The Runway to Damascus

Five'd get you ten that the Washington Post's Robin Givhan would knock this Nancy Pelosi story out of the park. People like to complain about her (Givhan, that is—though Pelosi has her fair share of maligners) and about fashion criticism generally, but Givhan's found an exceptional niche. She's just about the only writer who reports on the intersection of fashion and politics, which might seem like an obvious, even mandatory, beat for a writer in the capital; she manages it, though, without writing again and again that the District is or ain't the fashion pit you'd believe it to be. When a fashion crisis becomes an honest-to-goodness political flap—who's wearing Ahmadinejad this season? Nancy Pelosi, feminist Democrat or fawning Dhimmicrat?—she's the go-to critic.

(Too bad she's already written her Obama and Pelosi features. Maybe if Givhan were a better blogger, we'd have her updated insights.)