It’s as if you say it here, it comes out there.
(H/T Balloon Juice)

The paragraph here, however, is a not one of those instances. It’s a pretty clear and concise summary of what our cozy community worked on for years at STSOZ 1.0. It makes sense if one understands the raison d’etre for that effort. More so than say Tweety’s hamfisted ‘documentary’ that came to the party at a minimum six years too late.

DM aside, the overall print commentariat seems emotionally stressed. Beyond the financial/job cutback thing. When we’ve chatted with acquaintances at wire services or other places, especially those over 45 or so, they seem genuinely freaked. Understandably in this economy they’re anxious about ‘what next?’ when the slip comes.

But it’s really more. They know print is dead. And all they do is print. How to reinvent oneself at 45-60 with no real discernible concrete job skill set? it seems a very legitimate question that alot (millions?) of Americans are asking themselves. It’s like a doctor who realizes in three years all humans will be self healing and have no need for them except the print journalist doesn’t have even the benefit of specialized skills/technical training.

In a way it’s easy to sit back and enjoy. How many of these same souls wrote blithely that Detroit should die, NYC in the 1970s collapse, and celebrated that the Internet in the 1990s would wipe out whole industries ‘with creative destruction’? And all was ok — ‘everyone would just go get job training’?

But in a way their plight is a mirror of the larger jobless recovery reality. Human capital mobility is mostly mythical and supporting statistics often either faked, incomplete or both. Everyone, especially our feminist friends, know the sexism when E.D. Hill at Fox, for example, nears 40 and disappears. Video all concede is age-ist. But these white males say 55-60 with no specific trade skills or professional license in a way are equally screwed (for the first time, compared to other backgrounds or genders who’ve long known the feeling).

None of which excuses DM. Wow.

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Then there’s this:

http://bloggasm.com/out-of-work-journalist-descends-below-new-york-to-become-subway-musician

-A great example is that video clip of a nervous, petulant, and annoyed Dana Milbank sharing the stage on Howie Kurtz show with Nico from HuffPo (who asked a far more ‘Serious’ question of Obama than Dana ever has).

Milbank as Yglesias (self-interestedly) noted was stewing in status anxiety.

Milbank is part of the cosy decadent DC scene – He’s even Skull and Bones, which suggests something silly in New Haven.

Nico tooled on him on TV and Milbank called him a “dick” between segments.

LOL, touche. One shouldn’t take it all at face value because frankly besides truly deep policy and natural smarts, it seems clear some people have a talent — like having perfect pitch musically — for both leading meme and policy debates as well as (to mix metaphors) identify and catch the perfect wave. So that gift combined with policy expertise can lead to spectacular and perhaps unmatched results.

Given your own witty and insightful blog, perhaps you have your own perspective which would be fascinating.

The trouble with D.C. is it is a one industry town and the industry really produces nothing but words, which become terribly close to ego and self identity. In NYC before the final collapse (say 1980s/early 1990s) one could encounter and battle with people over tangible things — deals and money, media contracts, and so on. Egos are huge but associated with something else.

In D.C., by contrast , when someone succeeds so spectacularly others are threatened solely on the ego front, there’s no tangible compensating ‘else’. Even more than the City, D.C. worships success but roots for failure. It’s funny how the commentariat class are so visceral in trying to suppress ‘upstarts’ and new entrants.

What we also love about this particular example is how not only was there the talent and astounding discipline required for successful self-branding (that is 100% a compliment, no irony) but also very skillful use of new technologies beyond just a blog. The threat to the old school think tank and commentariat classes was like one giant sweeping encirclement ala Cannae.

The truth is unlike thousands of monkeys, typewriters and the Bard, one has ‘it’ (however defined) or doesn’t it seems. And as much as we wish we could implement, copy, or study that pattern, in our heart of hearts we a know for a fact that within 10 days we’d be back to writing self-indulgent semi-haiku type posts with doodles attached. Unlike the Monkees who thought they could actually play, we know we’re not gonna blow the roof off Bill Graham’s old Filmore.