When I ask why the media is going along w/ this notion of Barrett as brilliant legal scholar I'm not naively asking why she's in this position. We all understand that. I'm suggesting that part of the problem is that many journalists don't know how to read academic CVs.

You see this all the time when legitimate news sources cite as grand experts, side by side, some really accomplished scholar and someone who maybe wrote an encyclopedia article, or a popular press book, and has the name "professor." 2/

(Sorry -- not the "name" professor, the title. Unless, you know, Professor is your name!) 3/

I'm a professor myself, and I've published non-academic books on the religious right. That does not make me an expert. I'm not; I'm a journalist with some of the depth one can earn from working a beat for a long time. 4/

Much of the press sees "law professor" and assumes that means "brilliant." But there are a lot of law professors. Barrett's CV isn't nonexistent, but unless the disciplinary standards are radically different than the disciplines I know, it's not rockstar by any means.

Because scholarship isn't measured by who you know--"my mentor Scalia"--but by what you actually write. & it doesn't seem that Barrett has written much. She was a middling scholar before becoming a rookie judge. Clarence Thomas had more relevant experience when he was nominated.