The American Spectator

I loved J.P.’s piece on Stephen Glass today. Stephen regularly played in a card game I also frequented, with a number of youngish conservative rising stars. He was indeed very, very likable. He also was the best bluffer I’ve ever known. As I remember it, he regularly won the games. Yet even then, despite so often being bluffed by him in cards, I entirely believed even his most far-fetched stories, like the ones about the drug-and-nasty-sex-addled young Republicans at CPAC, because he was just so darn good at making you believe him, in person or in print.

The degree of dishonesty in his stories, and the number of people and good organizations that he hurt, was stupendous. Let him write fiction all he wants, but please, keep him away from the law. J.P. Freire really captures it all in this sentence: “But what’s even more damning is that Glass has found yet another area where he can cling to the status of victim, skate along the hard-earned reputations of others, and force a showdown, not about justice, but about himself.”