My favorite Washington Post headline of this election season, which appeared above an article by Terry M. Neal and Ceci Connolly on the morning before the second presidential debate, read: “Debate Challenges Are Same as Before.” As I have had occasion to notice in this space in the past, the Post hardly even bothers to keep up the pretence anymore that much of what appears in its front section is news, as the term would traditionally have been understood. Either the paper is uncovering some new and recondite racial or “gender” imbalance of which even its alleged victims have scarcely been aware hitherto or, as here, crack political reporters are being given their heads to do what nowadays crack political reporters are more and more expected to do—that is, not to report the news but to interpret the spin, even if it’s already been interpreted countless times before.

It cannot be stated often enough that these reporters are therefore engaged in a symbiotic relationship with their subjects. The candidates provide the spin in order for it to be interpreted by the reporters, who therefore require that the spin be supplied in the first place. I often wonder how this kind of thing strikes the average reader— assuming that for once the average reader doesn’t simply skip over such articles. Is he grateful for the reporters’ political acumen in telling him what to think about the campaigns’ official actions or pronouncements? Or is there, as I fancy is more