Rove's no more a political genius than John McCain is a straight-talking maverick. He's an evil, manipulative, despicable creep who learned at the feet of Lee Atwater. And just like Atwater, he's not about philosophy, he's totally about dishonesty in the service of power and greed. And if Atwater *knew* he was engaging in evil behavior (as when he sought apologies from Dukakis and others he'd screwed after he'd been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer), then so does Rove.

So can the Washington media, the same media Rove screwed as often and as hard as possible, please stop kissing Rove's ass? This is not some parlor game where he's to be hailed because the end result was his candidate won, and you feel fine with having a laugh and a drink with him at your bullshit press-corps dinners. This is shit with real consequences, from a needless war that has killed more than 4,000 soldiers (making Rove an accomplice to murder) to an economy that is indeed in a Depression in many parts of this country.

The guy that formulated that question should be sent to patrol outside the Green Zone. Because now we know what happens when presidents are chosen on the basis of such worthless criteria.

I find it to be a rather insidious question, aligned with the shallow qualities the Republicans would rather base the election on. To ask it is to imply (and to plant the seed in the voter's mind) that something is wrong with the more serious, policy-oriented candidate, by the way always the Democrat. It should never be asked again!

With all the vintage narrow-lapeled sportcoats and thin ties in my closet, I could walk out tomorrow looking like a "Mad Men" cast member. I love that whole postwar era, up to about 1970, for the incredible growth and evolution and in many ways squandered promise of American society. I was wild for Thomas Hine's "Populuxe," which perfectly captured the feel of that '50s-early '60s "Forward Look" optimism. That only scratches the surface of my interest in the period, which extends to reading period social critiques like Vance Packard's.

The problem for me with a show like "Mad Men" is that it feels forced because it's done through today's 20/20 hindsight, and some of that is the arrogance of thinking we're better than all that now. Oooh, pre-Surgeon General's warning, they're smoking and drinking heavily! They're treating women as second-class citizens! There was more racism! They're more uptight! Take a closer look at our times and see how little we've really evolved. So we smoke less than then, to the point there's a stigma attached to it. Big deal. Are we really better people? After nearly 30 years of conservatism dominating politics and that right-wing mentality infiltrating the culture through the media, we've not had nearly the social growth we should have had, and in some ways we've regressed. Of course, there's Bush, but overlooked is the impact of the Supreme Court, which has gone from Brown v. Board and the Miranda ruling to recently reinforcing our gun-nut society, one that was not as gun-crazy in the postwar years. Who knows what other forms of progress the court could roll back?

It does not take a lot of effort (it does take expense) to get the period details right. What does take effort is capturing the correct feel of that period. The vast majority of people are not that conscious about the times and the society in which they live, they just move through it and in many ways just adapt without agonizing over it or even realizing it, because few people really care enough to drive social change. Society has become more accepting of gay people in the past dozen years (although still far to go), but for most people it's not a conscious case of "I think I'll set aside my old attitudes and be more accepting." When Hollywood does a period piece about the '90s in about 2030, are they going to have people saying "I know what I am doing is wrong for the greenhouse effect [note forced '90s lingo] but sign me up anyway for that gas-guzzling SUV"? Not if they want to get the feel of the times right.

"Mad Men" would be a far more effective critique of society in those times if they treated the attitudes then as natural without calling attention to them. Period shows like "Route 66," "Leave It to Beaver" or "Twilight Zone" can still tell us a lot about attitudes then, but more subtly, because of course the writers and producers were living through those times. They didn't call attention to those attitudes unless it was a story with an overt morality message. "Mad Men" would do well to keep its focus on the angles about those times that censorship then would not permit, and let the other behaviors speak for themselves.