Andrew Ferguson, The Weekly Standard, March 10, 2008.

Excerpt:

I came to him when I was still a teenager, through television. You might be surprised at how many people found him this way. He published millions of words of commentary and rumination, on a startling range of subjects, in high-circulation newspapers and the slickest magazines. He pulled off a dozen widely publicized stunts–running for mayor of New York, deep-sea diving to the remains of the Titanic, playing Bach with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra. Over a span of 30 years he let loose a stream of novels, many of them bestsellers. Yet what really made him famous–what made him the butt of impersonators like David Frye and Robin Williams, set him up for the cover of Time and the bold-face celebrity treatment in the gossip columns–was a TV show.

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