Intellectuals, we all know, have always secretly loved powerful people. Without powerful people, intellectuals ideas stay on the drawing boards or in some obscure journal. With powerful people, intellectuals get to fix things. Or just count up all of the historians and legal scholars who were convinced they knew the answer to why Clinton could not be impeached. Don t even get me started on Hollywood.
Journalists claim they are immune to power worship.
Few assertions of professional probity are more ridiculous. There are a few exceptions and a few more keep it in check, but generally journalists as a group are not merely worshippers of power, they are voluptuaries of power. One need not point to an obvious and craven lapdog to power like Sidney Blumenthal to illustrate this. One need only listen to their predictions. Yesterday I made a mistake in airing my dirty cyber-laundry in the column.