When I Wake Up In

'acting As If...' I Decided, Ridiculously In Retrospect, That My Experience Covering Women's Volleyball For My College Newspaper Was Sufficient For Me To At Least Try To Become A War Correspondent.

As Even A Democracy Like The United States Has Shown, Waging War Can Benefit A Leader In Several Ways: It Can Rally Citizens Around The Flag, It Can Distract Them From Bleak Economic Times, And It Can Enrich A Country's Elites.

I Joke That I Spent 38 Years Scouring The Globe, Going To War Zones, Trying To Find The Person With My Exact Birthday.

When I Wake Up In The Morning, I Think About Syria.

In The 2000 Election, George W. Bush, Who Had Shirked Military Service, Succeeded In Presenting Himself As More Reliable On National Security Than Al Gore.