Parenti is not a rigorous thinker.

He's a cheap polemicist, a lazy, pompous, self-indulgent bottom feeder and an ideological wanker of the first order. Not an ounce of rigor and nothing original to say. He just rehashes what has been thought and said much better by others. He happens to be a very successful beneficiary of one of the many denunciatory, pseudo-radical jerk circles that exist here and there in the academic poli-sci left.

Contrast with people like Altmeyer.