All Intensive Purposes

I'm not surprised that someone took Caitlin Flanagan's appearance on the Colbert Report last night at face value, but I am surprised that it was the wise and talented Heather Havrilesky. OK, so Flanagan enjoys being provocative. But last night she was clearly trying to play Colbert's game of turning the dial up to "11." She's not comfortable appearing on TV yet, but neither was Sarah Vowell when she recently appeared on The Daily Show, and we like her too.