Paul Johnson is a (old-style conservative) historian, he's written a couple of really excellent books and a couple dogs (also tons of essays). My response wasn't remotely fair, but the point is that Arendt is part of a long tradition of people -- who Johnson would say originated perhaps with Rousseau -- that we've called 'social critics', intellectuals, people who contributed nothing but won their bread trashing the status quo. Johnson asks why the hell we've listened to these people in the modern era, and suggests that we should be more discerning. I think there are probably other reasons to dislike Arendt but that's the point of that book (which is not always equitable, see the section on Russell). I should probably reread Eichmann in Jerusalem but I don't really want to waste the hours.