How depressing is this?

As a member of a “misunderstood minority” — a journalist — Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Clarence Page said last night that he has witnessed a great deal of history, including Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall’s final press conference.

After decades of epitomizing the job of “Washington Insider,” the most significant historical event in Clarence Page’s professional life is attending Thurgood Marshall’s retirement press conference? That’s it? A scheduled newser for an event that everyone widely anticipated?

I mention all of this only to get to this aside: I met Clarence Page in Washington, D.C. many years ago. When I talked to him, I said that my economics professor used some of his columns to illustrate points in class. He beamed.

I did not tell Mr. Page that my professor used his columns to illustrate the pervasiveness of economic ignorance. It would have been rude.