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"FacebookPinterest\n\nReading Between the Punch Lines in The Avengers: The Avengers Defeated Irony and Cynicism, by Devin Faraci, Badass Digest\n\n\"But zeitgeist has a way of changing over time. The economy tanked not long after The Dark Knight was released, and that year's presidential election showed that the nation was looking for something different. In some ways The Dark Knight represents the last hurrah of the Bush administration, the last moment when you could make a movie about a hero who used extra-Constitutional methods to keep people safe. Just as Death Wish fully captured the moment when our nation's cities became terrifying to white people, The Dark Knight captures the last moment when Guantanamo Bay was a good thing.\n\nTimes were tough when The Dark Knight came out, but they were tough in a large, existential way. There were two wars and a lot of fear mongering, all of which felt present yet distant at the same time. It was the stock market crash in 2008 that brought it all home, and it's what set the stage for The Avengers.\"\n\nThe Hero We Deserve When Our House Is On Fire: The Color of Politics: A Mayor of the Post-racial Generation, by Peter J. Boyer, The New Yorker. (From 2008; a refresher course on mayor-of-the-hour Cory Booker.)\n\n\"What Newark needed, Booker believed, was a devoted core of talented people who knew how to balance budgets and manage agencies, and a leader who could apply innovative ideas to Newark's chronic miseries, such as schools and public safety. He had enormous self-confidence, and he exuded ambition and idealism in almost equal measure. Richard Holbrooke, the former Assistant Secretary of State, met Booker at a luncheon one afternoon, and walked away feeling as if he had just encountered a VISTA volunteer from the Kennedy-Johnson era.\"\n\n**Read more on [Death Race 2012\n\n](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race)\n\n **\n\n Veep Reality Check: Hubert Humphrey Weights In\n\nMost F*cked Person in Politics Right Now\n\n[Final Jeopardy!: Friedman Goes Down](http://www.gq.com/news-politics/blogs/death-race/2012/05/final-jeopardy-friedman-goes-down.html)\n\nThe Most (And Least) Powerful People in Politics This Week\n\nFollow us @GQPolitics on Twitter for more updates on the campaign trail"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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