The author ignores that Rand would have quite limited access to information on the whole story, for a start. But more importantly he deliberately downplays the

The author ignores that Rand would have quite limited access to information on the whole story, for a start. But more importantly he deliberately downplays the fiction/adaptation angle. Rand was fascinated by what she glimpsed in the news story (namely the 'I am like the state; what's good for me is right' quote, and the mob-mentality of the public reaction), because it gave her some ideas for a work of fiction, regardless of the facts of this particular case. Writers don't have to be accountable for what strange things inspire them, just what they actually publish. Prescott leaves the exhonerating quote to the very end (padding the rest of the article out with random references to Neitsche and snippets of unrelated dialogue grabbed without context): ------------ "I am afraid that I idealize Hickman and that he might not be this at all. In fact, he probably isn't. But it does not make any difference. If he isn't, he could be, and that's enough. There is a lot that is purposely, senselessly horrible about him. But that does not interest me..." ------------ She freely admits that her impressions of the case are probably wrong, but it rightfully doesn't matter to her because she's just planning how to create a work of fiction based on some ideas it brought to mind, not publish an editorial on the Hickman trial. When you untangle the whole business, that's all you're left with: a novelist who privately took inspiration from a strange/shocking event, but did nothing to sanction or glorify it in the resulting fiction. Not particularly unusual: look at all the characters, tyrants etc., that Shakespeare put in his plays while finding profound truths about humanity. I'd say the whole thing would be analogous to me turning on the news, listening to something Col. Gidaffi was saying in defiance of the hypocritical NATO alliance, and then (without having the luxury or desire to research Gidaffi's own integrity), being inspired to write a story about a benign dictator who brought prosperity to the land, loosely basing him on Gidaffi's mannerisms. So really there's nothing to it, and that article would have died a quiet death, EXCEPT for this passage: "The first thing that impresses me about the case is the ferocious rage of a whole society against one man. No matter what the man did, there is always something loathsome in the 'virtuous' indignation and mass-hatred of the 'majority.'... It is repulsive to see all these beings with worse sins and crimes in their own lives, virtuously condemning a criminal..." Now that is a horrible thing for Rand to say - most people have worse sins than child murder?? But this is where Michael Prescott has 'done the dirty' - the sentence I italicized was, if you read the whole passage from the diary, not referring specifically to this murder case, but to the general instances of mob indignation (eg. could be tax evasion cases, MP expense fiddling, bankers bonuses, Monica Lewinsky, Fred Goodwin, the BP ceo, public figures making un-PC remarks, etc). Which is not an altogether unfair observation, in my experience. Mass self-righteousness is seldom pretty.