my apologies to any 1 who waited for a post. thursday's already gone and it's friday morning.
i was out on a date last night and hadn't been online once thursday. if i had, i'd have known from e-mails and the common ills site that c.i. had problems with posting. i got back after ten, okay after eleven and thought i'd have enough time to post a last minute entry. but i had nothing but headaches and lost posts.
wednesday, c.i. sent me something from fair and i'm going to quote from that in a minute but while i was installing various software, i was reading the daily howler c.i. e-mailed me about and i want to start there.
i get a number of e-mails each week saying, 'come on rebecca, the new republic isn't that bad. it has a long history of liberalism. aren't you being a little harsh?'
am i?
i have e-mailed each person who's written that to ask them, 'when is the last time you picked up the new republic?' no suprise here, it's been years. (no 1 reads that rag anymore.)
so i'm reading the daily howler that c.i. sent and the topic is about psuedo-liberals who refuse to speak the truth they know. and it is dealing with a number of people but i am going to pull some examples from the new republic staff. and what you need to know when you read the quotes
is that it's dealing with the press slaughter of al gore in 2000 and the people who kept their mouths shut or else lied and pretended no attacks were going on.
So why weren't your interests defended back then -- by, let's say, The New Republic? Chuck Lane was then the journal's editor -- why didn't Lane commission reports? Scarborough knows what he would have done. Why did Lane seem to do different?
Could it be that Lane put his own interests first -- and sold your interests down the river? (Immediate, obvious answer: We don't know.) After all, it was the Washington Post and the New York Times who were leading the "brutal" wilding of Gore (no, it wasn't the Washington Times, a point we'll discuss in more detail tomorrow). And the Post and the Times are big mainstream organs, where young journalists go to build their careers and pocket those nice, fancy pay-checks. Indeed, when Lane left TNR in the fall of 1999, where did he land? Where else? At the Post! At the paper where Ceci Connolly had been trashing Gore ever since March of that year! So here’s our question: If TNR had written about Connolly's work, would Lane would have landed that job at the Post? We'd have to guess the answer is no. No, we don't know why Lane's TNR kept quiet about the War Against Gore. But almost surely, the pattern established in Lane's career move helps explain why so many scribes kept silent while colleagues savaged Gore and eventually put Bush in the White House.
Another example? Dana Milbank wrote about Campaign 2000 for TNR right through December 1999. He also skipped the trashing of Gore. And yes, he also went straight to the Post -- the place where the trashing was occurring.
[...]
When Peter Beinart replaced Lane at TNR, for example, the "liberal" journal kept ignoring the press corps' devolving treatment of Gore. Beinart remains at TNR to this day, but he'll be at the heart of the mainstream press corps for decades (indeed, he's a very bright writer). By the way -- in 2001, Beinart began a lengthy run as a panelist on CNN's weekly show, Late Edition.
Would Beinart have landed that career-building chair if TNR had reported the trashing of Gore? We don't have the slightest idea -- and Beinart never had to find out.
still think i'm too hard on the new republic? bob somerby is telling you that the great "liberal" magazine never found time to tell its readers about the trashing of al gore.
still not convinced?
then let's take a look at something from fair called 'not even the new republic,' okay? this article is written by steve rendall and anna kosseff.
Once TNR , along with The Nation , was indeed a leading journal of left opinion. But when Martin Peretz, a Harvard instructor best known for his outspoken pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian views, purchased it in 1974 with money from his wife's inheritance, the magazine's politics swung unmistakably rightward (Extra! , 8/90).
TNR 's decisive departure from the left is old news, perhaps best illustrated by its editorial support for every major U.S. military intervention in the last two decades: the 1983 Grenada invasion, the 1986 bombing of Libya and the 1989 Panama invasion, as well as both wars against Iraq. The magazine also repeatedly editorialized in support of the Nicaraguan Contra rebels, who deliberately killed thousands of civilians.
A survey of the magazine's weekly unsigned editorials reveals a commitment to middle-of-the-road domestic and trade politics. In 1995, conservative TNR editor Andrew Sullivan (Washington Post , 4/8/95) asserted that his magazine could not be faulted for hypocrisy over its lack of diversity because "we've taken an editorial position against affirmative action." The magazine also supported the roll-back of welfare in 1996 and continues to judge policy-makers based on their record of support or opposition to it (11/24/03).
More recently, TNR (1/19/04) endorsed the presidential candidacy of Sen. Joseph Lieberman
-- the most conservative of the 2004 Democratic presidential hopefuls -- saying that "for over a decade, few Democrats have better embodied the principles we hoped would one day define the party as a whole." TNR has championed Lieberman's centrism throughout much of his career, faltering in its support of him only rarely, as when he changed his position to support affirmative action in 2000 (TNR , 11/13/00).
After the 2002 mid-term elections, the magazine had this advice for the defeated Democrats (11/18/02): "The party needs centrist leaders willing to give the country not merely a Democratic alternative but an attractive one." Consistent with that recommendation, over the past four years TNR has endorsed fast-track trade authorization (12/24/01), criticized Bush's Israel policy from the right (4/5/04) and urged the Democrats to endorse drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as part of a deal with congressional Republicans (5/6/02). Soon after the September 11 attacks, owner Martin Peretz (10/15/01) opined in favor of racial profiling.
want to tell me again how it's a "liberal" magazine?
i know some of you may feel i need to add 'harp' to my blog title. but if you listen to air america, you hear those ads for the new republic. you hear stephanie of the new republic telling you it's a great magazine. you hear al franken schilling for the rag and claiming it's "liberal" and that it's the best in the land. there's no truth in advertising there. (if al franken believes the new republic is liberal, that tells you a whole lot more about al then he may want you to know.)
it's this whole propaganda campaign on a small scale. and it's past time for people to be honest and start saying 'no, the new republic is not a liberal magazine!' until we do that, people will continue to hear that the new republic says whatever and think 'oh it's a liberal magazine, so maybe i'm wrong.' it's the great silencer.
as long as the myth that the new republic is liberal continues to be believed, you will see the discussion on the left pushed to the right over and over. this is not a liberal magazine. and it needs to get honest about what it is and who its audience is. and if you're reading the rag, it's really past time that you stopped.
