Hey guys, lighten up

Last week, Andrew Sullivan got stuck into Democrat presidential candidate Wesley Clark. One of Clark's greatest offenses appeared to be that he is a Rhodes Scholar, and "almost to a man and woman, they are mega-losers, curriculum-vitae fetishists, with huge ambition and no concept of what to do with it."

This was a stupid generalisation. Andrew Sullivan is prone to making stupid generalisations from time to time, and this is one reason why he is not as good a blogger as, say, Eugene Volokh.

Unsurprisingly, the Rhodes scholar bloggers at Oxblog were not especially amused by this, and both Josh Chavetz and David Adesnik (both guest blogging at the Volokh Conspiracy) have both posted lengthy defences of Rhodes scholars. I understand their doing this (if I were a Rhodes scholar it would likely bother me too) but it really isn't worth it. It's obvious to all of us that Sullivan's remark was deeply stupid, and lengthy self-justifications like this just make you sound a little self-important.

Best, I think, to link to Sullivan's comment with a comment "What an idiotic remark", and then get back to blogging about whatever else you were planning on blogging about. And if you do need to post a lengthy defence of Rhodes Scholars, best to do this on Oxblog, rather than using your guest stint on the Volokh Conspiracy. The number of people who actually care about any of this is probably less than you think. It's fun to post to a different forum than usual, and one with a very large audience at that, but when you do so it is best to be less introspective in what you blog about.