Opinion

Eight Presidents. One Typewriter. Some Notes.

Wally Okonkwo has covered enough presidencies to distrust every first draft of outrage.

Every president is described as unprecedented by people too young to remember the last precedent and too busy to search the morgue.

Reagan was supposed to end seriousness. Clinton was supposed to end shame. Bush was supposed to end grammar. Obama was supposed to end politics. Trump, we were told, would end everything. Everything has proven stubborn.

"The press keeps mistaking novelty for importance. It is an old error in a new suit." Walter Okonkwo

What is different about Trump is not that the press gets him wrong. The press gets everyone wrong in early drafts. What is different is the speed with which those drafts harden into identity.

I keep a typewriter because it forces every sentence to earn the inconvenience of existing. Some days I think the whole industry would benefit from ribbon shortages.