i'm reading a fairly interesting, if not surprising, article in the new yorker about g. w. bush's lockdown white house, which has shown a prodigious ability to manage the press and largely dictate the terms on which it deals with them. ken auletta is a good writer.

i'm midway through this piece, and have already had two boy wonder moments. bush's press secretary, scott mcclellan, is 35. wow, that's young, but, go scott - very impressive. i still have 8 years to get my act together if i want to be a press secretary. 8 years is a long time, right?

but wait. dan bartlett, the communications director who replaced that horrid karen hughes woman, is 32. thirty-fucking-two. now i only have five years if i want bartlett's job, which is really the bettter one and would keep me from having to stare down sam donaldson for chewing gum during press briefings.

these boy wonder moments are slightly troubling, and are happening with increasing regularity. nyc's city council speaker is 33, i think. again, wow.

it's kind of like when i had the realization [not an especially profound one, mind you] when i graduated college, that all college football players from that point forward would be younger than me. giant and permanently 20 years old.

suddenly, 28 looms.