|  Joel Achenbach, a legend of journalism within a three-foot radius of his desk, has been a Washington Post staff writer since 1990. He currently writes the column Rough Draft for washingtonpost.com as part of a personal paradigm shift from serious print journalism to vapid Internet chatter. Many Washington Post readers know him best for a much superior column he used to write called "Why Things Are." Joel has published three "Why" books and wrote an account of the scientific and cultural interest in extraterrestrial life, "Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe" (Simon & Schuster, 1999). His latest book is It Looks Like a President, Only Smaller: Trailing Campaign 2000. He can be reached by e-mail at achenbachj@washpost.com. Joel hosts live discussions on washingtonpost.com when he feels like it. He's funnier than any of us, so we let him.
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