Matt Labash

From Matt Labash's latest "Ask Matt Labash" column at the Daily Caller:

Charlie Rangel — Is it possible to humanize him?

AP: "Blagojevich Fired From 'Celebrity Apprentice.'"

For my recent week in Haiti, I was armed by our art director with a camera, and commanded to take usable pictures. I am not a professional photographer, but he assures me these qualify. (In this week's print edition of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, you can see more photographs from shooters who actually know what they're doing.) Here's hoping the additional snaps more clearly illuminate a wild and devastated place. (Warning: Some photos are extremely graphic.) And by all means, read the accompanying story, since I am, arguably, a professional writer.

Sure it's a little-known holiday, but it is as intensely celebrated in Matt Labash's office as National Quilting Day or Wear Too Much Axe Body Spray Day. And, by Matt Labash's office, I mean the inexorably Phoenix-scented, desk-shaped pile of scrap printer paper and Gary Hart memorabilia under which he burrows to write for The Weekly Standard, not the whole Weekly Standard office.

Read Matt Labash's new advice column at the Daily Caller. And no, Labash is obviously not the person referred to in the column as "the sexiest man alive."

Manchester, New Hampshire

WHENEVER I EXPRESS my penchant for reality television in the circle of snide, knowing, not-as-smart-as-they-think-they-are crosspatches that I'm cursed to call friends, I often do so defensively, as if I am advocating Satan-worshipping or kid-touching. No more.

NOT ALWAYS, BUT OFTEN, there comes a point in a Howard Deaniac's life when it's no longer enough to blog yourself silly, or to throw Dean-centric house parties, or to quit your job, move to Burlington campaign headquarters, and start dressing like a bike messenger. Sometimes, you've got to take off your "Hi-my-name-is" sticker, leave your Meetup early, and do something of greater consequence. Sometimes, you've gotta sing.

SOME DAYS, when the after party in Iraq isn't going so well--which is to say, most days--I'm put in mind of the Bush administration's admonition to be sunny-side-up journalists, to eliminate the negative, to accentuate the positive. God knows I try.

I take stock in small victories, often overlooked. Like there was the time military engineers in Fallujah cleared a field of garbage, covered it with fresh soil, then erected goal posts to make a soccer field. Sure, the next day the goal posts had been stolen, and the dirt scraped from the field.

Boston, Massachusetts

TRY AS I MIGHT, there's no getting around it: I'm all man. I make this statement of faith not because I checked myself out in the shower before writing this article. Nor because I possess all your typical man-like properties--though I do: I can eat two hamburgers in one sitting, I hate spooning, I can operate even the most obscure buttons on a television remote without looking down.

Sometimes we manly types must manfully take stock of our manliness by digging deeper. Some do this by pushing their outer limits--by getting a risqué tattoo or competing in triathlons.