Posted by Eugene Volokh:
Lewis Lapham in <i>Harper's</i>:
Good thing that people still read the reliable, credible Real Media
instead of those nasty inaccurate, un-fact-checked blogs. That way,
they get the benefit of what Jacob Sullum (whose work I have generally
found quite trustworthy) says is Lewis Lapham's clairvoyance:
In the latest issue of Harper's, Lewis Lapham has a long, tiresome
essay on the "Republican propaganda mill" . . . . [Important
substantive criticisms by Sullum omitted, in the interests of
getting to the shallower but juicy stuff. -EV]
Perhaps the most revealing part of the article is the paragraph
where Lapham pretends to have heard the speeches at the Republican
National Convention that does not open until a week from today.
Referring to "the platform on which [George W. Bush] was trundled
into New York City this August with Arnold Schwarzenegger, the
heavy law enforcement, and the paper elephants," Lapham writes:
The speeches in Madison Square Garden affirmed the great truths now
routinely preached from the pulpits of Fox News and the Wall Street
Journal--government the problem, not the solution; the social
contract a dead letter; the free market the answer to every
maiden's prayer--and while listening to the hollow rattle of the
rhetorical brass and tin, I remembered the question that [Richard]
Hofstadter didn't stay to answer. How did a set of ideas both
archaic and bizarre make its way into the center ring of the
American political circus?
True, the issue is dated September, but I got my copy in early
August, and Lapham must have written those words in July. . . .
Ramesh Ponnuru (of the National Review) [1]noted the same thing.
Is there some context here that Sullum or Ponnuru are omitting, which
might make this make sense (for instance, if Lapham makes clear that
this is his prediction, or that he's joking, or some such)?
Seriously, if Sullum's account (and Ponnuru's terser account) is
correct and in context, this is the editor of a leading magazine
knowingly making factual assertions -- that he was at some place and
heard some things -- that aren't true. Not very good behavior, it
seems to me.
The odd thing is that of course Harper's readers will realize they
aren't true. What happened here? Did he prewrite the article, and then
accidentally release it too early? (That would actually be pretty bad
as well, unless he had been planning to go back to revise it in light
of what he actually heard at the convention.)
References
1. http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_08_15_corner-archive.asp#038231
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