Say Anything Blog

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In his novels and his political commentary, Webb has been a writer of genuine distinction, using language with care and precision. But just days after winning an election, he was turning out slapdash prose that would be rejected by a reasonably demanding high school teacher.

Never mind Webb’s careless and absurd assertion that the nation’s incessantly discussed wealth gap is “the least debated” issue in American politics.

And never mind his use of the word “literally,” although even with private schools and a large share of the nation’s wealth, the “top tier”—whatever cohort he intends to denote by that phrase; he is suddenly too inflamed by social injustice to tarry over the task of defining his terms—does not “literally” live in another country.

Webb is not the only one that can play with statistics, ..

And never mind the cavalier historical judgments—although is he sure that America is less egalitarian today than it was, say, 50 years ago, when only about 7 percent of American adults had college degrees? (Twenty-eight percent do today.) Or 80 years ago, when more than 80 percent of American adults did not have high school diplomas (85 percent have them today), and only about 46 percent owned their own homes, compared with 69 percent today?