Mark Leibovich, a national correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, is one of the few prominent "mainstream" political reporters who does not make you despair for journalism. He's zesty! And he's here now to answer your question on Washington, politics, power, and his new book.

The New York Times supplied a copy of Mark Leibovich's obsessively anticipated study of Washington self-obsession, This Town, to onetime Boston Globe Washington bureau chief David Shribman—who now does something or other in Pennsylvania or maybe Ohio?—and the paper was rewarded with a book review that begins like this: