Not that anyone asked, but I never held and/or enjoyed any office or position of honor, trust or profit at The New Republic, whether under the regime of racist Marty Peretz or otherwise. Therefore, I do not have to say that I am in no position to criticize those who did hold such positions. My positioning is just fine, thank you.
I’d also like to point out that Marty Peretz bought the magazine in 1974 when I was 4 or 5 years old. Yet, there are plenty of people roughly my age or only slightly older who are behaving as if The New Republic had the most sterling and honorable reputation when they were growing up and then entering the workplace.
No one my age really has the right to argue that it was a good magazine gone bad. The truth is that people overlooked the racism of Peretz because he wasn’t racist against them and it therefore wasn’t anything to resign over.
I hate to harp on this controversy, but it’s bugging the crap out of me that people keep talking about the magazine as some kind of venerable institution. It has had its good points (mainly the book reviews and a lot of talented reporters) over my lifetime, but it was marred by its ownership up until the moment that Peretz finally cut his ties to it.
And, I might add, most of its editors prior to Foer weren’t “liberal” in any ordinary sense of that word.
