Wearier of Young

Citing Cathy Young's criticism of Naomi Wolf, Gene Healey asks whether those on my side of the fence think Reason magazine is"getting its cultural marching orders from the Right these days?"

Reason magazine in general, probably not. But Cathy Young? She's a perfect example of what I've been complaining about, and her piece on Wolf is particularly shabby.

Let's look at what she writes about Wolf, and compare it with what Wolf actually wrote:

Now she claims in a New York magazine cover story that some 20 years ago when she was a student at Yale, Bloom, her mentor, came over to her apartment to read her poetry over a nice glass of amontillado, and ended up groping her thigh.

This misleadingly suggests that Wolf invited Bloom to come over to her apartment alone, thus cueing the reader to send some blame Wolf's way. You'd never guess from Young's account that there were other people invited to the dinner.

The incident ended there, but Wolf says that it destroyed her self-esteem

Wolf says nothing of the kind.

and is very upset that Yale did not pursue her recent complaint (even though the deadline for filing a formal harassment charge expired years ago, and it's not entirely clear from her account what it was that she wanted the university to do).

Wolf says what she wanted to Yale to do. Did Young and I read the same article?

While Wolf claims that she was motivated by a sense of duty toward other women at Yale, a cynic might be forgiven for thinking that her coming forward was a publicity ploy from a former mini-celebrity with a flagging career.

In other words, Young baselessly insinuates that Wolf is lying about her motives. (And the title “Crying Wolf” further insinuates that Wolf is lying about more than that.)

"A cynic might be forgiven ...?" Sorry, no.