In which the confessed liar and plagiarist protests my review of his book.

Jayson Blair celebrated his christening, his bar mitzvah, and his confirmation all in the past two weeks. Or so it seemed, as NBC Dateline, NBC Today, Larry King Live, The O'Reilly Factor, and Hardball invited the confessed liar and habitual plagiarist on the air to help him promote his book, Burning Down My Masters' House. (Warning, some of the links above go to Blair's Web site.)

The NBC segments pounded Blair, but King, O'Reilly, and Hardball's Chris Matthews let the disgraced journalist essay off the top of his head about journalistic ethics, the internal politics and deficiencies of the New York Times, affirmative action, and his own mental diagnosis—as if he were a credible source on any of these subjects.

Many have expressed wonder at how Blair hoodwinked all the bright lights at the New York Times, but there he was, just a few feet away from the TV talkers, demonstrating the method of his con: Flatter your target; be self-effacing; be useful to your target; appear sympathetic, vulnerable, innocent; and know what you want out of the con. In short, suck up, and suck hard. Add to the TV appearances the many published book reviews and features, and the exposure has been enough to make the young narcissist's head swell and explode like a dead pig in the August sun.

I played a small role in the Blair aggrandizement with a negative review of Burning Down in the March 14 New York Times Book Review. Blair responded with a seven-point e-mail listing the errors and ethical deficiency (!) of my review.

Allowing Jayson Blair to judge the ethics of a writer—or publication—is a little like green-lighting Josef Mengele * to lead a malpractice investigation of Marcus Welby. Blair concludes in his March 13 letter, which he also sent to Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent, "If Jack Shafer, a media critic who covers The New York Times, is going to review a book related to The New York Times, Times' policies dictate that he must disclose that conflict of interest."

I don't "cover" the New York Times, either, as this index of my Slate bylines proves. The Times is not my beat. I write press criticism about television, Internet, and print journalism, a fact that was acknowledged in this bio note that accompanied my review: "Jack Shafer writes the Press Box column for Slate." Now and again I write about the Times, but usually to savage it. (I can't remember the last time I sent the paper a love letter, if ever.) If my familiarity with the paper constitutes a "conflict of interest," then I'm guilty. Is Blair saying that a writer who knows nothing about the Times or has never written about it should have been assigned to review his book? Should poets review books on science and baseball players review books about opera?

Blair's other objections, in order:

1) Blair disputes the sentence in my Times review where I write that Burning Down My Masters' House criticizes Rick Bragg. Blair writes in his book that many Times reporters creep into a locality just long enough to claim a dateline for stories that they've reported mostly by phone or for which they've mostly used stringers (the "dateline toe-touch"). In a half-dozen instances, Blair describes such toe-touchery and the use of other people's uncredited reporting in disparaging and contemptuous terms. (Bragg committed both offenses.) And yet Bragg is the only toe-toucher I can find Blair naming. If that isn't critical, I don't know what is.

2) In my Times review, I write that "contrition is a dish served not at all in this memoir." Blair counters in his letter that he uses the word "sorry" 17 times in the book. Preposterous! The constant stream of excuses that Blair offers—being overworked, having an undiagnosed mental illness, believing that many people at the Times skirt the rules—more than nullify his sorry sorrys, as does his constant finger-pointing. Burning Down My Masters' House is the longest insincere apology I have ever encountered.

3) I write in my Times review that Blair composed the story that got him busted during a blackout weekend. On this score, Blair is right, and I am wrong. A correction is in order.