From Arts & Letters Daily comes two articles on the role and responsibility of public intellectuals, particularly those on the left. In the London Review of Books, Tony Judt wonders why liberal intellectuals have been so strangely acquiescent given the catastrophic policies of the Bush 43 administration. Check out the blissfully titled “Bush’s Useful Idiots: The Strange Death of Liberal America.” James Pierson laments the fall of the public intellectual and the dearth of “Men of Letters” in today’s techno-society. Maybe it’s all because, as Robert Andrews writes in Wired, 9/11 was the “Birth of the Blog,” (Thanks to Cliopatria for the tip) and the beginnings of the silicon-roots movement.
Then again, who needs liberal criticism when you have conservative tanistry? Christopher Buckley has a scathing piece in the Washington Monthly taking Bush 43 to a little place we in New Hampshire like to refer to as “behind the woodshed.” (Thanks to Richard at TPD for the link.)
Finally, news this week that former laundress Rebiya Kadeer has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize as the Nobel committee continues its infliction of “torture by a thousand nominations” on the CCP. Kadeer, a member of the Uighur people and a