— Why, when it comes to poets, do politicians so often blow it? Case in point: Laura Bush had hoped to hold a symposium of poets at the White House this past Wednesday to honor Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes. But when she learned that some of them intended to use the occasion to voice their opposition to a war in Iraq, she canceled the event — giving the anti-war poets a far better platform and more publicity than they ever could have hoped for. Instead of having a small gathering at the White House on Wednesday, poets...