Pat Buchanan's Unmet Challenge

I stumbled onto this commentary by Pat Buchannan while searching for something else. I was surprised to find it at worldnetdaily, a wingnut's paradise. I was even more surprised to see how fresh and of the moment Buchanan's piece seemed. Then I read further and realized it was written only eight weeks after the invasion of Iraq.

This remains the single best piece of commentary about the Iraq war I have read. It presents the administration's (false) case for the war, including direct quotes from Bush and Cheney compiled by the Washington Post's Dana Millbank. Then Buchanan expertly blows them all to pieces.

Good Review of an Unnecessary Book

Chris Suellentrop reviews Glenn Reynolds' new book in the New York Observer and finds it wanting.

An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government and Other Goliaths, by Glenn Reynolds. Nelson Current, 289 pages, $24.99.


"Most of all, Mr. Reynolds also seems wholly unaware of the many ways in which his thesis is invalid. It may be fun to pretend that you’re a rugged online individual fighting The Man of big institutions that keep putting you down. But Instapundit himself draws a paycheck from an institution of a kind that’s been around since the Middle Ages: the university (and his is funded by the state). There are exceptions, but the vast bulk of successful news-and-politics bloggers seem to be tenured professors or prominent journalists. Who are the Davids here?"

If technology and "disintermediation" really enable the little guy to beat big media, then why didn't Reynolds use his media reputation and platform and self-publish his book? Looks like he really doesn't believe his own stale line of bull.

Everything in the information-entertainment business continues to become concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer companies, who burn up all the available capital and people's attention.