You might be …

Following up on this earlier post I should note that the sallow-eyed David Brooks can also be a witty and engaging writer. Today's column, which offers advice to high school seniors as they go through the process of applying for college, is a good example:

You are being judged according to criteria that you would never use to judge another person and which will never again be applied to you once you leave higher ed.

For example, colleges are taking a hard look at your SAT scores. But if at any moment in your later life you so much as mention your SAT scores in conversation, you will be considered a total jerk. If at age 40 you are still proud of your scores, you may want to contemplate a major life makeover.

In the earlier post, I noted, as Sasha Issenberg did in Philadelphia magazine, that one of Brooks' most famous pieces — "Patio Man and the Sprawl People (part two is here) — covers much of the same territory as Jeff Foxworthy's "redneck" comedy routine. (Foxworthy, of course, was never promoted as a "sociological journalist.")

This observation led Drieux, in comments, to offer some examples of what it might be like to have Foxworthy covering the Brooks beat. "You might be a public intellectual if …"

I invite/encourage more such suggestions in the comments here.