There was a time, before social media and cell phones, when a scandal took hours or even days to break publicly, and when a politician’s fortunes were perhaps not decided within seconds of being captured in a compromising photograph. That was the case in 1987, when Gary Hart, a rising Democratic star, seemed all but poised to sail easily to his party’s nomination to face Ronald Reagan’s Republican successor

A history lesson from a history teacher in Jason Reitman’s “Men, Women & Children:” the Sept. 11 attacks and Pearl Harbor are the only times that America has been attacked on home soil.

This must come as very good news to James Madison, who didn’t need to flee the White House before the British burned it two-hundred years ago, because apparently that didn’t happen.

The most deliciously scabrous skit on the mid-nineties HBO comedy series “Mr. Show” was “The Dewey Awards,” which skewered the sanctimonious trend of rewarding A-list Hollywood actors for their “brave” portrayals of the autistic, the mentally retarded, and other less fortunate types. Those rankled by the sight of Dustin Hoffman and Tom Hanks playing these parts, rather than real-life challenged actors, could gasp in private delight at this long-delayed

Air captures the way we live in a downsizing world. […]