Even if they are pure BS, they still mould the frame through which potential appointees are viewed. If the press "floats" a list full of Good Old Boyz, and Obama goes completely off the list and picks somebody who actually might do something useful for a change, everyone in the Independent Press(TM) will look at their little lists, look at the guy and start screaming their heads off about how far-left the new guy is... It will, of course, never occur to them - at least not in public - that the problem might be that their lists are so far to the right that no politician in a civilised country should be able to survive picking anybody on it.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.