Hello, welcome to episode five of navel 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 navel 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

navel, by staring into the navel. It even has a Greek word to describe it, and like

yogurt, anything associated with the Greeks is immediately elevated. The Greek word is

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

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 tradition.

You've heard this joke, perhaps. The classics professor goes into the tailor and pants shop,

carrying some trousers. You rip-a-eze?

Yeah, you mend it ease?

Over at the sales rack, a man lifts up a pair of trousers and said,

Alcibiades.

That last little bit is not part of the classic joke,

but I've always been interested in Alcibiades,

who was an Athenian general who fled to Sparta and essentially switched sides. But you'll have to wait

for the 18-part Alcibiades podcast to get the full story on his treachery. For the moment, Alcibiades plays a role

...