"Please keep attacking me"

emails John Podhoretz:

"It's how I know I'm not a bigoted, racist scum."

Such wit, such eloquence, such insight, such diction!

Over the years, I've received many emails calling me "scum," but never before one calling me "a ... scum." To achieve that exquisite command of the English language, you have to be a distinguished a man of letters, a John Updike or a John Podhoretz.

Hanna Rosin wrote in 1998 that Mr. Podhoretz's colleagues would spontaneously assemble to mutually admire the latest examples of his superb prose style and penetrating brilliance:

... around the Washington Times offices, the [Podhoretz] column was often read out loud in Podhoretz’s absence, for comic value, in a ritual famously called Podenfreude ....

UPDATE: Mr. Podhoretz has graciously supplied me, free of charge, with another sample of his genius:

"If you think I lack them [wit, eloquence, etc.], I imagine you think I have too much melanin in my skin."

Amazing as it may seem, the rumors that Mr. Podhoretz maintains a staff of Nobel Laureates and Oscar-winning screenwriters to craft his devastating comebacks for him are not true. The reality is that, somehow, he makes them up himself!

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer