The Year's Most Newsworthy Man: Barack Obama, of course.
TOUGH TERMS
One of Harper's magazine's most popular features is its monthly Harper's Index, which this month is devoted to a rather unflattering retrospective of the George W. Bush era.
We don't have space to reprint all 41 facts, but here's an arguably one-sided recap of Mr. Bush's two terms, from start to finish:
• Percentage of Mr. Bush's first 189 appointees who also served in his father's administration: 42
• Years before becoming energy secretary that Spencer Abraham co-sponsored a bill to abolish the Department of Energy: 2
• Number of Chevron oil tankers named after Condoleezza Rice, at the time she became a foreign-policy adviser: 1
• Minimum number of calls the FBI received in fall 2001 from Utah residents claiming to have seen Osama bin Laden: 20
• Estimated total calories members of Congress burned giving Mr. Bush's 2002 State of the Union standing ovations: 22,000
• Percentage of the amendments in the Bill of Rights that are violated by the USA Patriot Act, according to the ACLU: 50
• Percentage of Americans in 2006 who believed that U.S. Muslims should have to carry special IDs: 39
• Portion of Baghdad residents in 2007 who had a family member or friend wounded or killed since 2003: 3/4
• Chance that an Iraq war veteran who has served two or more tours now has post-traumatic stress disorder: 1 in 4