Billboards for Messengers.

See Niall Ferguson's article on Obama and then take a look at Stephen Marche's article commenting on the Ferguson piece.  Here is an excerpt from the Marche piece:

Ferguson's critics have simply misunderstood for whom Ferguson was writing that piece. They imagine that he is working as a professor or as a journalist, and that his standards slipped below those of academia or the media. Neither is right. Look at his speaking agent's Web site. The fee: 50 to 75 grand per appearance. That number means that the entire economics of Ferguson's writing career, and many other writing careers, has been permanently altered. Nonfiction writers can and do make vastly more, and more easily, than they could ever make any other way, including by writing bestselling books or being a Harvard professor. Articles and ideas are only as good as the fees you can get for talking about them. They are merely billboards for the messengers.

There has been a lot of fire and counterfire regarding Ferguson's piece.  Here is Andrew Sullivan's initial response Ferguson's response via video followed by another Sullivan response.