The Journalist and the Con-Man

Journalist Seth Mnookin appeared on Charlie Rose tonight to talk about his new book on the Blair/Raines/Boyd scandal at the New York Times. Reviewing this Cox News profile of Mnookin from December, it's amazing how much his career parallels Blair's, until about three years ago, when the two men's trajectories diverge like colliding electrons (kind of like the DeNiro/Pacino cop/robber dynamic in Michael Mann's 'Heat'). Mnookin doesn't quite seem to have the balls to give Raines, Boyd, Blair et al. the comeuppance they deserve, but fortunately events have done so for him.

Wouldn't it have been great if Gay Talese had reviewed Mnookin's book for the Times Book Review (instead of Timothy Noah, in a rather workmanlike way, here) -- or (since it's mostly sycophancy anyway, as was Talese's "Kingdom and the Power") just written the whole book himself?