The New Republic, 1220 19th Street NW, Washington DC, Tel: 202-331-7494
(editorial), 800-827-1289 (subs). $70/year (48 issues); $35 for new subs.
For decades, The New Republic (founded in 1914 by Walter Lippmann and
friends) and The Nation were sister weeklies, peas in a left-liberal pod.
But in the aftermath of the 60s, TNR owner and quondam radical Martin Peretz
became an ultra-hardliner on the issues of Israel and the Soviet Union --
for him, as for so many others, really one issue. And Peretz's TNR writers
helped invent the cynical knowingness that defines "neoliberal" discourse
-- wittily brushing off most suggestions for social melioration here at
home, while often backing Reagan on "defense" and (particularly) the
economy. During the 80s, TNR contributors thronged the ill-mannered bull
sessions that passed for public-affairs TV. Their antics helped fix the
contemporary persona of the "liberal" -- a querulous know-it-all who went
to an Ivy League school, skipped military service, and today agrees with
about 60-80 percent of the Reagan revolution.
Peretz's current politics are signaled by TNR's new editor: Andrew
Sullivan, a young Englishman and unrepentant Thatcherite. But Clinton-Gore
neoliberals (e.g., Sidney Blumenthal, Michael Kinsley) remain a TNR presence,
and TNR's superior arts and letters section retains its separate editor,
Leon Wieseltier.
-- Steve Badrich
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