Politics & Power Quote by Adam Clymer

For a political journalist, being hated evenly is a weird kind of credential. Adam Clymer’s line lands because it flips the usual vanity metric of public life: approval. He’s not chasing bipartisan praise; he’s arguing that real reporting is supposed to irritate people with power, regardless of party. The ellipsis after “Republican politicians...” is doing quiet work, too: it suggests the list continues, maybe indefinitely. Not just two parties, but a whole ecosystem of officials who’d prefer the press function as stenography.

The Good Humor truck jab is the masterstroke. It’s an image of harmless, mobile likability: roll up, hand out treats, keep everyone smiling. Clymer isn’t romanticizing antagonism for its own sake; he’s warning about the occupational hazard of being “beloved” in Washington. If everyone in politics loves a reporter, it likely means the reporter is offering something closer to comfort than accountability: access-for-softness, insider camaraderie, or the kind of coverage that flatters the system’s self-image.

The context here is the long-running tension between political journalism as a civic watchdog and political journalism as a social scene. Clymer came up in an era when mainstream outlets still carried institutional authority but were already wrestling with access journalism and partisan blowback. His intent is almost like a job description in one sentence: take hits from both sides, keep driving anyway.