Explaining Mooney

By way of the Mad Biologist, I find new insight into the nature of Chris Mooney. Chris is a member of the Church of the Savvy.

Here's Jay Rosen on savvy worship:

[F]or this belief system to operate effectively, it has to continually position the journalist and his or her observations not as right where others are wrong, or virtuous where others are corrupt, or visionary where others are short-sghted, but as practical, hardheaded, unsentimental, and shrewd where others are didactic, ideological, and dreamy. (link)

Chris is a journalist who isn't interested in having persuasive arguments. Instead he wants us to be impressed with his detached, pragmatic insight into how the world really works.

That is, he wants us to know that he's savvy, and he wants us to join his Church.