TNR Not Right Wing Conspirators?
New Republic editor-in-chief Martin Peretz:
It feels a bit demeaning to defend oneself against Kos. But I am one of the neo-con owners, and I am titular editor-in-chief. So here goes: The New Republic is very much against the Bush tax programs, against Bush Social Security “reform,” against cutting the inheritance tax, for radical health care changes, passionate about Gore-type environmentalism, for a woman’s entitlement to an abortion, for gay marriage, for an increase in the minimum wage, for pursuing aggressively alternatives to our present reliance on oil and our present tax preferences for gas-guzzling automobiles. We were against the confirmation of Justice Alito. And, institutionally, TNR was against several policies that I favor, including allowing the government more rather than less leeway in ferreting out terrorists and allies of terrorists. From today’s newspapers: I see nothing wrong with the feds scrutinizing international monetary exchanges in the dragnet for enemies of not just our civilization but civilization. But TNR is a heterodox institution, a concept Kos surely cannot fathom.
But that just shows how clever they are in disguising their RIGHT wing bias.
Of course the Kossacks think TNR is a neocon co-conspirator. These are the same wackos who think ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN are right-wing media.
Peretz utters his own condemnation when he admits to having never before read Daily Kos. WTF?
DK has been the leading forum for discussions about the issues facing our nation for years. It has regular entries by major political figures and regularly featured entries by a whole host of highly intellegent persons who bring an expertise to the subject matter rarely found in the MSM and never in TNR.
Whatever his problems are with Marcos he needs to read Dialy Kos on a regular basis if he hopes to remain informed on the great issues of the day and how they will be resolved in the future.
ken:
While I agree that occasional reading of Daily Kos is something that someone in Peretz’ position ought endure, it’s hardly particularly informative on “the great issues of the day.” Surely, one could read, say, Kevin Drum and Josh Marshall and have a far better understanding of what’s going on in the minds of thinking Democrats than by reading only DailyKos.
James, the interesting thing about Daily Kos is its community nature. In a nation of 300 million people there is bound to be more intellegent and well informed people than what we get in the MSM or in publications like TNR. These kind of publications have a high barrier to the entry of new ideas as the editors act as the gatekeepers protecting the franshise by limiting its access.
What Daily Kos does is allow a real free market of ideas with the most articulate, best thought out, and meaningful writers raising to the recommended list and garnering the most discussion through commentary.
Drum and Marshall are invaluable, but in a different way than DK. They provide fact based commentary on issues as well but with single voice.
If one is interested in seeing how we are going to work out issues that confront us it would be foolish to avoid reading DK on a regular basis. There are just too many good writers there and good ideas for anyone to ignore.
“the interesting thing about Daily Kos is its community nature”
Perhaps that’s “interesting” in the sense that a biologist might find a petri dish where cultures taken from a public bathroom had been growing for a couple of weeks to be “interesting.”
Ken, Im trying very hard but nope still can’t figure out what your on.