Not P but DFW: politically indifferent

Mike Jing gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
Tue Feb 10 14:24:45 UTC 2026


The following excerpt is from David Foster Wallace's *Up, Simba*:

The far-Right *National Review*, for example, calls McCain “a crook and a
showboat,” while the old-Left *New York Review of Books* feels that “McCain
isn’t the anti-Clinton … McCain is more like the unClinton, in the way 7Up
was the unCola: different flavor, same sugar content,” and the politically
indifferent *Vanity Fair* quotes Washington insiders of unknown affiliation
saying “People should never underestimate [McCain’s] shrewdness. His
positions, in many instances, are very calculated in terms of media appeal.”

Does the word "indifferent" here mean "neutral" or "apathetic"? I'm pretty
sure it's the latter since the first meaning is labelled as "archaic" by
the OED, and the fact that *Vanity Fair* is not known for its political
leanings.


More information about the Pynchon-l mailing list