Of all the absurdities we lovingly call journalism, my favorite bit of intellectual calisthenics is the “X—It’s Just Like Y!” routine. Here’s how it’s done: Choose a hotly contested topic (abortion, social media, the war in Iraq), conjure an unlikely or forgotten figure or movement (Pee-Wee Herman, the Boers, Jean Valjean), and then, exerting the cerebellum as much as is possible, claim that the two unrelated phenomena are secretly the same.
Read Full Article »
