Lead time Book

Four stars for some of the pieces in this collection of 1970s journalism: the essay on Nixon's obsession with Alger Hiss, the Jesuitical character analyses of Jerry Brown, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Wills is at his "Nixon Agonistes" best here and there.

Those of us who weren't following Watergate-era politics closely will need to read this with Wikipedia on hand, since Wills, in writings mainly published in New York Review of Books and other similar periodicals of the time, is constantly dropping obscure names such as Midge Costanza and Bobby Baker.

It's interesting to see how journalistic standards have changed since the mid-70s, when Wills, a sophisticated man of letters, thought nothing of referring to a professional football player as a "Bad Nigger" or to Beverly Sills' obsessive fans as a bunch of hysterical homos. I doubt that any editor these days would allow into print a flat-out assertion that Muhammed Ali (sp.) had a "low IQ".