While most of Washington was focused on the White House “Health Care Summit” on February 25, something far more interesting was underway on Capitol Hill. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee showed up to work that day to find that a new provision—the “Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Interrogations Prohibitions Act”—had been inserted in the bill that funds U.S. intelligence activities for 2010.

For years now, sensitive and intelligent members of the Washington journalistic community (we’ll name no names!) have wondered what makes the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner so mortifying to decent people everywhere—such an embarrassment to the journalism business, to the city, to our great nation itself.

January 17 promises to be a landmark occasion in the long, proud history of German cabaret musicals examining the role of African-American politicians and their wives in U.S. presidential elections, so you can imagine our frustration that deadlines prevent us from seeing Hope!—the Obama Musical Story before writing this brief notice. The show premieres in a concert hall in far-off Frankfurt, but the website (www.hope-musical.com) gives the curious a good, stiff taste of what that magical evening will entail.