Passing the Torch from Michael to Jay

By James Kelly

This is a bittersweet week for me. After more than eight years as Washington bureau chief, Michael Duffy has decided to devote himself full time to reporting and writing for TIME. I can't say I blame him; during his tenure, Michael witnessed two presidential elections, two major wars, one presidential impeachment and the worst terrorist attack in American history. "I never expected history to be quiet," Michael says. "But I didn't expect it to be this raucous."

Michael has been a superb leader of our colleagues in Washington and a boon companion to his colleagues in New York City. I once said to Michael that I regretted that I had never got a chance to work for him in Washington. He smiled and said nothing, most likely because he knew that on the busiest news weeks out of Washington, I actually did work for him. I just didn't realize it.

If anyone can top Michael's performance as bureau chief, it is Jay Carney, who has served as Michael's deputy since 2003. Jay first worked for TIME as a summer intern in 1986 while attending Yale. After a brief stint in Key West, Fla., for the Miami Herald, Jay rejoined TIME as head of its Miami bureau. Fluent in Russian, Jay went on to serve in Moscow from 1990 to 1993, where he covered the unraveling of the Soviet empire. He then came to Washington, where he covered the Clinton White House, Capitol Hill, the 2000 Bush campaign and finally the Bush White House, and, among other things, was one of the few reporters on Air Force One on 9/11. "When I left Moscow for Washington in the summer of 1993, I had the unsettling feeling that the high point of my life as a journalist had already come and gone," says Jay. "Clearly, I should not have worried."

James Kelly, Managing Editor