"This is a validating group.
For those already set on a life of good works, the scandals have had a validating effect.
Arguments over footballer venality are so well worn that to rehearse them again seems old hat, but the alternative is a validating silence.
But the weekend's big headline came from Portland, where Caleb Porter's upstart Timbers not only recorded a validating victory over the visiting Galaxy but helped put on one of the most memorable shows of the MLS season.
Somehow, Butcher and Hugh's farmer neighbour has recently acquired a Liebovitz of mysterious provenance, and Marlene arrives, a vision in Manolo Blahniks tramping through knee-deep mud, to put a validating stamp on it, immediately sending its worth into the stratosphere.
"If the governor wants to be an innovator, the way to do it is not just by talking about it, but by actually doing it, and we think that comprehensive campaign-finance reform in New York State would be a validating step by the governor to show his innovation credibility".
