John Watkins

MINNEAPOLIS — I like the idea of the hunchbacked Richard III, newly exhumed from his final resting spot beneath a parking lot in Leicester, England, visiting the Oval Office. You can imagine the late, unlamented English monarch exchanging pleasantries with U.S. President Barack Obama about horseback riding and complaining about what a pain it is to deal with the intolerable French. They might also exchange notes on the inevitable headaches of leadership — though, in Obama’s case, he’s not likely to take his skeet-shooting gun and parachute into Helmand province to battle the Taliban.