I don't get what make him popular around certain crowds in HN. He is very polemical (I mean he was arguing that Obama would lead the US to live under Sharia law), is not a particularly good scholar, nor very insightful. Certainly, nothing he wrote as articles gave me a desire to read some of his books.
There are tons of smarter, more interesting people in the conservative sphere, especially around libertarian/conservative "brand". I don't get it.
You can argue that his claims about Iran's capabilities are exaggerated (Or that he was unaware of the then-secret war against Iran already going on), but the idea that Iran claims to be a sharia state and the laws of Iran are not something most Americans would want their granddaughters to have to live under is hard to dispute.
I guess we can argue on what he meant to convey by this sentence, but would you agree this is not especially nuanced ? That one example was particularly bad, but I find it representative of the man. I fail to see the nuance or the depth.
I wouldn't consider myself a huge Sowell fan, but I do recognize his appeal. He speaks simply, writes prolifically, uses data generously, and has no issues calling out BS.
For that reason alone is he better than most political commentators.
Just in case people are reading something nefarious into Sowell's comment about Obama and Sharia law, he wasn't implying that Obama was a secret Muslim or the like, rather he was criticizing Obama's posture toward Iran, which Sowell considered soft and also feckless, in the sense that he believed the policy would lead to Iran joining the nuclear power club.
In the 1970s the US was encouraging Iran to become a nuclear power (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8b/Shah_of_Iran_... ). The US was also still supporting the mullahs, as it had since the 1950s, against the secular left and anti imperial nationalists like Mossadegh.
I would suggest that peoples public persona and their intellectual work can be very different. I do not like Sowell's public commentary at all. But his scholarly work is quite good.
I think the terms “good scholar” and “insightful” are fairly subjective and open to interpretation so I am curious how you define them. I wonder if you could provide a few example of comparable people you think fit those descriptions better?
I guess as a disclaimer I should say I am more of a progressive, and not from an American tradition.
But in the same generic "conservative / learning libertarian" tradition as Sowell, I vastly prefer people like Tyler Cowen and to a lesser degree Russ Robert to give two very famous examples.
There are tons of smarter, more interesting people in the conservative sphere, especially around libertarian/conservative "brand". I don't get it.