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Go to Economist.com and get your first month free. Hello, welcome to episode 5 of Naval Gazing. I'm John Dickerson. A detour before we head into the meat of things. I did not realize before embarking on this project that naval gazing was a thing, is a thing.

I thought it was just a clever metaphor describing a common thing which is

excessive self-regard a malady that wraps itself around my head like a page of

newspaper on a windy day no naval gazing guided the contemplatives in the ancient world.

They accessed ready revelation by meditating on the naval,

by staring into the naval.

It even has a Greek word to describe it. by staring into the naval.

It even has a Greek word to describe it,

and like yogurt, anything associated with the Greeks

is immediately elevated.

The Greek word is, I'm full of skepticism,

to which I say, then you shouldn't have had so much

skepticism. You may write that off as a drastic dad joke and you'd be right. It may

have even caused you to interrupt your jogging like you'd gotten a bug in your ear.

But this remark is in the tradition of 1950s Borsh Belt comedians who tickled their audiences

at Catskill retreats by playing with Greek words. In other words, I'm giving you a historical

...