Credit Where Due

This Slate piece on Caitlin Flanagan is right on the money. I saw her on the Colbert Report, and her condescension was intolerable. I picture people like her as perfect candidates for Hollywood-style enlightenment, waking up one day and having to see life through someone else's eyes. Of course, all too often people of one book don't grow up, they just switch books. Thus you have resolute Marxists becoming fervent neocons, as if the only real value is the avoidance of complexity. This reminds me of another classic Slate piece on Susan Estrich, remarkable for her ability to change her opinion without changing her confidence that her opinions are always right.

[UPDATE: My criticism of Estrich (which I haven't modified) is overly harsh. Having re-read the Slate piece, all I can say is that academics, particularly in politicized subject areas, seem to have a strong incentive to overstate their case. Estrich is guilty, but less so than many others.]