Reuters continued its That was the night the 22-year-old heiress played at working on an Meantime, the front page of this week’s New York Observer provided excellent The President’s head, portrayed by a small yellow helium balloon, was greeted with great joy <\/P> And here’s the lousy one:<\/P> Reuters continued its winning ways this morning with a fine news lede that speaks volumes about the mood of the nation, maybe even the decline of the West: “President Bush may have defeated Saddam Hussein, but he lost to the socialite Paris Hilton in the television ratings on Tuesday night.” That was the night the 22-year-old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-85","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nspeaks volumes<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A><\/B> about the mood of the nation, maybe even the
\ndecline of the West: “President Bush may have defeated Saddam Hussein, but he lost to the
\nsocialite Paris Hilton in the television ratings on Tuesday night.”<\/P>
\n
\nArkansas farm in Fox’s “The Simple Life,” while our Maximum Leader retorted,
\n“So what’s the
\ndifference?”<\/FONT><\/EM><\/STRONG><\/A>
\nthat Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction on the strength of
\nevidence that Saddam had the intention (but not the capability) of acquiring
\nthem.<\/FONT><\/P>
\n
\nexamples of a good lede and a lousy lede. Here’s the good one:<\/P>
\nEight months away from the Republican National Convention, party officials
\nalready know that President George W. Bush’s head will be 21 feet and six inches off the floor of
\nMadison Square Garden.
\n
\nby television producers and technicians, who took their sitings from the skyboxes during a “media
\nwalk-through” of the convention site …
\nBen Smith<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> <\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n
\n
\nIt’s the Night of the Big Defeat, Election Night 1972, at McGovern campaign
\nheadquarters in the Holiday Inn in Sioux Falls, S.D., and after drinking a little too much, I decide
\nit’s necessary for me to put in a call to Alf Landon in Kansas. You might recall good old Alf, who
\nup to then had been the Biggest Loser in Presidential history off his disastrous 1936 run against
\nF.D.R.