Famous Ignoramus.

The January/February issue of The Atlantic reprints part of a 1959 speech by lengendary columnist Walter Lippman in which he imagines a critic ripping his efforts:

"Is it not absurd," I heard the critic saying, "that anyone should think he knows enough to write so much about so many things? You write about foreign policy. Do you see the cables which pour into the State Department every day from all parts of the world? Do you attend the staff meetings of the Secretary of State and his advisers? Are you a member of the National Security Council? ... Why don't you admit that you are an outsider and that you are, therefore, by definition, an ignoramus?"

I'm glad I'm in good company in entertaining such thoughts on a regular basis.