small right-wing criminal class within the larger corrupt American political class — a mixture of white supremacists, “law and order” fascists, and the inevitable finance-industry revanchists

These orations come to us as the lucubrations of a solitary wise man, grappling with American history, with race, with fate and freedom.

Time returns in the peroration, but in a different way: as an expression, Lincoln-like, of humility.

For Obama, American interests as defined by the national-security state were coterminous with the world’s interests.

Every day, taking the elevator up and down for cig breaks, I’d study these murals — I’d try to resist their calliope charms.

he gives an echt-Dana quote

Romanian cinema has the special power of finding the murkiest, most desultory way to film petty squabbles and bureaucratic nightmares

She was sharp enough to erect a critical scrim between the reader and her often ridiculous, often unscrupulous protagonists, but warm enough to make the youthful fantasy relatable