It didn't quite drive me batty, but it was both annoying and frustrating. I did mention to Kevin--the only other rassef person there--that this reminded me of the recent discussion of the term there: it's a warning bell, because it so often appears about two sentences from the sort of weird generalization and distancing that this article was full of.

What I wonder about--but this will be Kevin and David's issue, mostly--is whether the critic is reflecting weird attitudes in the books she's writing about, in which case it deserves explicit attention, or if these are her own biases, or both.