GERSON AND MERITOCRACIES. There are times when the blogosphere's natural affection for snark and sarcasm can mask what's actually being said. Nobody is actually confused as to why Michael Gerson is on the Post op-ed page. The Washington Post op-ed page thinks it's very important that they publish people who are identified with the Republican Party. Moreover, in the last few years, they've become more self-conscious about publishing commentators associated with the evangelical community. Gerson fits both bills. Nor is his perch at the Council on Foreign Relations odd: CFR grabbed him because he's something of a major political figure, and his association with the think tank is good for fundraising, prestige, etc. There's a tendency to operate off of the assumption that Washington institutions are, in a rough sense, meritocracies, and when they stray from that ideal, it's useful to point it out. At this point, that base assumption of good faith is largely shattered, and some folks are just mocking the concept that that they're meritocracies. But by mocking it, they let it remain implicit. So it's probably time to say that these institutions are more tautologies than meritocracies: They are the establishment because they hire the establishment. Decisions are made based on what's good for the institution as much or more than they're based on the relative merits, accuracy, and policy knowledge of the applicant in question. This happens for a number of reasons, ranging from the elevation of bipartisanship to an ideological principle to the need to keep funders happy to the social effects of being deep in the establishment milieu. But they're not meritocracies. --Ezra Klein
