There’s a scene in the (very good) movie Shattered Glass in which a pair of New Republic staffers are heard chatting briefly at a party as another character walks through. (Whether the viewer’s takeaway is supposed to be that D.C. 20-somethings are monomaniacally focused on wonkery or glibly snobby or both I’m not sure.) The exchange goes roughly like this:
Staffer 1: Pretty soon you won’t be able to tell the difference between Newsweek and People..
Staffer 2: You say that as though there were a difference between Newsweek and People.
Staffer 1: Exactly.
Well, courtesy of Spencer, you may now feel free to substitute The New Republic and The Weekly Standard in your own home versions of that conversation—if you hadn’t already.