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Over a week of reshuffled hierarchies and unlikely reversals, wars ground on without resolution, alliances strained under the weight of their own contradictions and, across Washington, Augusta, Athens and Dallas, the losers and winners looked nothing like what the scoreboard suggested. Careers advanced through failure, ceremonies were ambushed by excellence, and the most revealing moments belonged to people who weren't the ones making the news.
JD Vance ⬇
The VP's terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad week started with a stop in Budapest to stump for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—who lost by 16 points. He then logged 34 hours of flight time for 21 hours of Iran talks that collapsed without a deal. Then, once back in the States, a Fox News hit to defend his boss's AI-generated image of himself as Christ. And finally a Turning Point USA event in Georgia where he told Pope Leo XIV—the boss of his religion—the right way to be Catholic. Through it all, Vance is somehow currently writing a book about his faith journey.
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Jeanine Pirro ⬆
As DC's U.S. Attorney, Pirro has failed to convince grand juries to indict six Democratic lawmakers, had her subpoenas for Jerome Powell tossed, and bungled the case against a man accused of throwing a sandwich at an immigration officer. This week she filed to vacate the seditious conspiracy convictions of 12 Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders. What does this dismal litigation track record get her? A secure spot on the Pam Bondi replacement shortlist for Attorney General. Winning this administration's top law enforcement job has nothing to do with winning cases.
Sam Altman ⬆
After 20-year-old Daniel Moreno-Gama allegedly traveled from Texas to San Francisco carrying a firebomb and a manifesto predicting AI-driven human extinction, Altman responded to his attack on his home with a family photo and a blog post asking for sanity. The fastest way to generate sympathy for an AI company, it turns out, is a Molotov cocktail.
Fred Ridley ⬆
When Rory McIlroy became the first back-to-back Masters champion since Tiger Woods in 2002, the usual ceremony of the previous winner crowning the new one wouldn’t work. The job fell to the Augusta National chairman who, according to McIlroy, asked to practice the presentation off-camera first because he had never done it before. The keeper of golf's most tradition-bound ceremony, caught entirely unprepared by excellence.
Samuel L. Jackson ⬆
At a Pentagon worship service, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth led troops in prayer using a script he said was inspired by Ezekiel 25:17. What he actually read was a pre-murder monologue about “great vengeance and furious anger” from Pulp Fiction — Quentin Tarantino's invention, not scripture, itself borrowed from a 1973 Japanese martial arts film. After an endless March Madness full of cheesy Capital One ads, it's nice to be reminded why we fell in love with Jules Winnfield in the first place.
Azzi Fudd ⬆
The Dallas Wings drafted Fudd first overall this week, reuniting her with her longtime girlfriend, former UConn teammate and last year's No. 1 pick, Paige Bueckers—a dynamic that already comes with enough complications. Add one more: Under the old CBA, Bueckers earned $78,831 as the top pick; under the new one, Fudd earns $500,000 for the same slot. Talk about an awkward date night discussion.
Originally a staple of Newsweek's print edition, Conventional Wisdom used arrows to track whose stock was rising or falling in the political circus. We're reviving it in the digital age because the problem it lampooned—hyperbole and partisan certainty masquerading as insight—has only intensified.
CW assigns arrows—up, down, or sideways—to the figures and forces shaping current events. The arrows don't predict the future or claim special insight. They capture the prevailing winds of the moment, uncluttered by tribal howling. In an era when partisan media reinforces rather than questions assumptions, CW operates from the center—skeptical of left and right alike, committed to puncturing inflated reputations and recognizing overlooked truths.
Do you agree with our editors on which way the political winds are blowing? Send us a message here.
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