Who Doesn't Hate TNR

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and Wayne Garcia both argue that the New Republic no longer matter. Kos makes his argument on political grounds.

That was obviously violated today as the New Republic betrayed, once again, that it seeks to destroy the new people-powered movement for the sake of its Lieberman-worshipping neocon owners; that it stands with the National Review and wingnutoshpere in their opposition to grassroots Democrats.

Garcia faults the credibility of TNR's Scott Thomas Beauchamp war diaries. I'm not with Garcia on this. I do question the judgement of Beauchamp being TNR editor Elspeth Reeve's husband. The story shouldn't be married to one of the editors.

The problem with TNR boils down to Martin Peretz. He has put his bizarre political agendas, such as supporting Al Gore, Lewis Libby and the invasion of Iraq, ahead of quality journalism.

It is a sad but true fact of American political life that liberals rarely exercise so much influence as when they happen to be endorsing conservative causes, and this temptation has proven consistently irresistible to Peretz and his magazine. TNR under Peretz has been a vehicle that proved extremely helpful to Ronald Reagan's wars in Central America and George Bush's war in Iraq. It provided seminal service to Newt Gingrich's and William Kristol's efforts to kill the Clinton plan for universal health care and offered intellectual legitimacy to Charles Murray's efforts to portray black people as intellectually inferior to whites. As for liberal causes, however … well, not so much.

In case you are wondering, TNR considers itself a Lefty political magazine. With friends like this who needs the National Review?