Oracle Fixaton

Mark knows

It's my own fault, I know.
I just want someone smarter than I am, someone in the know, someone who has access to detailed information I don't have access to, someone who spends time analyzing data to tell me what's happening.
I seek out wise men. Oracles.

So every Friday night, I watch David Brooks and Mark Shields to tell what what to believe, to tell me how the story will play out.

Last Friday I heard Mark Shields say...But wait, let's remember what I heard him say so many times over the past four years, that the Republican party was fast becoming a minority party because it was fighting demographics. The country is turning from white to brown and the Republicans are resisting this trend and until they decide to embrace this change, they will lose Hispanics and they will not be able to capture the White House any time this century.

Now Mark is saying, Oh, the Democrats are a bicoastal party, condemned to be a boutique party of coastal elites, unable to win the heartland, unable to win the White House. 

Harry got the last laugh

He did have one fact I didn't know: There are now fewer Democrats in elective office since any time since 1900, governors, state representatives, Congress, Senate, White House, Supreme Court.
So, why do I still listen? Because I have this craving for authority, for people who know. 
Like Nate Silver.  Oh, he turns out to be reliable. 
After all, he did think Hillary's chances of losing were higher than anyone else--30%. And he did point out how wildly the polls were swinging, but still, he did not call it.

Nate was all over it

I want people to tell me the future, a future I can rely on:
I want Neville Chamberlain to tell me there will be peace in our time.

Peace in our time

I want Jim Cramer to tell me not to invest in mortgaged back securities.

Oh, he always knows.

I want Alan Greenspan to warn me about the impending crash in stocks related to  mortgage defaults.

Hang on his every word

I want guys who are supposed to know, to actually know.
What's wrong with that? 
It does remind me of a story my father once told me about a physician he met at one of his meetings at the Department of Health and Human Services. This physician had practiced oncology or something but now he was a federal employee, helping to write government policy statements just like my father. Why had he given up the practice of medicine? My father asked him.
He said he wanted to have a more far reaching effect.
"But these people you work with. These political scientists, these economists, they don't know anything. You knew something. Something real."
The physician just stared at him blankly.
That should have told us all something.