Quote of the Day

There are infinite kinds of irresponsible books that a well-credentialed media insider can write.

First are the total farces of fact. These include former New York Times chief Jill Abramson’s mangling of basic details about her subjects in her book on new media, or the time that Naomi Wolf, once an adviser to Al Gore, learned on the air in an interview with the BBC that the thesis of her latest book was based on her complete misreading of a nineteenth century legal definition.

A second variety of irresponsible books are those whose primary purpose is to market their authors at the expense of humane and rational thinking and behavior. For example, The Problem From Hell allowed Samantha Power to parlay her journalism into a Beltway policy career as the human face of the American forever war. Hillbilly Elegy’s J.D. Vance is reportedly preparing a run for the Republican nomination for Senate in his home state of Ohio.

And then there are books whose fusion of factual inaccuracy and moral sophistry is so total that they can only be written by Malcolm Gladwell.

—Noah Kulwin in The Baffler

I love me a scathing review, and this one is entertaining, and the subject is so eminently deserving of the treatment, that it is a joy to read.

It is also more generally an indictment of the "Very Serious People" sit as gate-keepers to acceptable thought in our society.