The quick and dirty


How your blogstress hates to overdo her occassional "Sentence of the Week" and "Graf of Every Other (or So) Day" features, but this week has seen some excellent writing from some of your Webwench's favorite fellas.


To wit, the very witty William Powers, whose editors at National Journal have seen the wisdom of expanding his porfolio from media-mavening to theorizing everything.


For the maiden voyage of his new column, Off Message, Powers offers this gem:


At every turn, strategy defeats candor. Superficiality trumps depth. Lincoln, schminkin. This is the 21st century, and it's all about winning, baby. Watch the political shows for a while, listen carefully to the operatives' patter, and Iraq doesn't feel like a war any more. It feels like a poker chip.


And it gets better once he ties in some scary trends from Teenland.


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