The New York Observer » Missouri

Secret Service Saves Mitt Romney From Glitter Bomb (Video)

A glitter-wielding activist fell afoul of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's new Secret Service protection detail in Denver on Tuesday. As the former Massachusetts governor worked the crowds after a speech, someone attempted to throw glitter on Mr. Romney, but he was quickly hustled aside by Secret Service agents. The glitter-throwing activist was removed from the event. Read More

Clinton Doesn’t Win Missouri After All

With 97 percent of the vote tallied, Barack Obama has taken a 3,000 vote lead over Hillary Clinton in Missouri, reversing the night-long trend in Clinton's favor and causing news outlets who had called the state to pull back their projections. A win in Missouri would represent Obama's marquee victory for the day, a large Read More

With His Pants Down: A Writer’s Self-Portrait

I’m not sure I can tell you the difference between a “personal history” and a memoir, but Jonathan Franzen’s contribution to the genre is so expertly shaped and composed, so genuinely, organically thought-provoking, that I wish I could yank it off the shelf where it will inevitably sit with the autobiographical writing of other hip Read More

Senator Danforth Is Hot Commodity Among Episcopals

It's hard to remember the last time George W. Bush did anything to excite Episcopalians. Conservative Catholic leaders loved the President's opposition to gay marriage. Southern Baptists went nuts for abstinence-only sex education. But those mainline Protestants haven't had much to celebrate from the ex-Episcopal President.

So the President's recent nomination of John C. Danforth as Read More

Hillary’s Delayed Awakening, Her Ambition at Last Her Own

Living History , by Hillary Clinton, Simon & Schuster, 562 pages, $28.

One question for the reviewers and readers who have professed disappointment in Hillary Clinton's new book: What did you expect? Or to put it another way: When was the last time you read a really good book by an American politician at mid-career? It Read More

Null and Void: Guarantees of Liberty

Not so long ago, a

certain member of the United States Senate summoned the press to denounce controversial demands by federal law-enforcement officials for invasive power. While conceding that some additional measures to curtail crime and terror might be necessary, he insisted that fundamental freedoms could not be compromised. "These needs must be addressed, but the Read More

Under Bush, Questions About the Unborn Are Born Again

It has been a month of mixed news for the fetus-confused

signals, coming from unexpected directions. One of the clearer signals came from the left. The week of Martin Luther King Day, the nation witnessed the agony of Jesse Jackson. With both King and Mr. Jackson enrolled in the ranks of tomcats, it begins to look Read More

By Ashcroft’s Standards, He Ought to Be History

If John Ashcroft were held to the same kind of political

standard he applied in evaluating Presidential nominations as a Senator from Missouri, his bid to become the next Attorney General would be defeated easily. His conservative defenders now tell us without blushing that ideology isn't a valid reason to oppose him. Perhaps they've forgotten how Read More

Senator Claghorn, Meet John Ashcroft!

As the United States Senate prepares to take up the

nomination of John Ashcroft for U.S. Attorney General, the unlamented specter haunting its chamber is none other than Jefferson Davis. The long-deceased president of the old Confederacy is regarded as a hero by the former Senator from Missouri, whose praise of such figures-and whose links to Read More

Buchanan May Be Wrong, But He’s No Race-Baiter

Pat Buchanan, unwilling to be a three-time loser in the Republican primaries, is setting sail for the Reform Party, which will make his odyssey a lot more interesting. So everyone is calling him "extreme."

Of all swear words, this is one of the dumbest. Barry Goldwater rightly said that extremism in defense of liberty was no Read More

My Muse: Early 40′s, Uses Deadly Force

There's an old expression that says, "Life doesn't come with an instruction manual." But if you happen to find yourself standing in the cockpit of a B-2 stealth bomber-as I did recently-you may be intrigued to learn that the costliest, most sophisticated aircraft ever built by mankind does, in fact, come with a relatively simple Read More

All Dressed Up (in Drag), Smiley’s Novel Goes Nowhere

The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton , by Jane Smiley. Knopf, 452 pages, $26.

The Civil War rages everywhere. There's Cold Mountain and Cloudsplitter , Russell Banks' huge novel about John Brown, and Jacob's Ladder , by Donald McCaig, an earnest tome subtitled "A Story of Virginia During the War"–no need to ask which Read More