Over at The National Interest’s Buzz blog (which, as far as I am aware, has yet to move the needle when it comes to buzz) there’s a complaint about my cover story on Joe Biden. It boils down to four arguments (I’m being very generous, I think, characterizing them as arguments). The first is that National Review has gone “tabloid.” The second is that my piece is not funny. The third is that Joe Biden is a very serious person deserving of more serious treatment. The fourth is that National Review has less wit than it used to.
The evidence for the first is my piece. The evidence for the second, isn’t actually offered, merely asserted. The evidence for the third is that Joe Biden was in the Senate for 36 years. The evidence for the fourth is that we once ran a pee pun about Earl Warren:
NR once took a rapier to Chief Justice Earl Warren, the bête noir of conservatives, by writing: “Conservatives are organizing a Paean for Earl Warren. They’re going to gather at the Supreme Court and Pae on him.”
That’s wit—the kind you don’t see as much in National Review as you once did.
I will rest well, despite having let all of these charges go unanswered.