Outf***ingstanding

Dan Gardner on celebrity intellectuals:

If I were to submit slack, lazy writing[*] to the New York Times, I would get an e-mail that would thank me for my submission but regret to inform me that the New York Times will not publish my slack, lazy writing. So would anyone not in line for a Nobel. But she's Margaret F***ing Atwood! No one tells Margaret Atwood her writing is slack and lazy and please try again.

Without criticism, slack and lazy writing inevitably gets slacker and lazier. Which explains much about Margaret Atwood's publicly expressed opinions.

Consider her attack on Stephen Harper's cuts to arts funding. Maybe he did it because "he likes punishing," Ms. Atwood wrote during the campaign. "Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily."

This is the sort of bilious emission one expects to read in blogs written by people who believe 9/11 was an inside job but rather than treat it accordingly, the media, politicians and the rest of the chattering class saw it as a powerful attack on the prime minister. She's no blogger! She's Margaret Atwood!

h/t Megapundit