Because everything I know and understand comes from Gaudy Night, it is inevitable that upon seeing the above, parts of the following crucial passage from that book, about managing one's highest priorities (quoted here before, even--pardon me), floated up in my brain:

You can usually tell . . . by seeing what kind of mistakes you make. I’m quite sure that one never makes fundamental mistakes about the thing one really wants to do. Fundamental mistakes arise out of lack of genuine interest. In my opinion, that is.  

 . . . The big proof is that the thing comes right, without those fundamental errors. One always makes surface errors, of course. But a fundamental error is a sure sign of not caring. I wish one could teach people nowadays that the doctrine of snatching what one thinks one wants is unsound.

I think some people might call them the opposite--call "Amercia" and "Regan" surface errors--but it didn't feel like that to me. In the middle of heavy political rhetoric like that, I couldn't help thinking: What do they really care about?