WASHINGTON — It’s a truism in Washington that when politicians say they’re not running so they can spend more time with their families, something else, possibly something salacious, is afoot.
WASHINGTON — Two men, sons of immigrants, rising to be the head of their own empires, powerful forces in their ethnic communities. Both dapper and mustachioed with commanding personalities. And both wielding a potent influence on the children who learned at their knees and followed them into the family businesses.
WASHINGTON — Halloween is sugary. Thanksgiving is fattening and fraught. Christmas is expensive. New Year’s Eve is annoying. Memorial Day is laced with melancholy. George Washington’s Birthday isn’t even on his birthday anymore. Columbus Day has some issues.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — It was going to be epic, like those Roman triumph celebrations where the generals would ride in on a chariot decorated with gold and ivory, so drunk on power that a slave would have to walk behind, holding a wreath over the general’s head and whispering in his ear, “Remember you are mortal.”
WASHINGTON — I got a call at 3 p.m. Friday from the Washington electric company telling me that a manhole in front of my house was smoking, that the underground cable to my house had burned up because it was old and that all the power in my house was out.
