Kevin Drum raises a great point — so great in fact, I’m furious because I’d been planning to columnize on it. Why won’t mainstream reporters simply ask Tom Cruise real questions about the cult he belongs to?

This is a similar complaint to my long-held gripe about Louis Farrakhan. Everybody loves “challenging” the guy on his anti-Semitism, as if that makes you a heroic journalist, but almost nobody’s willing to actually embarrass the guy and ask him if he really thinks he’s zipped around in a flying saucer. I assure you, if you really wanted to discredit Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism you’d do more good ignoring it and sticking to the flying saucer stuff.