Writers (Lamely) Defend Grass

Salman Rushdie: "I feel that the outrage is a little bit manufactured."

John Irving, another long-time admirer -- although stylistically they seem to have almost nothing in common -- says what I more or less expected: ''The man (and the writer) is a model of soul-searching and national conscience."

I'm more inclined toward the assessment by Hitler biographer Joachim Fest:: "I do not understand how someone can elevate himself constantly for 60 years as the nation's bad conscience, precisely in Nazi questions, and only then admit that he himself was deeply involved. I don't know how he could play this double role for so long."