Mr. Ganesh strikes a comic pose in his latest essay: He assumes the guise of that pearl clutching, porcine dowager Margaret Dumont, who is both attracted and repelled by the comic anarchy of The Marx Brothers. She is smitten with Groucho’s roguish banter and can’t seem to tear herself away from his attentions. Mr. Ganesh is enamored by Pop Culture and its Rock Idols, and the rise of the Populists who are both creatures of the mob, and subject to the vicissitudes of popular taste. Yet he discards his not so fleeting romance with the ephemera of popular taste in both politics and Rock Idols to write this aphorism, in praise of the good grey men of respectable bourgeois politics, with just a dash of cynicism to sweeten his weak decoction.

By the time reality is through with them, a reputation for dull competence will be precious stock in politics. The trick is not to forfeit it in the meantime for the transient glamour of the street.

American Writer

https://www.ft.com/content/304df3ba-e15a-11e6-9645-c9357a75844a