Matt Labash: Selected Works
For more than two decades, Matt Labash's long-form reporting was among the most distinctive work the magazine published — combining literary ambition, comic timing, and an eye for the absurd in American life. This selection ranges from his earliest pieces in the mid-1990s through his final years at the magazine.
12 articles
- 1
AT THE RED LOBSTER WITH TAMMY FAYE
Matt Labash November 11, 1996An early Labash signature: finding the genuine humanity in a figure everyone else dismissed.
- 2
Michael Moore, One-Trick Phony
Matt Labash June 8, 1998The piece that helped define a Labash template — thorough reporting deployed in service of puncturing a well-defended ego.
- 3
AMONG THE PORNOGRAPHERS
Matt Labash September 21, 1998A visit to the adult film industry that's more interested in the people than the prurience.
- 4
Women of the Clinton Scandals
Matt Labash January 15, 2001Long reported piece on the women at the center of the Clinton years — sympathetic without being credulous.
- 5
Will the Good Times Ever Roll Again?
Matt Labash March 20, 2006New Orleans before Katrina — and then after. One of Labash's most reported pieces.
- 6
Riding with the Kossacks
Matt Labash June 26, 2006An embedded account of the netroots left at the peak of its influence.
- 7
Are We Having Fun Yet?
Matt Labash September 17, 2007Annual summer dispatch from a country at war — Labash's recurring meditation on escapism and grief.
- 8
The Passion of Dick Cheney
Matt Labash September 22, 2008A rare extended profile of the most press-averse vice president in memory.
- 9
Among the Paultards
Matt Labash September 15, 2008Inside the Ron Paul movement — prescient about the populist energy that would later power Trump.
- 10
Apathetics Anonymous
Matt Labash November 17, 2008The 2008 election through the eyes of Americans who couldn't bring themselves to care.
- 11
Words, R.I.P.
Matt Labash November 7, 2011A lament for language — characteristically funny and genuinely mournful.
- 12
There Isn't the Time to Worry
Matt Labash June 1, 2017One of his final pieces for the magazine: fly fishing, mortality, and what endures.