ANTI-INTELLECTUALS: Here's this Mark Crispin Miller article Arts & Letters Daily linked to. He's trying to make a point about American anti-intellectual tendencies --a point that can be made, surely-- but comes off as paranoid sometimes, like when he's recounting his appearance on Bill O'Reilly:

O'Reilly: With us now is the author of the book, Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at New York University. And in the New York Times, Prof. Miller is quoted as saying, "One of the reasons I reproduce such long exchanges with journalists such as Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly is to show their unthinking complicity in putting President Bush across."

MCM: You find that to be an outrageous claim?

O'Reilly: Well, not outrageous. I just think you're misguided, as many, many academics are these days.

That last shot was, of course, the intended subtext of my whole exchange with Bill, who kept on pointedly addressing me, with faint mock-deference, as "Professor"--an epithet synonymous with "jackass" in minds of many in his audience.

And then here:

Thus, for example, do the goon squads frequently bombard the Amazon and Barnes & Noble sites with hostile fake reviews of books they obviously haven't read, to drive off as many folks as possible.

This from a guy whose book is averaging four stars on Amazon. It sound like he's guilty of the old confusing criticism with repression thing. He also quotes the head of Fox News on why Fox appeals to the red states (they're being ignored) without comment. I mean, tell me why he's wrong (the Fox News guy, I mean).

Miller also wrote the introduction on that J.H. Hatfield book that got pulled when everybody found out Hatfield was a criminal. That book still looks fun.