As you stand on the roof in Cairo with six other young, idealistic Americans on the dawn of a new era, you have no idea that despite hailing from the best Middle Eastern studies programs in the country at Georgetown and Yale and Columbia, despite studying abroad in the Middle East during a time of crisis, despite learning Arabic and analyzing the Quran and spending months assimilating into Arab culture—it will be more difficult to make a living by providing accurate information about the Middle East to an American audience than it will be to make a living by fake-playing the violin.
