Several readers have come to Bernard Levy’s defense by pointing out that by French standards, Levy’s actually one of the good guys, willing to speak critically of Islamic radicalism etc. That’s all fair enough. But that doesn’t make him any less pompous, does it?

Another defense – here explicated by David Weigel — is that this is a feature of the Times of London and he was merely contributing to it. I knew it was a feature. So what? How, exactly, does that make Levy seem more like a regular Joe? I don’t get it.