A MISSPENT YOUTH. A honey, found on Yglesias -- a 14-year-old conservative author published by World Net Daily Books.

There are precedents for this. Richard Brookhiser was 16, I believe, when he started writing for National Review. (I recall an article he did for them on the anti-Vietnam War Moratorium demo in 1970.)

Brookhiser today is indistinguishable from any other right-wing gasbag. Talented as he is, he could have done anything with his life, yet he spends it writing crap like this.

Brookhiser, from the looks of him, is upper-echelon rightwing and well compensated for his work. Still, the sense of waste is palpable. If he had to write, he could have done short stories, screenplays, punk rock lyrics, etc. After some raps in the mouth, turn-off notices, and reviews of various dispositions, he would have been forced into the decision we all must make -- whether or not writing's worth it even without the money -- and thereafter pursued a destiny of his own making. Whether it be foolhardy or praiseworthy, every man should chart his own course.

But Uncle Bill Buckley and a whole host of enablers clapped for little Richard and set him up a child laborer. Today the former Golden Boy is a functionary, a lifer, an assistant minister of culture for the Forces of Darkness. How his parents must weep. And now little Kyle Williams will be railroaded into a similar fate.

I don't know what's worse -- encouraging a kid to become a writer, or encouraging him to become a political blowhard. Neither is an enviable destiny under the best of circumstances, but to have the die cast for you before the age of consent is downright tragic.

Come to thing of it, Yglesias looks a little young for this sort of work himself.