Salon's Alex Pareene doesn't know me, but for the second year running he has given me a terrific Christmas present: the Hack List , his roundup of the worst political analysts and commentators in the business. Last year it was called the Hack Thirty , and I posted about it here . This year there are just twenty hacks named, with a focus on their doings in 2011. Some names (like David Brooks) appear again; others from last year who didn't make the cut are included in an appendix: "Hack List Alums: Where Are They Now?" Pareene builds a strong case against each honoree. He's merciless, and hilarious. My favorite of this year's takedowns was number 5, Katie Roiphe , who, he noted, has gained attention once again "for being a reliable source of controversial-sounding contrarian anti-feminist bullshit" who "also writes very badly about the Internet and people on the Internet who are mean to Katie Roiphe." Also very deserving is number 3 , who inspires this cheering observation: "One upside to Americas frothing populist hatred of intellectuals is that we dont produce many Bernard-Henri Levys."
(I love the present, but not the wrapping - Salon always manages to make it difficult for me to find the things I want to read, and impossible to find them again. Right now I can't find an easy way to link to more than the first five "hacks." I imagine they'll fix that eventually, but for now I recommend going to the list of Pareene's posts , finding the "earlier articles" link at the bottom, and moving backward that way.)
As a bonus, Pareene offers a reminder that the late Christopher Hitchens "was disastrously wrong" about the Iraq War, and his death shouldn't prevent us from acknowledging that. His take on Hitchens is not a eulogy, but seems entirely on-target to me.
