Ken Silverstein is quitting DC:
I just no longer have the energy to cover Washington. I’ve loved working for Harper’s, but, as I told Mediabistro, “Washington and Washington politics has worn me down. Every time I write a story I feel like I wrote it a year ago and five years ago and 10 years ago. Nothing ever changes here.” ... When you can read an entire column by the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz and never once feel the urge to cut out your own heart with a dull knife, you know that you no longer have the sense of outrage that is essential to reporting from our nation’s capital.
Amen. If I didn't escape to the Cape for four months a year, it would be a struggle. The daily, hourly exposure to this is draining, unless you give in to partisanship, schtick or phoning it in. I try not to.
But so much of this city's official culture repels me, nauseates me, sickens me. What keeps me here are the many wonderful people who also flock here, the hope of the young, the friends outside of politics, the neighborhoods that are still full of life and diversity and humor. And, of course, the Dish tries to think about much much more than Washington. And I simply could not do it without Chris, Patrick, Zoe and Conor.