People whose resumes overlap with the presidential candidates’ explain how their jobs would come in handy in the White House. From Democracy, why it matters whom the president hires: A review of The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance by David Lewis; and is the golden age of political consulting over? A review of Alpha Dogs: The Americans Who Turned Political Spin into a Global Business by James Harding. In search of rational voters: Do such creatures exist, and how can we mint more of them? In an information-saturated era that has supposedly made us ever more sophisticated, why does blatant and manipulative political imagery continue to work? Shankar Vedantam on the power of political misinformation. Thomas Friedman on making America stupid. Lee Siegel on the triumph of culture over politics. Letters from Wasilla: Anne Kilkennyn on the Sarah Palin she knew. Femocracy ’08: Sisterhood is powerful, but Palin has fried the circuits of post-Clinton feminists. Why McCain should put Palin on the Supreme Court. What's the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick — a theocrat is a theocrat, whether Muslim or Christian. What it would be like if all women lived in Sarah Palin's America. Conor Clarke writes in defense of elitism: Palin emphasizes her credentials as "just your average hockey mom".
