Taking stock of people and ideas in the news.

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• The Next Dr. Evil Who will replace Osama as demon in chief?
  David Plotz Dec. 21, 2001
  
• The Next Palestinian Leader Who will follow Arafat?
  David Plotz Dec. 7, 2001
  
• The War Briefers How Rumsfeld, Stufflebeem, and the rest defeat the press.
  David Plotz Nov. 30, 2001
  
• Bernard Lewis The Islam scholar U.S. politicians listen to.
  Emily Yoffe Nov. 13, 2001
  
• The American Red Cross  They took your blood and your money. Now it's payback time. 
  David Plotz Nov. 9, 2001
  
• War Correspondents Their dirty little secret.
  David Plotz Nov. 2, 2001
  
• Russian President Vladimir Putin  Why is he on our side? 
  David Plotz Oct. 25, 2001
  
• Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar  Why Washington's smoothest diplomat is falling from favor. 
  David Plotz Oct. 19, 2001
  
• Paul Wolfowitz Bush's testosterone man at Defense.
  David Plotz Oct. 13, 2001
  
• What Does Osama Bin Laden Want? Nothing we have.
  David Plotz Sept. 14, 2001
  
• Phil Gramm Good riddance to the naysayer.
  David Plotz Sept. 8, 2001
  
• Conrad Black The newspaper mogul thinks like an American and writes like a Brit. No wonder he's leaving Canada.
  David Plotz Sept. 1, 2001
  
• Mark Green From Nader raider to New York mayor: A how-to guide.
  David Plotz Aug. 25, 2001
  
• Paul A. Gigot Two faces has the new editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal.
  David Greenberg Aug. 11, 2001
  
• August Let's get rid of it.
  David Plotz July 28, 2001
  
• Washington Interns They're not as silly and worthless as you think.
  David Plotz July 21, 2001
  
• Larry Summers How the Great Brain learned to grin and bear it.
  David Plotz June 30, 2001
  
• Michael Bloomberg New York's brand-name mayoral candidate.
  David Greenberg June 23, 2001
  
• The Los Angeles Lakers Why the NBA's unbeatable team will collapse (but not this month).
  David Plotz June 2, 2001
  
• W.E.B. Du Bois The writer who traveled backward.
  David Greenberg April 28, 2001
  
• Abe Foxman The ADL boss is the best kind of pest. 
  David Plotz April 7, 2001
  
• Doris Kearns Goodwin The sunny-side-up historian.
  David Greenberg March 10, 2001
  
• Mad Cow Disease The killer illness for a new world order.
  David Plotz Jan. 27, 2001
  
• Mary Matalin  After failing up, the political operative-turned-pundit fails down. 
  Andrew Ferguson Jan. 19, 2001
  
• President William Jefferson Clinton The only farewell essay you need to read.
  David Plotz Jan. 6, 2001