Monday, July 28, 2003

Brad DeLong looks about for a left-wing analogue to Andrew Sullivan, in terms of disconnect with reality, and comes up with...Noam Chomsky. Now, I'm not nearly familiar enough with Chomsky to know if this is a good comparison, but that in itself strikes me as interesting. I'm not the most active leftist out there, but I'm reasonably informed, and yet I have absolutely no idea where I'd go if I wanted to read Chomsky's regular political thinking, whereas Sullivan is quite easy to find. I don't recall ever seeing Kevin Drum, Atrios, Matthew Yglesias, or any of the other left-wing biggies whom I read regularly cite a Chomsky essay or book, and I don't see Chomsky's name mentioned much on the op-ed page unless someone wants to throw his name out there as the standard far-left bogeyman. Just who is it that's taking Chomsky so seriously, anyway?

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