From Josh Marshall comes this…In It But Not Of It

For a week shy of 10 years, and especially since we opened our Washington Bureau in 2009, we’ve tried to stick to a basic mantra about our coverage of Washington, DC: in it but not of it. It’s the motto of TPMDC. We want to be completely immersed in the facts and details and hints and allegations of the capital because covering politics is our core competency. But we never want to be part of it, identified with it, swept up in the histrionics, conventional wisdom and fads of it. That is not an easy balance to keep. And I won’t say we’ve always managed it perfectly. But that’s our goal.

David flagged this piece in the Politico this morning, which is I think a distillation of what we desire not to be.

I remember in early 2009 numerous conversations to the effect that obviously President Obama would be reelected in 2012. It was barely even worth contesting it. Same on the congressional side. Obviously, two years is a long time. I similarly remember listening to a radio program in 1991 in which a high profile commentator seriously proposed that the Democrats nominate George Bush for president but a Democrat for vice president. It was so obvious that President Bush would be reelected in 1992 that the only real opportunity for the Democrats would be to get someone else in as vice president beside Dan Quayle. The suggestion was half made in jest but only half.

Above all else, DC is a company town. Insular, incestuous, small. The Democrats took a pounding on election day. It’s in the nature of the place to suddenly be unable to see anything except through that prism. No one has any idea where we’re going to be in two years. Not just whether it’s good for which of the two parties but what the complexion of the reality is going to be. That’s the only true compass to follow in the coming months.