Public Life

It is not enough to have faith; you must also have the courage to risk action on that faith, to risk failure upon that faith: the faith that one person can make a difference and that each of us must try. - Mayor Martin O'Malley This may be the essence of Martin Joseph O'Malley's campaign for governor. The Democratic candidate has issue papers and television commercials and bus tours, of course. But his argument for wresting control of government from Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. is based on a far more ambitious view of what government should be. He boils it down to this: We're all in it together.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Buck O'Neil looks old, and that's new. Though he's 94 years old, and almost 95, he has all his life been young and vibrant and alive. There was this time we were in a hotel ballroom in Gary, Ind. It was before a luncheon of some kind. A barbershop quartet began singing, "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho." Before the first verse ended, Buck jumped into the middle of the group. He sang in his rich baritone. He danced in step. "That sounded like old times!" he shouted when the song ended, and sweat made his face shine in the chandelier lights.

HE'S AN Episcopal minister. An 18-year veteran of the Senate. An heir to wealth and privilege widely respected for his independence and integrity. A trouble-shooter for Democratic as well as Republican administrations; he most recently spent two years working to resolve the seemingly intractable conflict in Sudan. John C. Danforth, 67, will need to tap every bit of his accumulated experience, reputation and native talent to succeed at the new task President Bush has assigned him: U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Now that the flap over Howard Dean's bonehead comment about Confederate flags and pickup trucks temporarily has abated, it might be a good time for the media to reconsider their seasonal obsession with what I've come to think of as the "gotcha gaffe." Every time someone in public life - usually but not necessarily a politician - says something stupid or ill-considered, especially in the course of a campaign, the media jump on him as if they'd just caught Adolf Hitler goose-stepping out of Berchtesgaden, snarling, "Let's kill all the Jews."

The public's confidence in President Bush's ability to deal wisely with an international crisis has slid sharply over the past five months, and a clear majority is uneasy about his ability to make the right decisions on the nation's economy, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll has found. Overall, the poll found, Americans are for the first time more critical than not of the president's ability to handle both foreign and domestic problems, and a majority says he does not share their priorities.

The war in Iraq has served to remind Americans that the rest of the world looks at them - and their motives - in many ways. The Pew Global Attitudes Project, which has been polling people from around the world on a variety of issues, finds that fear of and hostility toward the United States have been growing in a number of countries. In an effort to explore some of the differences in worldview, the Brookings Institution, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press organized a conference in Washington last month on the subject "God and Foreign Policy: The Religious Divide Between the U.S. and Europe."

NEW YORK - Looking far richer but feeling a bit emptier than it has in generations, a thoroughly refreshed Gracie Mansion is beginning its third century cast in every familiar role - historical museum, ceremonial hall, civic showpiece, high-level lodging and government meeting place - but one. Home. After a $7 million renovation, designed by Jamie Drake and paid for privately through the Gracie Mansion Conservancy, the four principal downstairs rooms exude a sumptuous Second Empire formality.

WASHINGTON - As Attorney General John Ashcroft stood before a camera live from Moscow last month to announce that U.S. officials had foiled a plot to explode a "dirty bomb" in the United States, he began what he thought was a rehearsal. "We have captured a known terrorist," he began casually as MSNBC inadvertently beamed his image live to America. Then he loudly cleared his throat. "Let's try that again," he said. An aide brushed off his shoulders. Another applied hair spray. MSNBC took the feed off the air but soon returned with the real announcement, which Ashcroft issued with his usual urgent, even ominous tone.

His golden days as Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor have passed, but state Comptroller William Donald Schaefer won't walk away from a career in public service. Schaefer, 80, plans to announce tonight that he is seeking re-election as the state's revenue collector and fiscal guardian. Reflecting his status as an elder statesman of Maryland Democratic politics, no challenger from either party has made plans to run against him. "You never finish in public life," he said yesterday. "There's always a challenge."

That the media -- defined broadly as including everything from television, radio and the Internet to compact discs, cell phones and video games -- engulf us every day is hardly news. That American journalism is in a state of flux and undergoing historic change also is hardly news. However, the significance and impact of each of these cultural truths is news and is the subject of two new books, both worth reading. One is written by a prominent intellectual and the other by two top editors of The Washington Post.