"Even in retirement, Howard Zinn continues to generate new fans--and new enemies," begins a piece in Thursday's San Francisco Chronicle. One "new" enemy, the next lines explains, is "Daniel Flynn, a conservative pundit, [who] published 'Intellectual Morons,' a 304-page book that rips Zinn for 'America bashing' and biased writing." The brief reference in one of America's most widely read newspapers is thankfully just a small portion of the ink devoted to Intellectual Morons (buy it here) recently.

National Review's Mike Potemra briefly reviews Intellectual Morons among the titles in this fall's book "harvest." The paragraph review is kind and grasps the main concept of the book. But, alas, it takes issue with the middle chapter. "His Strauss chapter is disappointing," Potemra writes, "echoing as it does the hackneyed far-Left and paleoconservative arguments against the Iraq war; the rest of the book is worth reading." What "hackneyed" arguments? Saddam didn't have stockpiles of WMD? The Niger uranium documents were a hoax? Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? I confess: I prefer "hackneyed" arguments to false ones.

"The book is exceptionally well researched and documented, with 985 footnotes for 246 pages of text," Tom DiLorenzo writes in a lengthy and favorable review of Intellectual Morons on LewRockwell.com Thursday. "All in all, it’s hard to determine who are the bigger morons: the 'intellectuals' whose warped ideas Daniel Flynn so clearly and extensively documents," wonders the Loyola College professor, "or those who have embraced them as the unquestionable truth about the modern world."

In The American Conservative, Edward Feser's review is mixed. Ironically titled "Smart Asses," Feser's piece blasts the "sophomoric title" of my book. The joke's on you, dude. But in a literal sense, maybe Feser is on to something without knowing it. Intellectual Morons is a sophomoric title (Sophomore's pure translation? wise fool). Anyhow, it turns out Feser has his own book on Robert Nozick with the dynamic title--get this--On Nozick. It's currently ranked #1,443,293 on Amazon. Seeing this erased any regrets I had in not titling my book, On Marcuse, Kinsey, Ehrlich, Singer, Menchu, Chomsky, Zinn, Vidal, Strauss, Sanger, Du Bois, Hiss, Rand, Friedan, Derrida, de Man, and Foucault.

I just want to know why it takes a month for amazon to deliver your book? I had it in my hand at B&N's last a couple of weeks ago and put it back so you would get some reverb from buying it from your site! "I demand satisfaction!"

Isn't it a bit ironic, Dan, that you accuse leftish intellecutals of being morons simply becuase of ideology. I believe that the greatest way to affect someone's ideas is not through idology, but through the pocketbook. How can you honestly consider your ideas to be free of bias when you write articles and work for orginizations that are funded by rich billionaires? Dan, these people are paying you to hold particualr ideas and to propagate those ideas to others. Richard Mellon Scaife pays you at NewsMax to attack liberalism because attacking liberalism is good for Richard Mellon Scaife. You don't attack liberalism, or thier intellecuals, becuase doing so is good for America. Mr. Flynn, you are bought and paid for by the rich elite of this country. I pity you.

Apu, I've never received any money from NewsMax.com for articles of mine that they've published. What are you talking about?

Apu: you clearly don't know a whole lot about how articles get published on line (if you think that they are usually compensated), AND you clearly don't know much about Flynn if you think that he supports a knee-jerk party-line of any kind. As anyone could tell from reading the contents page of his new book or by reading this site even cursorily -- Flynn doesn't exactly say what Richard Mellon Scaife would want him to say about many issues.

Rather than labelling Flynn (whom you clearly know very little about) an ideologue as you intended, you have revealed something about yourself: that you have a knee-jerk ideological assumption which pidgeon-holes anyone who disagrees with you from the right as some type of corporate hack. This is a very silly, old, and disprovable peice of leftist ideological brainwashing.

This may take some work on your part, but you should try to get a brain of your own -- maybe reading Flynn's book on ideology could help you here.

Hey flynn I want some sort of answer! You answer some freak who tries to undermind everything you stand for but ignore someone who loyally participates on your site!

I'm not saying money has to be directly involved. The whole cottage industry of conservative book publishing and news is awash in billionaire money. I agree that Mr. Flynn is admirable in objecting to the less sensible parts of conservative ideas, particually the war in Iraq and many of George Bush's "liberal" policies like increasing government payrolls and spending. But at the end of the day supporting Bush's tax cuts on billionaires while passing on the costs to America's children (who have to pay for the national debt) and the middle class( who have to pay higher state and local taxes and higher tuition at university because the federal government gives less money to the states) is no way to look out for America. You might say the idea is moronic.

Apu: I'm glad to see you are now backing away from your earlier claims. You said in your original post that Flynn was being paid for his opinions, now you say money doesn't have to be "directly involved"? What is that supposed to mean? Perhaps George Soros has bought your opinions -- but oh, I'm not saying money has to be *directly* involved.

Your attempt at what it means for money to be indirectly involved is that supposedly the conservative book industry is awash in billionaire money? Pardon? The vast majority of the relatively small number conservative books published are published for profit by companies; they are not subsidized by the government or by billionaires, etc. In contrast, many many liberal book are published each year with subsidies of universities (either through university presses who publish things that would never make a profit, or by research money, e.g., Al Frankin's money from Harvard to write his truly sophomorically titled _Lying Liars_).

And then you pull the classic move of someone who is trying to back away from a brainless statement: changing the topic. You randomly start attacking the Bush tax cuts!? It is moronic to support Bush's tax cuts and spending increases, you say? In the end of the day, what made you think that real conservatives like Flynn etc support the President here? Nothing. You are just chaning the topic, attacking your partisan enemy, to avoid admitting you were wrong to accuse Flynn of being bought.

Morris: my answer is that if you pay Amazon with a credit card, your order generally arives rather quickly. If you offer them beads, half-eaten sandwiches, and other, non-monetary, barter-type items, your book might take quite some time to arrive.

what if i offer them pasta with ketchup will it come faster? Tracking says it will be shipped on the 29! It may be a good idea to have more than a dozen copies of your book in circulation nationwide dont you think?

Bob, your problem is an Amazon problem, not a FlynnFiles problem. I write the books. I don't stock them, take the orders, or mail them out.

Having said that, there are tens of thousands of copies of the book in circulation. It's very easy to find. It's in every Barnes & Noble and Borders in the country. I've never had a problem with Amazon, which is why I use their affiliate program. If you continue to have problems with them, use BN.com or some other online book service. I've heard nothing but good things from the readers about the Amazon affiliate program, but if a bunch of people have experiences similar to yours I'll consider switching to another online bookseller.

I purchased Flynn's book through linking to Amazon from this website and it showed up in about 8-9 days. It may have to do with where you live and so with what warehouse Amazon is shipping from. Also, if you bought enough stuff to get free shipping then it always takes a longer time to ship.

All I know about the Bush tax cuts is that I was given 500$ back last year specifically b/c of them. I am a starving grad student so I don't think it was a billionaire's kickback I got. I was glad to get it since it actually helped me cover my rent the summer before last. As for the larger issue of the wisdom of pushing the tax cuts when there has been insane spending, sure that was stupid. But when I suddenly get 500$ more of my money back from the feds I don't complain much.

That Feser review in TAC was kinda odd. It seems the guy is sort of a philosopher, at least judging by the book on Nozick. That was the problem. For example, he oddly quibbles over whether certain figures you write about should be considered "intellectuals" or not by calling Sanger or Friedan, for example, "political activists" instead of "intellectuals." I don't find this distinction on his part at all illuminating or on point. He seems unaware of the way the left has worked historically. Would he not consider Lenin an intellectual, but only a "political activist"? The fact that educated bourgeois can be motivated by ideas to engage in various forms of leftist activism doesn't mean that they are not intellectuals since it is by the very means of intellection that they came to their political stance.

Also, he quibbles over whether these intellectuals were fundamentally motivated by ideology and not something else but seems to miss the fact that your book is not simply critiquing these originators of noxious modern ideas but those who have trumpeted their claims and put their ideas into action. It is both the ideology of these intellectuals that is skewered and the ideological attachment that makes their followers ignore the speciousness of the mentor's thought.

Mainly, the problem for Feser is that he is defensive of Strauss and Rand and is unwilling to admit that the right has had a few intellectual morons of its own. I think his defensiveness in this regard motivates much of his criticism.

The book rocks.

Dan, I know it wasnt your fault all along i was just busting em. I bought the book on Amazon for your sake not mine so dont get all offensive. I actually got an email yesterday telling me that it was shipped on the 16th so it should be here soon enough. I guess the problem was the free shipping crap since i did order enough to get it. sorry if you thought i was serious, i was playing with you. I also dont need to be lectured so lighten up! I almost like it better when I'm refered to as reader Morris than Bob cause i thought my dad was yelling at me.