Phoning it in

Friday the 13th

I was going to write something about David Brooks again—hilarious as ever today—but had the fortune to see the Charles P. Pierce take on that column before I got started and realized I'd just be humiliating myself worse than usual. Why is Pierce always so good? It doesn't seem fair.

Playing croquet.

Saturday

Mark Landler in the Times:

Mr. Obama’s advisers say he savors unscripted encounters with voters, and occasionally these moments can be revelatory.

Dropping in for a beer last week at Ziggy’s Pub and Restaurant in Amherst, Ohio, the president found himself explaining to a table of curious school administrators why the White House was waiving states’ compliance with the No Child Left Behind law. Moments earlier, he had an intense exchange with Art Davis, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, who complained about delays in processing disability claims for veterans.

But then there are encounters like his kitchen-table conversation with a Cedar Rapids couple, Jason and Ali McLaughlin. Though avidly promoted by the campaign, it got off to a desultory start, with Mr. McLaughlin and the president comparing notes about how they coach girls’ sports teams (“Now, they run plays!” Mr. Obama marveled about his daughter Sasha’s team). Neither said a word about middle-class tax cuts — the ostensible subject of the meeting — until after the reporters had been ushered out.

What do you suppose this is all about? If they're revelatory, what are the revelations? I'd really like to know, for example, what Obama had to say about the NCLB waivers, but Landler declines to tell us.  In the case of the Cedar Rapids dinner table, Landler doesn't even know—or is this the example of when the moments are non-revelatory?

The big revelation for me is one of the tiniest blanks in the story: What sport is Sasha playing?* Landler must have failed to hear if it was mentioned and just left it out, and nobody up the editorial chain of command thought to fill it in. What it reveals is how completely these guys are phoning it in. If you look at it closely, there is really no content to these three paragraphs at all! It's like the party reports in the old society pages, just photo captions, except there are no photos.

T-shirt by Delbuc.

*The team the president is helping to coach is basketball.