this isn't Answer Man either
“He’s the Antichrist,” Reno said.
“What? Who? Oh. Him.” Elena shook her head, and went back to reading Foreign Affairs on her phone.
“Rude, you aware of this guy? His career path is just creepy, man. Obama appointed him as ambassador to China. To China.”
Rude, deeply engrossed in House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, did not respond.
Reno enlarged the screenshot on his laptop, scanned the faces of his fellow Turks, and made an exasperated sound.
“He’s positioning himself, man. He’s setting up as the ‘reasonable Republican,’ the fiscal conservative who believes in evolution and respects the climate-change scientists. Have you guys even been paying attention? I don’t trust this whole appeal to reason thing of his. He’s trying too hard to get along.”
“We need to get Reno a whiteboard,” Elena said. “So he can explain the whole Antichrist thing, and tie it to going off the Gold Standard in 1971.”
“We went off gold in 1934,” Rude said. “You’re thinking of the gold exchange standard set by the Bretton-Woods Agreements in 1946.”
“Thank you, Rude,” Elena said.
“You’re just sitting here as this guy builds momentum,” Reno said, “like sheep in a pasture. Look at him! He’s oozing electability. Obama honks, we’re all gonna end up with barcodes on our heads.”
Tseng, from his perch in the corner with the London Financial Times, looked up.
“Where,” he asked, “did you get this impression of unholiness?”
For a moment, Reno did not reply.
“Just look at this guy,” he said finally. “Look at that expression. He’s all smirky-“
“You smirk,” Tseng said. “You’re not the Antichrist.”
“Well…how do you know?”
“Because you’re a jackass,” Rude said.
“And check out his name: Jon Huntsman. What kind of name is that? Total neutral white bread bullshit.”
“No H in his first name,” Tseng observed. “Very ominous.”
“Reno,” Elena said, “you realize you lose all credibility when you say stuff like that? You do realize, right?”
“Look,” Reno said, “at his hair. Look at those eyes. Two years from now, he’s gonna be standing at a podium, explaining how we all have to pay a 15 percent tithe to the Black Lodge, or the demons will eat us.”
“Reno, he isn't the Antichrist.”
“Pack of smokes and a scotch says he is.”
“Oh, this is nice,” Elena said. “In this interview, Huntsman describes himself as a member of the reality-based community.”
“Aw, come on. All this bullshit about the reality-based community-it’s transparent, man. Normal people do not talk like that. Guys like Karl Rove? They talk like that. Seriously. Ask yourself, do we actually go around thinking, ‘Hey, man, I am in the reality-based community’?”
“Wait, though,” Elena said. “Actually, if you think about it, are Turks in the reality-based community?”
“Sort of,” Tseng said.
"Jesus, you guys are hopeless," Reno said. "All you think about is your jobs. Open your eyes."
"That reminds me, I never welcomed you back,” Elena said to Rude. “Did you have a good time in Libya?”
“Sort of,” Rude said.