Time to Put TNR Out of its Misery

David Sirota's outrage regarding The New Republic's conservative direction is crystallizing my own discomfort with the publication, and pushing me to a difficult decision. I hate to cancel my subscription: I've been a subscriber since 1980 and was mostly happy with the magazine and its storied past.

I lasted through the neo-conservative heterodoxies of the 80's and 90's, because at least the neo-cons thought things through, and they had a plan. Now, with Iraq, we know how stupid and divisive their plan was, and will be again and again with Iran and Syria and the rest of the Middle East. Still, it wasn't until Peter Beinart became Chief Editor, and stabbed us all in the back with this misleading analogy between Henry Wallace (FDR's 2nd Vice-President) and filmmaker Michael Moore that my outrage began boiling:

When liberals talk about America's new era, the discussion is largely negative--against the Iraq war, against restrictions on civil liberties, against America's worsening reputation in the world. In sharp contrast to the first years of the cold war, post-September 11 liberalism has produced leaders and institutions--most notably Michael Moore and MoveOn--that do not put the struggle against America's new totalitarian foe at the center of their hopes for a better world. As a result, the Democratic Party boasts a fairly hawkish foreign policy establishment and a cadre of politicians and strategists eager to look tough. But, below this small elite sits a Wallacite grassroots that views America's new struggle as a distraction, if not a mirage. Two elections, and two defeats, into the September 11 era, American liberalism still has not had its meeting at the Willard Hotel. And the hour is getting late.

(Note to Beinart: Michael Moore is a critic, not a leader, like Wallace once was. And MoveOn is a campaign vehicle - a nascent political party - and really not an 'institution' at all.)

In addition, Martin Peretz, former principle owner and Chief Editor of TNR, is still consumed by pathetic losers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, at a time when real-life fascists are loose in the land. Peretz's grim focus on the PC-circus at Harvard has descended into simple crankery. There are bigger issues, after all!

Times have changed. Elitism in the Democratic Party has its place, but not when the elite seeks to use lazy deceit to help expel the majority of its membership.

TNR's delusions have become unendurable. It's time to cancel my subscription, or at least let it run out. If Peretz, Beinart et al. have such contempt for us, their readers, their liberal constituency, why should we reciprocate with our time and attention? After 9/11, I'm still a little mad with The Nation, however, and will have to go hunting for an appropriate home.