Apparently if one has access to the secret decoder ring, one can determine which members in good standing of the very serious foreign policy community are experts and which ones are merely "experts." If only those rings were, say, distributed with my Washington Post. Maybe Wolf Blitzer could be given some hand signals he could use while he interviews people.
Or, maybe, if people really want there to be a "clerisy" of very serious people we're supposed to respect - a concept I reject, but at least it could be improved upon - they could stop handing out CFR and Brookings fellowships to every hack in Washington who needs a title and start having some quality control. Maybe occasionally ejecting a few for having some really catastrophically bad ideas?
Seriously!
