Haha, The New Republic fights the good fight

I shall quote the centrist bastards at TNR:

"In an editorial last week, The Weekly Standard enthusiastically endorsed the California recall, offering a series of reasons as to why Gray Davis has forfeited his claim to power. First, there is the economy. 'California is in crisis,' the magazine writes. 'Its economy, its enterpreneurial spirit,...nearly everything is declining." The state's budget deficit, the Standard notes, is shamefully large, but Davis has called it "insignificant." Moreover, the editors contend, Davis's legitimacy was tenuous to begin with. That is 'partly because of the nature of his reelection. He hung on by a thread, winning with less than a majority." For good measure, the magazine slams Davis for his magic fund-raising touch, noting his 'richly deserved reputation for dunning a large campaign contribution.' Sputtering economy? Dishonest efforts to downplay huge deficits? A fund-raising juggernaut? And a narrow electoral victory with a less-than-majority vote? We knew the Standard's editors were keen on impeaching Bill Clinton. Who knew they would build such a devastating case for removing George W. Bush?"

I needed to point this out for several reasons. A. TNR is making the same point we've been screaming our asses off about for weeks and B. Too many people here hate TNR for being too far right.

GOP = Hypocrites are us

One -- can you give us a link for that statement, as I'd like to see who wrote that. TNR does have good writers...they just have had shtity management.

and

Two - if you want to know why a lot of us have problems with TNR, please read Alterman's "What Liberal Media?" for a history on the magazine's flirtations with the Right. There's two real good reasons not to like where TNR has been in the past -- Michael Kelly and Andrew Sullivan.

There is no link, that's straight out of the magazine that just landed in my mailbox.

I am aware of TNR's past. I also HATE Mr. Kelly. However, most of the editors, when he died, said that they disagreed with his politics entirely.

Who cares about a fight between Blair Democrats and Tory imperialist repukes.

Sorry, one example is a rather lightweight defense.

The magazine has a long history under Marty Peretz of advocating Israeli militarism, denigrating liberals, trumpeting US unilateralism, and plugging conservative thinkers.

Whether it's TNR's support for the Contras under Reagan or its flirtation with theories of black "pathology" in the 80s, its advocacy of DLC solutions in the 90s, or its ongoing McCarthyist ranting about the US after 9/11, the enthusiasm for being so consistently on the wrong side of issues is impressive.

Just spend some time with it in the stacks of a good library. The magazine wasn't the strained and curdled object of silliness it's become. The people who made it readable even a generation ago--its original TNR from the 60s and 70s, or the once-feisty (though now pretty tame) Michael Kinsley--are all gone.

And at least one of those who helped make it despicable, the right wing porker and war cheerleader Michael Kelly, has since gone to his just reward. Getting blown to shit in a Humvee while getting your voyeuristic kicks in the invasion of Iraq is an extreme example but surely a most pragmatic lesson in where TNR-style thinking leads. ;-)

I almost never agree with TNR's foreign policy stance. It's almost always right-wing, although they have entirely backtracked on the Iraq war and did a little-known but devastating expose on the lead-up. However, you're being unfair. Peretz is a typical Israel-hoister, as are many of them (only he writes about it). However, they are very left-leaning in their domestic policy and economics. They are one of the few to support raising property taxes in California; they have done a better job than anyone at bashing the Bush tax cuts (far better than the American Prospect, who did a fine job themselves). They do tend to have more rightist owners, but that's about it.

WHEN YOU'VE LOST THE NEW REPUBLIC . . . Tapped's new favorite thing is the Federal Election Commission database where you can type in anyone's name and see if he or she has donated money to political candidates or parties. (Tapped's old favorite thing was The Washington Post's home buyer database, where you could learn how much your neighbors spent for their apartments.) So check out this nifty little listing (go here and search for "Steinhardt, Michael") that we discovered while trying to see which big-shot New Democrats were supporting which Democratic presidential candidates: According to this list, Michael Steinhardt, former Democratc Leadership Council stalwart and part-owner of The New Republic, gave $2,000 to Bush-Cheney '04 Inc. on June 20, 2003.

Now, we know that there's often little direct relationship between a magazine owner's politics and the views of its writers, but it is a notable thing when one of the more prominent New Democrats around starts financing the continuation of the Bush administration.
http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2003/07/index.html#001288

and occasionally they can still come up with some gems, but certainly not enough to get me to renew my subscription.