Poor passing facts  

One more comment on Bloom and his accuser, and then I'm done. I find it odd that nobody has really mentioned the political subtext here, namely that Bloom has been one of the most outspoken critics of the feminist project in the humanities, cultural studies, and the postmodern academy. From his intro to The Best of the Best American Poetry 1988-1997:

Culturally, we are at Thermopylae: the multiculturalists , the hordes of camp-followers afflicted by the French diseases, the mock-feminists, the commissars, the gender-and-power freaks, the host of new historicists and old materiaists--all stand below us. They will surge up and we may be overcome; our universities are already travesties, and our journalists parody our professors of "cultural studies."

Does Naomi Wolf's confrontation of Bloom indirectly confront his message as well? Bloom the sexual predator (gender-and-power freak?) certainly wouldn't have the same credibility as arbiter of the canonical; instead, he'd be the perfect foil for those with a cultural agenda. It's worth pointing out that this comes at a time when cultural studies and feminist politics are in relative decline on campus. But of course Wolf hasn't made any mention of Bloom's politics, and Bloom himself has declined to respond on any level. So, the political undercurrent stays hidden.