One of my favorite coulmnists highlights a prevalent phenomenon:

By Bruce Kluger

I first made their acquaintance after the birth of my oldest child. Out of the woodwork they came, those well-meaning relatives and friends who, upon watching my wife and me care for our new baby girl, didn't hesitate to tell us exactly what we were doing wrong.

"I think you hold her too much," said another.

It didn't matter that most of these people were either single or childless; nor did it seem relevant that they had no idea what they were talking about. Their commentary was as persistent as it was uninvited. My wife and I secretly dubbed them the "Experts and Geniuses."

It's only August, and already 2005 has become the Year of the E&Gs, as a bold, new wave of know-it-alls continues to pop up on the cultural landscape.

In March, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist declared Terry Shiavo's brain happily functional from the Senate floor, a by-the-video diagnosis that eventually brought into question Frist's own brain activity. A few months later, Tom Cruise began proselytizing about postpartum depression on national TV, without so much as a community college psychiatry degree - or a uterus - under his belt. Then Robert Novak, in the wake of his self-inflicted CIA leak scandal, waxed philosophical about journalistic integrity, when his signature brand of slash-and-burn "reporting" bears as much resemblance to respectable journalism as I bear to Angelina Jolie.

Even as recently as last month, E&Gs on both ends of the political spectrum were out in full force, spending millions of dollars on media campaigns that praised, or denounced, the president's nominee for the Supreme Court - before he was even nominated.

Meanwhile, the en masse bloviating that accompanied the shuttle mission - by commentators whose collective knowledge of air travel is limited to courtesy peanuts and vomit bags - brought E&Gism to new heights.

Of course, recklessly spouting off is nothing new. Public feet have fit comfortably into public mouths throughout history, dating to A.D. 303, when Roman egghead Lactantius Firmianus declared, "The mad idea that the Earth is round is the cause of ... imbecile legend." And now, thanks to the proliferation of blowhards on cable news, most Americans have learned to take uninformed windbagging with an economy-sized shaker of salt.

Nonetheless, when the smarty-pants contingent jumps the fence from punditry to policy - when dubious, partisan opinions begin to shape the laws of our land - it's time to worry.

Thoughts?