Bright Lights, Big Cityroom

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this, if Mickey Kaus had anything to say about it. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are made up. You are in a newsroom talking to a girl with a Polish surname. The desk is either Gerth's or Safire's. You might meet your deadline if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Kudlovian Marching Powder. Then again, you could just make shit up. A small voice inside you, from your days at Liberty University, insists that making shit up will make you as famous as Jerry Falwell and The Clinton Chronicles. You know the moment has come and gone, but you are not yet willing to concede that you have crossed the line beyond which all is career suicide and 10,000 word recriminations. Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a trail of sniper victims and now you are trying to hang on to the rush. Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Kudlovian chickenhawks. They are dressed by a tailor who is not from Saville Row. There are holes in their septums and they are on basic cable. They know how to get away with it. And you know the White House needs your special skills, now that Ari Fleischer is leaving.