Deborah Solomon: Under Pressure

Is Deborah Solomon trying to confess to us that she’s a closet meth addict? From today’s interview with Christine Gregoire:

As a veteran politician who has served as state attorney general for more than a decade, did you find it difficult to sit out the seven weeks during which the voting machines pegged you a loser?

It was very, very difficult.

Did you take up smoking?

Me, take up smoking? No. It’s not an option. I was the lead negotiator in the tobacco-company settlement that brought in $242 billion, the largest settlement in the history of the world.

Did you turn to sleeping pills?

I finally resorted to once in a while taking some Sominex. But at the end, the Sominex didn’t work.

So what did you do to ease your anxiety in the wee hours of the night?

I did all of my shopping for Christmas online at very odd hours.

Yes, heaven forbid that things like non-drug related activities like sex, exercise or shopping can be used to relieve considerable tension. Particularly since almost every gubernatorial candidate is, in the Deborah Solomon universe, a pill-popping, chain-smoking freakazoid ready to walk the plank right before through a career-making four-year term. That’s the way politics works. Right, kids?

Talk in a Time of War

With escamotage that seems outside Tanenhaus’s grasp, Sunday’s Washington Post features a retrospective on David Halberstam’s The Best and the Brightest — pointing out that the book is not only a masterful study of foreign policy but elucidating a few potential comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam. Warren Bass and David Halberstam will discuss The Best and the Brightest online on Thursday, January 27 at 3:00 p.m.