Each week, we debate a question in collaboration with the Washington Post Magazine. This week: Is it ever OK to play dumb?

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The American political novel has gotten a bad rep in recent years, probably because we now seem nationally unable to produce a great one. In an oft-quoted 2001 essay in the Guardian, James Wood called for fewer novels attempting to “‘tell us how the world works’” and more that “‘tell us how somebody felt about something.’” Wood was writing about the social novel, but the rule should be applied to its political counterpart.

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It’s been comical watching Christiane Amanpour have to defend her qualifications to anchor the Sunday Beltway Show This Week. Amanpour is replacing George Stephanopoulous, and people have been “puzzling” about this out-of-the-box choice, reports the Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes. What makes it so puzzling?

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Promoted Title:  Wherein the spectacle of role-playing porn stars excites paranoia among the masses.

If you're looking to waste some of your employer's time today, you could do worse than watch this entirely safe-for-work reality show in which porn stars play Dungeons and Dragons.

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Emily Y., I agree that the sex scandals just aren't fun anymore. They're sordid and upsetting. The most upsetting part, though, is not the vulgarity (though Tiger's texts should win some sort of prize for debasement)—it's that many of these guys were not using condoms when they cheated on their wives.

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It's common knowledge that women in abusive relationships have trouble leaving their abusers. It is uncommon to the point of bizarre for a judge hearing a domestic violence complaint to take it upon himself to send a woman back into the arms of her abuser by marrying the couple. And yet, that's what Baltimore County District Judge G. Darrell Russell Jr. did last week.

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Aren’t sex scandals supposed to be a little bit fun? Of course, if they’re scandals, it means a left-behind partner has gotten hurt, but the best sex scandals at least allow you to be wryly amused about the follies of human passion. The Mark Sanford affair was a good sex scandal—the meltdown press conference, the tearful confessions of love, the e-mails about Maria’s luscious casabas, the knowledge that the wronged Jenny could very well take care of herself.

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Promoted Title:  We're Talking About: March 19, 2010

—Hillary Clinton and President Obama finally forge an alliance after the bitter Democratic primary. [New York Times]

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I’ve been noodling over the Ben Roethlisberger story myself, Emily, and there are two things I can take away from it so far. First, regardless of his guilt or innocence, Roethlisberger’s a giant dumbass. While it’s easy to say there is a “pattern” of sexual assault accusations against him, the two cases are very different. Which I point out not to defend him but to indict him.

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Maybe March will be remembered as the month of the nasty text. First the tattoo lizard who slept with Sandra Bullock's husband, Jesse James, released James' bon mots. And now the full Tiger Woods sexting oeuvre has come to light. All I can say is: Someone should read these Tiger texts aloud as a one-man show. The combination of the expected cock/golden shower talk with all the boring logistics is priceless.

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Jess, I must confess I found this Daily Beast story on Jihad Jane, who will be arraigned today in Philadelphia, quite interesting. Even the headline makes sense to me. Although it’s a tease, “feminist,” in this case, does not mean the American definition of feminist. You could put together a cultural riff about how Jihad Jane and Amy Bishop represent the outer edge of the new American feminist power.

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—Friends and family bristle as couples fight via Facebook status update. [New York Times]

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The Daily Beast chose a provocative headline for their article on "Jihad Jane," aka Colleen LaRose, who allegedly plotted to kill a Swedish cartoonist: "The Feminist Jihad." The author, Richard Miniter, points out that LaRose is a recent, highly radicalized convert to Islam, and that she wanted to help kill the cartoonist because he portrayed the prophet Mohammed as a dog. Miniter argues that feminism is causing women to want to participate in jihad.

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Michelle "Bombshell" McGee's name is all over the Internet today because the tabloid In Touch claims that she is having an affair with Oscar winner Sandra Bullock's husband, Jesse James.

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I'm catching up on the sexual assault accusations against Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger (a 20-year-old college student says he went after her in the bathroom of a Georgia nightclub; he denies it.) Did you see the photos TMZ posted of Roethlisberger with a group of cops, apparently, his a

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I find many uses of the word patriarchy grating, but it's pretty hard to describe the Catholic Church without it. Which is why it's so stunning that today, nearly 60,000 nuns signed a letter supporting the passage of Barack Obama's health care plan—the same plan the Catholic bishops have done their best to stonewall because of language concerning abortion.

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Jessica, I am a sports fan who’s always liked Tiger far more for his killer instinct and his ability to hit magical shots under pressure and provide drama to an otherwise mundane sport than for his squeaky clean image. So I agree with you that real golf fans don’t give a whit as to whether Elin is in the crowd.

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Sarah Gilbert at AOL’s Daily Finance has decided that the paucity of females on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people is a cause for celebration, not dismay. “Enormous wealth is not a mark of honor, but an indictment,” Gilbert writes.

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I don’t have much interest in Reille Hunter. I am, however, quite interested in the story of Constance McMillen, the out, lesbian high-school senior from Fulton, Miss., who wanted to take her girlfriend to the prom. When her school got wind of her plans, they forbade her to attend. She called the ACLU, which then contacted her school.

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Yesterday my aunt sent me Dana Jennings’s latest moving piece about his experience of prostate cancer. She, like my mother, had had cancer; both of them hated the term “battling cancer.” Jennings agrees. The metaphor of “battling” cancer, and the ancillary vocabulary we use to describe those with cancer (“victims,” “survivors,” “brave,” “fighters”) make him cringe. The majority of the commenters on Jennings’ piece agree.

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