Oh, I agree. The great majority are Smart. It's the complainers who I
think have been taken in - not by the "hoax", but by some notions of
literary-cum-ethnic authenticity that are about as plausible as the
notions of authenticity held by wrestling Marks.
Don't know what came over Bernstein, but there you go.
Double helping of caveats here (extreme liberal-baiting ahead, a
seething froth of malice and unfairness directed at, e.g., "the smelly
little orthodoxies that are contending for tenure in the humanities
departments of our universities"), but take a look at Theodore
Dalrymple's piece on Rahila Khan. If you set aside the author's own
smelly little orthodoxies, the subject he's discussing is rather
fascinating:
http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/23/may05/dalrymple.htm
Dominic
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