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In today’s edition:
Objection/reflection
Okay, picture a 2020s D.C.-based reboot of “12 Angry Men”; the jury goes something like this:
“A White, middle-aged, lady journalist … a lawyer, a retired accountant and a woman whose father was a Secret Service agent for Lady Bird Johnson, the former first lady. There were six Black people, four White people, one very pregnant Asian woman and an immigrant from Iran. There was a very antsy 20-something and a creaky octogenarian.”
Does this “zesty salad bowl of D.C. diversity” from said lady journalist Lauren Ober’s essay sound like a favorable makeup for a defendant charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on overwhelming evidence? Not to spoil Ober’s outcome, but … it wasn’t. She and her fellow jurors surprised no one when they rendered their guilty verdict.
It wasn’t much of a shock either when Donald Trump threw that verdict and thousands of others right out immediately upon assuming the presidency, though it did leave Ober dejected and even worried for her safety.
The real surprise came when Ober learned that her neighbors were Jan. 6 sympathizers — and decided to get to know them. Ober describes how that started her down a path that led to connecting with the family of the very man she sent to prison and witnessing a grace she hopes the rest of the country can emulate.
Chaser: León Krauze picks out a model that Trump critics should not emulate as they try to figure out how to resist: Mexico’s failed opposition.
From Philip Bump’s column pointing out that this number is not the 20 million-plus centenarians that Elon Musk alleges are defrauding America’s entitlement structure; that bigger number is the result of data errors in the Social Security Administration’s system (which would be rather expensive to fix).
Yet Musk keeps proclaiming the wrong, bigger number that suits his narrative of widespread government fraud, Philip writes, because “there’s no incentive for Musk to wait for verification and numerous incentives for him not to.”
Philip walks through what those incentives are (and how Musk’s bluster actually insulates Trump), then settles on the best-practice approach to Musk’s rhetoric — same as “the one he wants to apply to government funding: reject it all as dubious until there’s reason to think it isn’t.”
Chaser: Marc Fisher writes that Trump and Musk fail to recognize this basic truth about federal workers: They spend all day long keeping us safe.
Less politics
Overwhelmed by the explosion of artificial intelligence? Take a DeepBreath. Er, a deep breath — sorry, force of habit.
Katy Steinmetz, creative director at a California “naming agency” (what a cool job!), writes that when it comes to branding AI products, “deep” seems to be the word du jour. Take a peep at Deepwave Digital, Deep Instinct, Deepgram, DeepL, Deep Vision, DeepMap and, buzziest of all, the Chinese firm DeepSeek. It’s the AI version, Steinmetz writes, of the plus sign that latched on to seemingly every streaming service.
Steinmetz walks through the many positive qualities “deep” can confer — at least, before it becomes irretrievably derivative — but settles on one that’s “best of all”: “Though ‘deep’ evokes visions of neural networks and unprecedented superskills, it makes no specific promises that a company must deliver on.” Bingo.
Smartest, fastest
- In case you didn’t get enough criticism of Trump’s foreign policy in yesterday’s newsletter, listen to Ruth Marcus and David Ignatius talk through his chaotic week for Europe on the “Impromptu” podcast. Or read the Editorial Board on the president’s misguided reduction of aid to South Africa.
- George Will writes that the Supreme Court has a chance to make amends for a “woeful” 2005 ruling that weakened property rights.
- Sportswriter John Miller profiles the unlikely, race-crossing friendship from mid-century baseball that made the way for the sport’s first Black manager.
It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.
To forestall Musk’s cull
Bureaucrats repunctuate:
Tech-friendly DeepState
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Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!