A young man in a hurry
One of Washington's worst-kept secrets is that Richard Strout leads a double life. Most days, Strout is a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, spinning out four or five articles a week for that Boston-based daily. Every Tuesday, however, he shuts his office door, sits down at his rolltop desk and becomes the pseudonymous TRB, author of the syndicated (50 newspapers) New Republic column that many colleagues call the liveliest, best-researched, most passionately liberal political commentary in town.*
Last Tuesday Strout almost missed his weekly transformation. The day...