Reviews | Don’t Let Bill Barr and Ivanka Trump Visit Reputation Laundromat

There are many measures of a public figure’s downfall, and one, apparently, is the saucy buffet of prose about them. Example: the golfer Phil Mickelson, champion of the new LIV Golf circuit, who enriches him and others with Saudi money. It debuted last week and scribes surged.

Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post took the lead, writing a summary of professional golf’s excesses that should be read in full. She noted how Mickelson, at a press conference, recoiled from reporters’ questions, looking like “a fugitive of his own face.” She sarcastically praised his efforts to bathe the tour in an altruistic glow: “If you have a problem with bunker sand on the bloodstains left by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, you just don’t understand what profound influence beneficial Saudi golf can have. around the globe.” Also: “You might think it’s just plutomania supported by a despotic murderer and sold by duckers and peddlers, but that’s because you haven’t thought as hard as Mickelson on how to make the world a better place with Saudi golf. wallet. (Thanks to Mary-Ellen Lewis of Iowa City, Iowa, and Jim Enright of Portland, Oregon, among others, for nominating the article.)

In Toronto’s Globe and Mail, sports columnist Cathal Kelly also teased Mickelson: “He’s got a new slicked back hairdo and bought himself one of those shiny leather jackets which are no doubt very expensive, but have the looks incredibly cheap. The effect is more “Miami Vice Halloween costume” than James Dean, but we all handle pressure differently. (Peter Nikiforuk, Kitchener, Ontario, and Robert Beaudoin, Ottawa)

Coming back to The Washington Post, here’s Dan Zak on our 49th state: “Alaska is an easy place to accidentally disappear or deliberately disappear. It is a place of surrender and surrender. One sight: junkyards that make you worry about America. Nearby: mountains that could make you believe in God. (Steve Casey, Gig Harbor, Washington, and Crispian Smith, The Hague)

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Paul Musgrave wrote: “Exams, ceremonies and traffic jams – the last weeks of the academic spring semester usually pass like a blur. This year, they passed like a stone in the kidney. (John Braunstein, Brooklyn, NY)

In The Atlantic, Jennifer Senior reflected on Steve Bannon and noted the diminished presence of his TV show “War Room,” which is “still available in the far-right online ecosphere, and it’s streaming across various social media platforms. television, including Pluto TV’s channel 240. , but it sounds like her own sad metaphor – “War Room” as a small retrograde planetoid, available mostly in the most icy regions of the broadcast cosmos. She continued: “The overall operation has minimal fun quality Audio cuts out at times or sounds like it’s bubbling in an aquarium; two of Bannon’s phones buzz throughout the show; segment openers are not always ready when he needs them. It’s kind of like Father Coughlin dropped into Wayne and Garth’s basement. (James Grisi, Lindenhurst, NY, and Matthew Gold, Gallatin, NY)