A Face Worse Than Death

It's been fascinating these last few days to see Rupert Murdoch's photographed expression go so rapidly from smarmy arrogance, which was standard for decades, to dotty gramps. Okay, he's 80 and probably has not gotten a lot of sleep--of the unmedicated variety--for ten days; but still I can't decide if the vacant, affable grin now plastered on for the cameras is there on instructions from his image consultant, indicates a steady loss of brain function, or if he is simply drifting into a charmed revery, picturing what he would do if positions were reversed and he had the whip.

Or maybe he's marveling in a grown-up manner at the workings of Fate, on how everything he's built his whole life--after inheriting dad's newspaper business, anyway--is just one grant of immunity in U.S District Court away from crumbling into sand.

UPDATE: Forbes and the phiz