The Wish for Kings, Lewis Lapham
Lapham is a strangely Establishment anti-establishment pundit. He speaks
from a comfortable seat on a pile of old money - the editorship of
Harper's Magazine - and that gives him access to the oligarchy he
scorns, and a length of experience that is credible when he criticizes
stupidities each administration gets into for lack of an institutional
memory (despite the perks of video producers, hairstylists, etc.). He could
lose the editorship, though; maybe he can't afford the go-to-hell air that
rebellious members of inherited aristocracies have carried into various
exiles, rebellions, and meetings with the axe. Maybe it's a conscious belief
that a emollient, name-dropping style, somewhat more intellectual than
Condé Nast would allow, will infiltrate his damning arguments more
deeply than unseemly agression could.
Still, since he's accusing our politicians, lawyers, journalists, and
wishful-thinking populace of having sold our government for stupid ends and
at a low price, a rougher tone would have seemed more consistent to me.
So wrote clew in
History (21st c.).