There’s a whole lot of chatter amongst the chattering classes about John Podhoretz taking over Commentary. I think John will do a great job and prove his critics wrong, but I can certainly understand why it’s a controversial move. Anyway, I think Ross is right in his response to James Wolcott (AKA the Cat Lady of the Upper West Side). It wouldn’t be so terrible for Commentary to do a bit more popular culture. But I also think the assertion that it’s stayed away from pop culture over the last decade is a bit of strawman (I myself wrote about the movies Kids and When We Were Kings for Commentary in the mid 90s). And, far more significantly, Terry Teachout not only covers high culture, but just plain old culture brilliantly (See, for just one example, “Journalism, Hollywood Style.”). Intelligent writing is intelligent writing. Better to read something original, thoughtful and revealing about popular culture, then something unoriginal about SDI, if you ask me.