And now Jann Wenner is even having to dim down the "Rolling Stone" magazine because the new rock 'n roll generation can't be bothered to read a 7,000 word analysis.
Intellectual standards are certainly headed the wrong direction among the general population, and what used to be "public intellectuals", men like Walter Lippmann or Henry Mencken now find that they need to specialize in academia in order to prosper.
Though I don't always agree with him, I find that Noam Chomsky represents a wonderful dying tradition. And the same for Gore Vidal. But these guys are geezers. The new generation of punditry on the Left is really lame. Guys like David Corn can occasionally focus on something important, but are all to easily distracted.
I'm trying hard to find bright, honest reasonable punditry on the Right, and find that I like William Safire's work, and occasionally George Will. But like you, or perhaps even more so, I find the TV talking heads of all political persuasions to be horrible wastes of time, with buttheaded interruptions of intelligent commentary the only constant feature. Occasionally, CSPAN's Washington Journal had some good guests, but all the network crap is just that.
-Ray |
