People I Like: Mark Leibovich

A new, occasional series.

Regular readers know I’ve made two pledges to myself (and you all) recently:

1. Find good news to write about once a week (at least)

2. Commit to fostering friendships — this takes work!

Well, dear reader, I am happy to report that I have found a way to check BOTH of those boxes!

This is the first in a series of occasional posts I am calling “People I Like.” The title is a nod to Steve Leavitt’s terrific podcast “People I (Mostly) Admire.” In it, Leavitt just chats with people he, well, admires. It’s a simple concept but a great one.

My goal for this series is to either introduce you or reintroduce you to people who I not only admire but also just plain old like. People who I think deserve a light shined on them. Good people. People who do things the right way.

Because my world is populated, largely, by journalists, there will be — I am guessing — a decent number of reporters and writers featured in these posts. But, I have a few folks in mind who are outside of the media world that I want to write about too!

All of that is preamble to this: On Friday morning I drove into Washington, DC to have coffee with Mark Leibovich.

Mark and I got to know one another in the early to mid 2000s when we were at the Washington Post together. We were both writing about politics — me for a blog I had started called “The Fix” and Mark for the Post’s Style section.

Mark left the Post in 2006 to go to the New York Times. He stayed there for 15 years before heading to The Atlantic — where he has been since 2021.

To be honest, after Mark left the Post I didn’t see him much. We were friendly, not friends. I loved his sensibility about politics and his ability to lift up the rock on official Washington and show what was crawling around underneath.

I would occasionally see him at a party (although neither of us are huge party-goers) or coming or going from a TV hit.

Which probably made it a little weird — for him — that I reached out a month ago to see if we could get coffee.

The way this sort of stuff usually works in Washington is that if someone you know but don’t know well reaches out to get coffee or lunch or a drink, you know they want or need something.

But, I didn’t need or want anything. I had no agenda. I simply like Mark. I think he is one of the most talented reporters and writers in the political world.

I never got around to telling people I liked and admired that I liked and admired them during the last two decades. I was too focused on climbing the ladder. Blinded by my own ambition. I am done with that. Tell people you admire why you admire them. Make a point to spend time with people you like. All that.

Anyway, Mark and I had a really nice chat. About the business. About politics. But also about our personal lives — and how being middle aged (Mark is slightly older than me) has changed our perspectives on how much it matters (or not) to be Someone in Washington.

I left happy. Because talking to someone smart and thoughtful about themselves and our business is always worth it. And taking the time to simply say “I am glad you do what you do and we know each other” is important. And something none of us (or at least no one I know) does enough.

My guess is that a lot of people reading this post know of Mark. He is, well, pretty famous! His 2013 book “This Town: Two Parties and a Funeral-Plus, Plenty of Valet Parking!-in America's Gilded Capital” was a New York Times #1 bestseller.

No lesser a light than Christopher Buckley wrote of the book in 2013: “These chapters are mini-masterpieces of politico-anthropological sociology.”

In 2022, Mark wrote ANOTHER Times #1 best seller: “Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission.”

If you haven’t read these books, go buy them today. They are indispensable guides to how Washington actually works. And the perfect way to understand that “Veep” gets a lot closer to the real world of politics than “The West Wing” ever did.

Lots of people know about those two books. As they should! But I also wanted to share just some of my favorite piecess that Mark has written over his career. (One I could not find online — booo! — is his profile of John and Theresa Heinz Kerry for the Post in 2002. It is a masterwork.)

• “The Man the White House Wakes Up To”

• “Bill Richardson, Looming Large”

• “Being Glenn Beck”

• “How John McCain turned his Cliches into Meaning”

• “Chris Christie is Back”

• “The Aria of Chris Matthews”

• “Will Trump Swallow the GOP Whole?”

• “Tom Brady Cannot Stop”

• “Moneyball Broke Baseball”

Mark’s most recent piece, which published on Friday, makes the case for Boston renaming its airport after Celtics great Bill Russell. (That’s a VERY good idea!)

Spend a little time with Mark and his work when you can. It will make you laugh. It will make you smarter. I can’t offer any higher praise than those two things.