Quote for Day: Elizabeth Warren on What Larry Summers Told Her When She arrived in D.C — Insiders and Outsiders

Elizabeth Warren on what Larry Summers told her when she arrived in D.C. as a Massachusetts senator* (the quotation is from her memoir A Fighting Chance, by way of Moyers & Company): 

Larry’s tone was in the friendly-advice category. He teed it up this way: I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say whatever they want. But people on the inside don’t listen to them. Insiders, however, get lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People — powerful people — listen to what they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don’t criticize other insiders. 

I had been warned.

If Elizabeth Warren = outsider and Larry Summers = insider, I'll take a double helping of outsider, please. And hold the insider.

And, yes, these observations relate in a very direct way to the dynamics of censorship at various Catholic blog sites, which are all about declaring some folks ineffectual, to-be-ridiculed outsiders and others valued insiders. Though as I read the gospels, Jesus himself was pretty much of an ineffectual and much-ridiculed outsider, while Pontius Pilate et al. were well-connected insiders.

And I had also understood that the calling of Christians is to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

Not of Pontius Pilate.

* I now see that, in her interview with Bill Moyers, which is posted separately from this piece, Warren says she had not yet entered the Senate when Summers had his come to Jesus meeting with her about insiders and outsiders.

The graphic is a justaposition of an AP photo of Warren and a Bloomberg/File photo of Summers from Boston Globe.