So what happens is you are asked to compose a five-page text about something, covering various points and enjoining sanity and reason. The person who wants this done is too busy to do it his own self. He's taking fire and puttin' rounds downrange. He's putting his ass on the line every day—actually, he's on vacation most of next week, so, could you...?

So you spend a few hours doing this and submit the result. He looks at it, immediately rewrites its, then asks you to fix up the rewrite. Why? Because it now makes no sense, though it is, of course, much improved. So, having been this route before, you make a show of fussing over the new version while quietly retrieving the original, bad version and putting it in place of the corrigendum. This is actually a lot of work, making the original look as if it had been masterfully revised. It takes practice but it can be done.

Labels: Monkeys in Politics