(Mac on the rebound. Photo Socotra.) Sunday was not as awful as it could have been. No great progress on the continuing budget crisis, or so it seems, and the wet soaking blanket of humidity continued to drape over the capital. It is enervating weather, sucking the energy out of my pores and causing me […]

  (ADM Noel Gayler in his office at Camp Smith, HI, 1976. An authentic hero and warrior, he was proud of being the first no-nucs officer to head the Pacific Command. Photo New York Times.) It has been so hot the last few days that I think my brain softened. I saw the note in […]

(Willow in July. Photo Socotra.) We could not get any further than Clarendon on the Metro. The train had seemed like the right way to get out of town, where we had business in the Chinatown district adjacent to the old Convention Center and the Bus Station, where I worked in the towering structure that […]

(Butterfly stroke, or Dolphin, in the Big Pink pool.) The heat was as wet as a damp washcloth. Adam, the Pole from Podlaska, had firm control of the pool deck with his bluff friendly manner. He is a big guy, muscular, if a little soft in the waist, an East European version of a Minnesota […]

(Speaker Boehner castigates the President in a press conference shortly before the President promised to make everything OK with justice for all. The Speaker later decamped to Ramparts for a beverage and a smoke. Photo UPI) The moist heat has returned to Washington. I have the door to the balcony open, and the breath of […]

(Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. He has been described as “the driving force in pushing the Republican party toward an ever-more rigid position of opposing any tax increase, of any kind, at any time. Photo Gage Skidmore.) I imagine there are people who are just enjoying a delightful summer. Certainly the respite […]

(Pennants at the Navy-Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center. Photo Socotra.) “The Administration’s bill to raise the debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.” – Senator Barak Obama, D-IL, 2006 I just drove in from VA Beach and a quick visit with ENS Socotra and his classmates. The Hubrismobile is a swell way to travel on a sunny […]

(Slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Photo CBP.) “Gun lobby sycophants in Congress are calling the regulation a smoke screen to distract attention from a gun-tracking operation botched by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Known straw buyers made purchases that were supposed to lead to the cartels’ main brokers. But hundreds of […]

(Official Portrait of James Earl Carter as President of the United States. Government photo.) Now, as you know, I started jotting down Admiral Mac’s stories on the paper napkins at Willow years ago. Talking with him was a way to time-travel to the years of great danger to the Republic, both economic and in armed […]

(Harry Truman leaves the White House in the 1960s. Photo LIFE Magazine.) “For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. …We have grown up as a nation, respected for our free […]