BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By Dana Milbank In his first daytime news conference yesterday, President Obama preempted "All My Children," "Days of Our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless." But the soap viewers shouldn't have been disappointed: The president had arranged some prepackaged entertainment for them. After the obligatory first question from the Associated Press, Obama treated the overflowing White House briefing room to a surprise. "I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post," he announced. Obama knew this because White House aides had called Pitney the day before to invite him, and they had escorted him into the room. They told him the president was likely to call on him, with the understanding that he would ask a question about Iran that had been submitted online by an Iranian. "I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet," Obama went on. "Do you have a question?" P...

American Aquarium Drinker I had the opportunity to meet and talk with Jeff Sharlet a couple years ago at the CUNY conference on the Religious Right . His writing partner, Peter Manseau wrote this and its powerful enough to deserve a reposting: Drunk on pop-culture holiness, it's easy to forget the nation's first noble truth: America is not a religious metaphor. By Peter Manseau Six years ago I lived in the chi-chi wilds of Western Massachusetts, in a town whose population increased fivefold every June and in which the biggest houses around were left vacant nine months out of the year. It was the kind of place where summer people liked to invite the hired help to garden parties to mingle with their city friends. As long as the keg was full of microbrew, everyone was eager to believe this social equality was real, that Appalachian-style poverty didn’t exist in the Berkshires, that the men who fixed the gutters, mowed the lawns, and laid down the ceramic tile floors were satisf...