Weigel

@TheFixPoints, Call Your Office!

Cheap weekend fun: I talked to the mysterious tweeter who runs @TheFixPoints and @Ron_Fournimeh, accounts that mock Washington-style analysis by parodying the personas of two heads on Pundit Mount Rushmore. The mystery tweeter is a little ruder than I’d be, but he really does embody the id of the political junkie who hates it when this dismal business is analyzed instantly for winners and losers and “leaders.”

One addendum: We probably are too rough on Ron Fournier. The National Journal columnist is often the victim of the Twitter quick-read—that is, I think people see his headlines or links on Twitter and make snap judgments about what he’s arguing. Headlines are for hooking the reader, and Fournier’s headlines announce with a trumpet voluntary the coming of some advice about how to lead. But one piece I linked in a roundup about bad advice for the president was more subtle than I said at the time. Fournier didn’t want the president to cave in completely, just to start talking to Republicans. Which he sort of did, setting up meetings that the press reported on, and taking the pressure off the executive branch to “talk.”

The instinct to reduce every D.C. argument to “who’s winning, who’s losing” has to be resisted. So should the instinct to assume everyone arguing that the warring parties need to come together is doing so in bad faith.