Here’s the Horrifying Truth Behind Ezra Klein’s New Plan

The mystery is finally revealed.

Photo: Alex Wong/2014 Getty Images

Last month, in the course of reading Benjamin Wallace’s superb profile of Ezra Klein and his new media venture, I stopped short on this mysterious quote from his wife (and New York Times reporter) Annie Lowrey:

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“He has a bit of the conquistador in him,” says Lowrey. “Everything he does, he’s kind of looking around at the women and the goats and the huts.” 

Goats? What does he want with goats?

Photo: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images

Somewhat like Rust Cohle, I have been searching for clues. The answer clicked when I discovered The Argus, a British paper, ran an unusual correction, explaining that a quote it ran came from a reader of the newspaper, not an interview subject. The quote:

I have become increasingly convinced that we are heading for a disastrous confrontation and that the 21stcentury will be remembered for a terrible war between mankind and goats.

.@coreypein wants to post this correction online, but he’s banned himself from twitter. cc @CraigSilverman pic.twitter.com/aXsDb8YpbY

— Patricia Sauthoff (@gitagovinda) March 12, 2014

Now, who would be submitting such comments to a random newspaper? Maybe a journalist currently lacking an outlet for his anti-goat views?

And why would Ezra Klein have provisionally named his mysterious venture “Project X,” after a film about a program that involved killing monkeys?

Photo: ?20thCentFox/Courtesy Everett Collection

The answer is that he was throwing us all off the scent. They’re not killing monkeys. They’re killing goats. Or at least laying the intellectual groundwork for a brutal campaign of mass goat slaughter. Wake up, sheeple.