You saw it here yesterday, folks! I aced out Daniel Shore. Today I shall do a little victory dance to celebrate. You are welcome to watch.
Shore is a political commentator for NPR, and, while not as famous as Dan Rather, still is sufficiently notable to make a cameo in The Game. I enjoy his comments a great deal, and trust him at least as far as any other pundit I've heard. Yesterday, I slapped out my journal entry, observing that the diplomatic fireworks between China and the US struck me as pretty casual, a perfunctory confrontation, almost because they were expected to go through the moves. That evening, Shore came on and predicted the imbroglio was even stickier than it might seem, that China's demands were escalating, and the impasse could drag on indefinitely.
?Oops!? cried I. A senior analyst, someone who had done his homework and whose opinions I respect, revealed me for the amateur I am, without even knowing I exist. Well, it wouldn't be the first time I'd been wrong about current news issues. I took Koop to be a right-wing crank when he became Surgeon General, I refused to accept Clinton was as sleazy as his opponents painted him, and I expected Gore to win the presidential election. So, what the heck, I let the essay stand. Then I could come back and write another essay in a week or two about being wrong; two topics for the price of one. (That's a trick I've learned from books on how to write professionally. Some of it must be sinking in.) Besides, I wanted to read more of Maps and History that night, rather than rewriting an amateur editorial.
This morning, we learned the matter of the spy plane had been resolved. This evening, Shore began his commentary with a frank admission he'd missed the mark and analyzed what could have caused him to miss as badly as he did. (He used the same trick I had planned: two topics for the price of one. I'm definitely feeling professional.) More rewarding than the similarity of tactics, though, was just guessing right when the expert guessed wrong.
Amateurs beat the experts every day, and it's more a matter of luck than skill. Witness the little old ladies who pool their pensions and whip the Wall Street boys, or the ?psychics? who find killers. Given enough little old ladies or psychics or amateur political commentators, sometimes the nobodies get lucky. But it's still nice to enjoy these little triumphs when they happen.