I am not among the woeful who spend their day reading Slate, so I must admit I have never truly savored Yglesias’ thumbless-monkey prose. But a despicable troll in the sub-cockle of my heart delights in literary takedowns, and has ever since he first read the beating Mark Twain administered on James Fenimore Cooper. So read CJ Ciaramella at the Federalist and delight:

At its best, Yglesias’ writing manages a simple utilitarianism reminiscent of an AP English essay. At its worst, it falls into an uncanny valley that makes readers wonder if the article was dragged two ways through Google Translate before being published.