Received an amusing note from a reader – thought you might enjoy. In today’s Impromptus, I tell a tale about crossing Salon.com and some of its readers. A Salon writer had said, in essence, “How can Nordlinger complain about a cult of personality around Barack Obama, when there was a terrible cult of personality around George W. Bush?” You weren’t aware of this cult? Neither was I, really. But someone who was supposed to have exemplified this cult was Monica Goodling, a staffer at the Justice Department.

I responded to the Salon blast here on the Corner – thought I should. (Dumb move.) I said I wasn’t trying to airbrush anything or anyone: Frankly, I had never heard of Monica Goodling, or another DoJ staffer fingered, Angela Williamson. (No offense to either of those ladies.) Anyway, the Salon writer thought it was appalling that I had not heard of – or did not remember – Goodling in particular, and so did his readers, who sent me little valentines through e-mail.

And an NRO reader wrote me yesterday to say, “Have you seen your Wikipedia page? FYI, there’s a little gotcha in there about your ignorance of ‘Monica Goodling.’ I never heard of Monica Goodling. Listen, if this is the worst they can pin on you — congratulations.”

And, lo, my Wikipedia entry had indeed been danced upon by the good folks at Salon (I presume): “In 2009, Nordlinger admitted he did not know who Monica Goodling – a central figure in the controversy over the firing of U.S. Attorneys- was, despite the fact that he was a senior editor of National Review during the scandal.”

Wait’ll they find out what else I don’t know! I have never understood how Wikipedia works, even quite what it is. I know it is powerful. And I know this: John J. Miller wrote a piece for NR saying that Wikipedia was largely a province of the Left, at least where political entries are concerned. As I say in my column today, I’m not in a position to argue with him.

I also have an item about language – a particular phrase: “whim of iron.” Toby Young used it in his Spectator column to describe Anna Wintour, editor of Vogue. I thought it was terrific: “a phrase to remember,” I say.

Anyway, here – at long last – is the amusing note I mentioned at the top of this here Corner item:

Dear Mr. Nordlinger,
Monica Goodling is indeed a nonentity [again, no offense], but I was surprised you were unaware of the phrase “whim of iron.” I had thought it was something once said about Baroness Thatcher, so I Googled it. 598,000 hits!

Yikes, that is a lot. I had never heard the phrase (to my knowledge). Whatever its provenance: I like it.