From a  conversation between New York Times columnists Gail Collins and Bret Stephens headlined “The President Needs a Turnaround”:

From Politico Playbook PM by Ryan Lizza, Eli Okun, and Garrett Ross:

STEVE CLEMONS, a good friend of Playbook, knows JOE MANCHINas well as anyone in Washington. When Steve was recently honored by the French, Manchin was there to celebrate. When Manchin recently sat down with a group of Washington insiders for an off-the-record dinner in a private room at Cafe Milano, it was Steve who hosted it. At a recent soiree at the French ambassador’s residence, Clemons was the guy guiding the senator around the first floor of the Kalorama mansion and acting as a kind of gatekeeper for the dozens of revelers in black tie who wanted face time.

From a Washington Post column by David Von Drehle headlined “Here’s what it’s like to live in one of the last bastions of bipartisan America”:

I live in a place that supposedly no longer exists: bipartisan America. Over the past half-century, the powers that be have steadily redrawn congressional districts to make them more partisan, and therefore easier to win. At the expense of good government, Republican districts have been packed with more Republicans, while Democratic districts have been stuffed with more Democrats. Truly purple districts are a vanishing phenomenon. Let me tell you about mine.