So Katha Pollitt debated Manly Harvey Mansfield on March 21 at WBUR this year. So why didn't I find out about it until today?
You can hear it from this page.
It isn't mentioned in the Nation's archives of Pollitt's columns, which I check regularly for updates. What I don't check regularly is the Nation's home page, which is where I finally did find out about the debate. I love Pollitt but I don't love the Nation - I'm still annoyed with the Nation over its coddling of that ratfink Christopher Hitchens.
And apparently I'm not alone - I haven't heard a peep about this debate from any of the liberal blogs I read - blogs which mentioned Mansfield's Manliness book and which usually report on Pollitt's columns.
Anyway... I'm too busy to listen to the debate right now, but I predict Pollitt wipes the floor with His Manliness. I caught Mansfield on The Colbert Report last week and the guy is out to lunch. I mean, he's a rightwinger so his beliefs are surreal, but I also think he's got some, shall we say age-related problems with his mind. I almost felt bad for him, he was so befuddled by Colbert.
More on the debate after I've listened...
But I really think Katha Pollitt could be doing more to promote herself as an intellectual and pundit. It annoys me that mental midgets like David Brooks and shallow Smurfettes like Maureen Dowd get more attention than the clearly superior Pollitt.
Pollit has a blog http://kathapollitt.blogspot.com/ which she occasionally posts to, so occasionally that I rarely check it out. But I've been remiss in not putting it in my liberal links, which I will do today. But there isn't even a link to this blog from anywhere in The Nation that I can see, certainly not from the Pollitt column archives page. What's up with that???