Jack Germond has been covering national politics and Washington since 1960. He spent 20 years with the Gannett papers, then eight with the still-lamented Washington Star and more than 20 with the Baltimore Sun. He and his partner, Jules Witcover, wrote a syndicated column five days a week from 1977 through 2000, and four books about the 1980, 1984, 1988, and 1992 presidential campaigns. Germond's memoir is called Fat Man in a Middle Seat—Forty Years of Covering Politics; he has just completed his first novel. He and his wife, Alice, live on the Shenandoah River in West Virginia, where he enjoys watching the birds and playing the horses.