Ron Fournier

Historians will likely give Obama credit for steering the country away from the brink of economic collapse in 2009.

For a man who has compared himself to Theodore Roosevelt and the nation's challenges to those of the Gilded Age, Obama put forward a tepid agenda.

'Argo,' 'Lincoln,' and 'Zero Dark Thirty,' three films honored with Best Picture Oscar nominations, lionize their Washington-anchored protagonists as crafty, competent, and virtually incorruptible.

Chris O'Dowd is a very special talent. He's one of those very, very rare actors who can be the clown, or he can be the straight man playing off the clown, in a scene.

The queen of crime, Agatha Christie, was always more concerned about the clockwork cleverness of the plot, never the investigator.

In my stunted career as a scholar, I'd read promissory notes, papal bulls and guidelines for Inquisitorial interrogation. Dante, too. Boccaccio... But after 1400? Nihil.