LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

David Brooks wants to know why intellectually serious matters are no longer discussed in middlebrow publications, and he concludes that all the blame lies with two groups associated with modern liberalism: intellectuals themselves and producers of pop culture.

How convenient.

Did Brooks somehow overlook his fellow conservatives' long campaign to delegitimize intellectuals? I certainly recall, for instance, that the man Brooks replaced on the Times Op-Ed page, William Safire, wrote a 1970 speech for Spiro Agnew in which the vice president denounced "an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as 'intellectuals.'" Apparently, however, this slipped Brooks's mind.