All Intensive Purposes

I'm as big a fan of Michael Kinsley as the next guy, but I saw this in the New York Review of Books (the link is actually to Brad DeLong quoting what I saw) and thought, is he on crack? Is it possible that even Kinsley is so caught up in the media's simulcrum of what actually goes on in Washington that he can no longer tell the difference? (I was going to add that Kinsley is in Los Angeles, but maybe that's the problem.)