When I went on dates—and maybe this explains why I was single—I would always talk about this hedgehog, inevitably noting a platitude that often applies to politics. The clever fox knows many things, states the proverb, but the old hedgehog knows one big thing. “I finally understand what that means,” I’d tell the confused woman sitting across from me. “The old hedgehog knows that gravity applies to fruit.” This banter, I must admit, did not lead to any canoodling (although most women did laugh, and one literally said, “You sure know a lot about hedgehogs,” which I almost count as a common-law
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