It's been 30 years since the publication of The Power and the Glitter: The Hollywood-Washington Connection, by Ronald Brownstein, a commentator for CNN and, more prestigiously, a colleague of mine (at the Atlantic). Even now Brownstein's book stands as the definitive history of one of the more unsavory aspects of contemporary public life: the sluttish commingling of professional show people and politicians—the pols groveling before the show people, the show people struggling to look cerebral while keeping their hair in place.

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