In which I defend people other than Jonah Goldberg

I suspect this whole business is coming to an end quite soon, but before it does, I wanted to revisit the Alterman/Larison thesis from the beginning, apart from our consideration of Jonah Goldberg. Simply put, the whole thing is a crock.

After a moment's reflection, I thought of Paul Johnson, Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Daniels), Thos. Sowell, Michael Fumento, Roger Kimball, David Gelernter, George Gilder, and the late Milton Friedman for starters. These are prominent public intellectuals associated in some way with the mainstream Right (or in Friedman's case very recently so), not directly involved with politics or the Bush Administration, not directly involved with the neocon/paleocon thing or other intramural battles on the Right, and cordial to but not intimately involved with National Review or the mainstream conservative media. I'm sure others could supply other examples.

The idea that Eric Alterman is somehow above all these people is ridiculous of course, but frankly I don't think anybody expects anything from him. The idea that Daniel Larison agrees with him is not a credit to him, or at the very least was written in the flush of anger without much deliberation.