soup

@antderosa | facebook | testimonials | ask me anything

topics: syria | egypt | bahrain | libya | china | afghanistan | iran | iraq | turkey | japan | architecture | scandanavia | science | tech | art | design | photography

• They tend to prefer the theoretical to the observable, and to dismiss that which might be learned empirically as “anecdotal.” They tend to speak a language common in Washington but not specifically shared by the rest of us. They talk about “programs,” and “policy,” and how to “implement” them or it, about “trade-offs” and constituencies and positioning the candidate and distancing the candidate, about the “story,” and how it will “play.” They speak of a candidate’s performance, by which they usually mean his skill at circumventing questions, not as citizens but as professional insiders, attuned to signals pitched beyond the range of normal hearing: “I hear he did all right this afternoon,” they were saying to one another in the press section of the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans on the evening Dan Quayle was or was not to be nominated for the vice-presidency. “I hear he did OK with Brinkley.” By the time the balloons fell that night the narrative had changed: “Quayle, zip,” the professionals were saying as they brushed the confetti off their laptops.

  Joan Didion
  • #Politics
  • #Media
  • #Echo Chamber
  • #Inside Baseball
  • #Joan Didion
  • #Journalism
  2 Jan 2012