I'm Stephen Metcath, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest Identity Crisis Edition.

This is also the daily podcast from Slate.com for Wednesday, November 19th, 2008.

On today's program, we're going to talk about Malcolm Gladwell, the greatest journalist of his generation, or fatuous oversimplifier.

Michelle Obama, ceiling-busting careerist superstar or first mom, and gay marriage, the final frontier of civil rights or a war over a meaningless anachronism.

Joining me today are Slate's deputy editor, Julia Turner.

Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. And our film critic, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve.

And our film critic, Dana Stevens. Hey, Dana. Hey, Stephen. Let's start with Malcolm Gladwell.

Lover, Merhade him, Malcolm Gladwell, a New Yorker staff writer, is probably America's most successful journalist. I think that's indisputable. He's the author of two pretty mega bestsellers,

The Tipping Point, whose title has found its way into the English language, and Blink, his last one,

which I heard sold, what does it say, something like four times the number of copies is the

tipping point did in hardcover. So Malcolm is only getting bigger and beggar. His latest book is

called Outliers, the Story of Success. And Malcolm is only getting bigger and beggar. His latest book is called Outliers,

the Story of Success. And Malcolm Gladwell goes into what lies behind the kind of massive off-the-bell

curve success of geniuses like Mozart, the Beatles, and Bill Gates. Julia, what is it about

Malcolm Gladwell that we can't even begin to talk about

the writer without digging through layers and layers of image and self-consciousness and

consciousness about this man's own incredible success as a journalist? I like Malcolm Gladwell's work.

I enjoyed reading his first two books. I'm looking

forward to reading outliers, which I haven't read yet. And I'm not someone who gets annoyed by his

massive success. And I wonder whether Gladwell is as much of a figure of agitaph among

non-journalists. Dana, what do you think? Yeah, I was just going to say.

Where do you follow on the Malcolm Gladwell question? I have to confess at the top here that I've never read a whole book by Malcolm Gladwell. I follow his journalism in the New Yorker, but never felt a need to pick up a Malcolm Gladwell book because it's true that the ideas and catchphrases and buzzwords from those books so quickly filter into the kind of general popular imagination that kind of feel like you don't need to read them.

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