In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

Every now and then, Real Clear Politics links to a piece that's exceptionally egregious, beyond even its usual level of mediocrity. This one has no title, which is only the first of its problems. but it appears in a Washington Post section called Awakenings. It's by Matthew Schmitz, the religion editor for The Washington Post's Opinions section. If you're a religion editor for the Washington Post, this is hinky on its face. AI tells me, "Before joining the Post, he was a senior editor at First Things, a prominent ecumenical religious journal." Well, I've submitted to First Things and never gotten past the intern who returns manuscripts unread, so I stopped bothering. Mr Schmitz begins here: In 2015, Michel Houellebecq published “Submission,” a novel describing (among other things) how members of the radical right might come to admire, even embrace, Islam. Now we are seeing exactly that happen, as I describe in today’s column on the rise of the...