Even more stupid was a remark by Virginia Postrel to the effect that Enron's collapse had something to do with the fact that the company consisted of a bunch of people sitting in front of computer screens.
It seems that to be a successful public intellectual you really have to be stupid, or write as if everyone else is.
PK has written some pretty good columns, a bunch of tedious ones that recycle some textbooky point, and a couple of vicious ones where he attacks people of whom he has no knowledge. I can live with him. I have yet to see a column by Robert Barro that wasn't pathetic.
-- mbs
Rare indeed that you find someone who calls his own writings a "smear"... But perhaps Andrew Sullivan has more self-knowledge than most conservatives.