 (Hannah Agosta for The Washington Post) | By Dan Zak and Ellen McCarthy The country woke up with Triple Sec and cranberry juice on its breath. Just out of reach: the scuffed brick of a Nokia phone, a bottle of pills to stoke the serotonin, 2½ pounds of more than you needed to know about President John Adams. The phone on the nightstand couldn't read the news, so on went the television. Something about a woman in the Houston suburbs who drowned her five children in the bathtub. And that D.C. intern — another intern scandal — was still missing, and her parents were suspicious of a congressman with whom she allegedly had an affair. In Las Vegas that week, Whitney Houston accepted a BET lifetime achievement award at the ripe old age of 37. "I'm a survivor!" she exclaimed, echoing a Destiny's Child hook from the spring, and made a prediction: "The best is yet to come." Pax Americana was only just yielding a hangover. We were still buzzed and loose, with only twitches of a dawning headache. The country felt cuspy, for better or worse. Read more » | Support the work Every story, every feature, every insight. | | | | |
