Spencer Ackerman on his unlikely friendship with Eli Lake:
… You should want to have friends who disagree with you, and sometimes disagree with you deeply. Check each other’s excesses, fill each other’s blindspots, strengthen your own arguments and then light the peace pipe and make Steely Dan references. It’s a better way to live.
Actually, it’s not so unlikely when you think about it. I barely know either person but just reading them you can tell they are kindred spirits. Both care passionately about America and the world, both are obsessed with Middle East politics, both entwined in that murky place where Washington intrigue meets Middle East conflict, and both, well, are prepared to light peace pipes and riff on Steely Dan. They are men of their generation.
Good times.
(Hat tip: Dispatches. My own essay on friendship through the ages, from Jesus to Emerson, through Aelred and Montaigne, is the last third of the book I’m proudest of: Love Undetectable.)
