What sometimes happens with a Ph.D in Comp Lit

My best friend from grad school had the most kick-ass dissertation ever. She came in from the corporate world the year after I did and she is seriously one of the smartest people I have ever met. Her project compared a particular type of resistance literature called the feuilleton as used in 17th C. France, early 20th C. Czechoslovakia and later 20th C. Argentina. Her project was truly comparatist and, man, she was driven. Naturally, since she started a year after me, she finished right before I did. She's also a great teacher and can drink anyone under the table. (She's Irish. Note thre red hair above.)

Of course, this made her completely unhirable in academia.

This is not a sad story at all, however. You see, right now she's at the center of a pretty major event in U.S. politics.

The person I speak of is Marcy Wheeler (aka "emptywheel"), who is currently the foremost authority (at least on the left) on the Scooter Libby trial. Her book, Anatomy of Deceit, is flying off shelves (here is an excerpt), she was recently profiled in the NY Times, and she is currently (and by that I mean right now, depending on when you're reading this) live-blogging (and scooping) the trial at firedoglake. She's kicking ass, taking names and is possibly the most intelligent person writing about this.

And she's my friend. Love her dearly.

UPDATE: And there she is reporting on the verdict! I think she's probably downing a lot of wine right now. The blog (and her reporting) is getting some pretty fab press too -- her talk here is pretty cool given that she has no formal training (that I know of) in reporting.