I wouldn’t be so sure about Rosenthal. He was more or less my boss for about 6 months. He may be fatuous and self-satisfied, but he’s not pretentious. One reason he can think of Kristol as a serious intellectual is because he probably does not think of himself as an intellectual, and my guess is that he views high brow art and literature with a fair amount of suspicion. I seem to remember that he was an Elmore Leonard fan (not that Elmore Leonard and high brow lit are mutually exclusive, and not that I think “high brow” is a very useful label).

I’ve never read Gessen, or taken more than a quick glance at n+1, so I’ll refrain from taking a position on his seriousness myself. He seems to genuinely care about writing and books, so more power to him.