Authors are prestigious because it's assumed that they've written their books -- with help from friends and editors, of course, but still, they're the one who s

Authors are prestigious because it's assumed that they've written their books -- with help from friends and editors, of course, but still, they're the one who structured their thoughts and churned through a few hundred thousand words of drafts and revisions. (Ever tried to write? I have, but I've never created anything publishable; this is why I have so much respect for those who do, and so little patience for those who don't but pretend they did.) If such-and-such a person can't write a book, they shouldn't get the credit for having written one; there was a time when a politician or general had to either write his own memoirs, or live with their not existing.