Cornel West Is the Charlatan of the Year

We learned everything we need to know about the presidential campaign of Cornel West, the once-great intellectual, from his campaign launch video in June. Over a retro-funk soundtrack, he leans toward the camera and, in his characteristically melodramatic style, overenunciates every other word like a minister summoning the highest spirits.

“I enter into the quest for truth, I enter into the quest for justice,” West says, “and the presidency is just one vehicle to pursue that truth and justice, what I’ve been trying to do all of my life.” In other words, he sees his campaign for the most important position in the country—perhaps the world—as just one of his many extracurricular projects, the goal of which, it must be said, seems to be to satisfy his insatiable desire for attention.