuck me running.

2. Here is the person behind the series, "The Wire." Am I suggesting that this is worth minutes of your life? I am. Do I know you? Not in the Biblical sense, no, but I think he has things to say that you should hear.







3. Cant Stop Wont Stop
Out Stealing Horses
God's Pocket
I am not Jackson Pollock


What are the books on which the cup of coffee precariously sits?





4.
"It is also something close to a masterpiece, a work of extreme — I am tempted to say evil — genius . . . It may seem strange that I am praising a work of such unremitting savagery. I confess that I’m a little startled myself, but it’s been a long time since a movie gave me nightmares."


What NY Times Critic A.O. Scott, with whom my friend Scott wants to be entombed, says about Johnny Depp's new joint, Sweeney Todd?