"The Lightning Rod," The Atlantic, November, 2008.
Michelle Rhee and the politics of school reform.

Michelle Ree is always on message and always on call. If she’s not speaking, she’s thumbing away on her BlackBerry, or working a cell phone, or flipping open a laptop. When I met with her recently, she sat at her desk clasping a BlackBerry and a cell phone in her right hand; in front of her was a sleek Sony Vaio laptop, which she monitored incessantly during our conversation, while off to her right was yet another computer, a desktop PC. Apparently there is a second BlackBerry somewhere. And it’s not for show. “Every e-mail a parent sends me, I answer,” she said, a boast that even her critics grudgingly concede. read more ...

"The Unmaking of the President," Smithsonian, April, 2008.
How the riots of April 1968 undid Lyndon Johnson.

At the beginning of 1968, no one could have predicted the reception that would greet President Lyndon Baines Johnson as he entered St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan on the afternoon of Thursday, April 4. Here was a man so dogged by protesters that he had been limiting his public appearances to military bases and American Legion halls. Here was an activist president—his legislative achievements were exceeded only by those of his idol, Franklin D. Roosevelt—who had become so divisive that he had abandoned his re-election campaign just four days before. And yet, as he began walking down the aisle with his daughter Luci, the 5,000 people who had gathered for the installation of Terence Cooke as archbishop of New York rose and began to applaud. As the president and his daughter sat silently through Cooke's inaugural sermon, the archbishop addressed him directly: "Mr. President, our hearts, our hopes, our continued prayers go with you." read more ...

"Speak Louder, Memory," Architect, July 2008.
Why a visitors' center for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a bad idea.

If everything goes according to plan, sometime in 2012 the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center will open in Washington, D.C., on a 5.2-acre site just west of Maya Lin's famous black granite wall. Designed by Polshek Partnership Architects with exhibits by Ralph Appelbaum Associates—the same team that did the recently opened and much-lambasted Newseum, at the other end of Constitution Avenue—the center will be the latest, and likely the last, addition to the increasingly crowded National Mall. (Along with approval for the center, Congress passed a moratorium on future projects, citing a lack of space.) read more ...