Sic Semper Listicles

Earlier this week, GQ (whose Marin Cogan has been tearing it up lately) put out a list of the Fifty Most Powerful People in Washington. Everybody likes lists, and my coffee table will always be a home to the Onion AV Club’s Iventory compendium. But lists of powerful people? Almost totally random. Also, brutally reliant on the bends and belches of the news cycle. Case in point: GQ decided that Bill Daley, the White House chief of staff whose power started shrinking from the moment he took it, was one of the city’s biggest players. And then Daley quit. So GQ fixed it: While we’re on it, I’d say that Mitch McConnell’s veto power over any bill or deal should have put him ahead of Eric Cantor. But now we’re debating listicles…