Isaacson’s conviction that independent minds can think through the impasses of the age, that there are solutions to independent problems, has extended into the way he writes.

When they came out, his biographies of Henry Kissinger and the architects of Vietnam were criticized as overly coddling, which may be because history demands a posture of absolute censure for the generation of politicians they profile. (One reviewer even branded the far-more-successful Franklin book as a “hagiography.”) But Isaacson sees and admires in Kissinger and Acheson a sort of eclectic genius—an abiding curiosity for fields in which they were not experts. Moreover, his subjects come off above all as men of letters—elegant writers with liberal educations who believed that the world of ideas was solvent for the entanglements of the world of situations.

And his subjects, Franklin and Einstein included, achieved success—and material success, at that—through the life of the mind. Isaacson is deeply sentimental about New Orleans, but does not fail to see the recovery as an opportunity for ancillary profits. In the New York Times last summer, he reported that President Bush had told him that “if he were young and looking to make his mark or some money, he would move to New Orleans,” and the idea is one Isaacson greets approvingly. He repeatedly quotes Franklin with what might be a personal motto: “You can do well by doing good.” Isaacson has. In addition to his places in Aspen, Washington, and Broadmoor, he owns a breathtaking pied-à-terre on Jackson Square, the French Quarter piazza Bush made famous with a live address last September, his voice quavering in apology before the bronze, intrepid figure of General Andrew Jackson.

Over breakfast on the square, Isaacson tells me about the new book he’s incubating, on the Battle of New Orleans. Pointing to the statue, he remarks how much potential the War of 1812 has for deep and colorful characters. As with all of Isaacson’s books, however, there’s a moral as well. “The battle taught us that New Orleans is a city that’s worth saving. It’s a city that’s worth fighting for.”

The speculation is that Isaacson might try to take on some more of that fighting himself. Nearly everyone I spoke to for this article weighed in on rumors that he was planning to run for governor of Louisiana in 2008. Isaacson shrugs off the talk, at least of a gubernatorial run. But adds, “I might want to get into politics someday.”

Isaacson began his career covering the city hall of the flamboyantly controversial mayor Moon Landrieu, who now lives a few doors down from Isaacson’s family in Broadmoor—and still calls the Aspen CEO “boy reporter.” Yet the governor’s mansion in Baton Rouge would be an odd choice for someone like Isaacson. Louisiana is still very much in the shadow of Huey Long, from his namesake bridge to the ruined Big Charity hospital and other vestiges of the governor’s extraordinary tenure.

In many ways, Isaacson is the anti-Long: Where the Kingfish dressed corruption and mild tyranny in the rags of progressive idealism, Isaacson is an idealist in a pragmatist’s three-piece suit. “Most of the problems in the world have easy solutions,” he says at a lecture at Tulane Law School. “Everyone knows the solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict: It’s two states, an Israeli one and a Palestinian one. And everyone knows where the border between the two states should be, down to just a few miles. The disagreement is only over those few miles.”

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