The Atlantic Monthly looked deep inside itself and begged to ask who are the most influential pundits today? They listed 50, and by using the word "influential" rather than "best," or something like that, they made it possible to create a list where Nobel laureates are in close rank with talk radio jockeys. For example, Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate in economics, holds the number one spot, while Rush Limbaugh, a talk radio jockey, is number two. Of course the list goes on like that, giving prominent spots to Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity along with David Brooks and Michael Kinsley. Anyway, as a rebuttal I thought I'd make up my own list of pundits who I feel, while not influential, are still worth looking into. Granted some of them are more "public intellectuals" than pundits but by this point that's like trying to discern between the taste of an orange versus the taste of a clementine.
1. Christopher Hitchens
2. John Gray
3. Camille Paglia
4. Thomas Frank
5. Gore Vidal
6. Michael Kinsley
7. Andrew Sullivan
8. Peter Singer
9. Bjørn Lomborg
10. Terry Eagleton
11. Francis Fukuyama
12. Slavoj Zizek
13. PJ O'Rourke
14. Steve Sailer
15. Stanley Fish
16. Richard Brookhiser
17. Mark Steyn
18. Richard Posner
19. Greg Gutfeld
20. Virginia Heffernan
21. Stewart Home
22. Will Wilkinson
23. Dan Savage
24. Katherine Mangu-Ward
25. Todd Gitlin
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