National Journal’s Ron Brownstein made a shrewd, revealing, and refreshing observation on Sunday’s “Meet the Press“:

The most dangerous thing for any politician is to play into a pre-existing storyline. When Dan Quayle misspelled potato, I mean, if Bill Clinton had misspelled potato, no—everybody would’ve said he was tired.  Dan Quayle, it was like, “He doesn’t know how to spell potato.” For Hillary Clinton, clearly the answer that you just played, played into what is her biggest vulnerability in this race, the sense that she may be too political, too evasive, not always telling, you know, the, the—fudging answers and so forth.  So, in that sense, her response was very much a clear attempt to shore up that…in the second debate, and was going to shore up that vulnerability.”

It’s rare for a leading member of the political media to pull the curtain up to expose the concept of pre-existing narratives.  It’s a concept that repeatedly plays into press coverage of politics and campaigns. Brownstein’s vintage Dan Quayle potato tale from the 1988 campaign is the classic example; that was a relentless story largely driven by a smarmy press corps.  Hopefully the storyline of exposing the storylines will continue.