Will Salaten's self parody

I've been wondering for weeks what the hell William Salaten is trying to get at with his "Kerryisms" on Slate and why the site publishes them. To match the Bushisms of the same site? Seems unlikely because Bushisms are generally funny and the Kerryisms simply indicate that Kerry thinks through issues and answers thoughtfully. Or are they running Salaten's pieces just to prove, week in and week out, just what a hack the guy is.

But Brad DeLong comes to the rescue.

It's all just self-parody.

Albeit unintentional self-parody; which he finds helps one to understand the petulant reviews of Clinton's book by Kakutani and Isikoff ("Ooh, he's such a policy wonk. Tell us about the blow job! What did Hillary call you when you told her about it! Inquiring press corp pundits want to know. Who cares about...Nigeria. Geesh!")

I have not yet figured out why so much of our elite press is so... what should I call it? Feckless. Corrupt (in the sense of well-rotted). Decadent. Why does William Saletan find it funny that Kerry tries hard to give nuanced, reasonably-complete answers to questions about issues with nuances? Why do Weston Kosova and Michael Isikoff cover the government--rather than, say, cover something like advances in bartending--if they find debates over policy the equivalent of crossing the Gedrosian Desert? Why does Michiko Kakutani think it pointless and boring to wake up early to watch the inauguration of the first democratically-elected president in sixteen years in a country of 130 million people?

It is a great mystery to me...

This week's version is a perfect example. Salaten seems to think that Kerry's thoughtful answer is somehow...I don't know...thoughtful...examing what's been done so far, what's worked, what hasn't. What to do in the future. No, for Salaten, anything but a black & white answer ("exterminate the brutes") is some kind of intellectual dishonesty.

Salaten's got his script and he's sticking to it.