The Spine -- Filled With Nerve

I can't say I'm surprised to find that Martin Peretz's new blog The Spine is utterly uncongenial. I do, however, find it at least somewhat noteworthy that he's chosen to dedicate his energies toward pushing particularly disreputable rightwing causes defending The Path to 9/11 and and Scooter Libby. There's nothing up there nearly as predictable as a post about how Israel roolz and Palestine sux, it's like there were whole never-before-explored corners of darkness in his mind. Words of "wisdom":

Everyone has a spine. But some people are spineless. I mean this in several ways. One is a common and simple thought. If you shy away from saying what you believe, most especially when men and women are being counted, you are spineless. Spinelessness is an affliction of our civilization. Sometimes it is called "prudence." Even if that's what it is called, it often seems to me weak and pithless. But spinelessness is also an expression of social politics. It is called being "correct," even if what one is saying is palpably false. The choice in such a circumstance, people who calculate this way seem to think, is either to be correct or to offend. While I don't claim to be especially brave, I know that I am not spineless. I do not set my course by other people's lights. And this is one reason why I've called my blog The Spine.

The good news, obviously, is that it's now much safer to read The Plank so, on the whole, one has to count the Spine Era as a positive development.

Comments

Dear God in Heaven, what drivel. Can you imagine his conversation? How can anyone stand to be in the same room as him?

Posted by JR | September 13, 2006 5:58 PM

The good news, obviously, is that it's now much safer to read The Plank so, on the whole, one has to count the Spine Era as a positive development.
That was my logic, too. It's no longer the sequence of "Michael Crowley, Jason Zengerle, AMIR PERETZ IS HITLER, Ryan Lizza, Spencer Ackerman, LET'S NUKE THE UN BUILDING, Noam Schieber…" etc., etc.

Posted by Minipundit | September 13, 2006 6:00 PM

Let's not forget Peretz's gratuitous unfounded UN bashing.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | September 13, 2006 6:00 PM

By all accounts, subscribers have been leaving TNR in droves precisely because of Peretz, if they even had droves of subscribers in the first place, so it makes a lot of sense to give him his own special corner.

Wasn't his raw hatred of Kerry in 2004 really something to behold? That's not to imply that he's gotten over it.

Posted by Steve | September 13, 2006 6:01 PM

Everyone has a spine. But some people are spineless.

Ugh, that sounds like the start of a bad second grade biology lesson that suddenly took a bad turn into "values." Maybe even a SchoolHouse Rock segment.

I like reading the New Republic at the gym when I feel Entertainment Weekly and Maxim are too fluffy, but I do get cranky when I attempt to read anything Peretz writes (which I usually do onyl when I realize there are 5 minutes left on my workout and i've ready everything else I brought with me). Perhaps it's contagious?

Posted by flippantangel | September 13, 2006 6:16 PM

It is called being "correct," even if what one is saying is palpably false.

I love the way Peretz uses the word 'palpably' as a synonym for 'arguably' or "from my perspective".

Posted by kth | September 13, 2006 6:23 PM

Peretz is right about one thing in the column Matthew links - nobody who has ever gone to see a Michael Moore film has any right to complain about Path to 9/11.

Posted by Al | September 13, 2006 6:28 PM

"Spinelessness is an affliction of our civilization."

Peretz sounds like a British army colonel retired to Rhodesia.

Posted by Otto | September 13, 2006 6:28 PM

Uh, Al? There's a big difference between a movie that people pay to go and see and a show broadcast over public airwaves into people's homes. Looks like you and Marty will get along fine.

Posted by Marcel | September 13, 2006 6:37 PM

Yeah, but did you notice that even Al couldn't bring himself to directly defend Peretz? What an ass that guy is (Marty P, that is). How did he get a rich girl to marry him and bankroll his blowhardship? Is he very good looking, or is she quite ugly?

Posted by MQ | September 13, 2006 6:50 PM

This bit of Jack Shafer's piece on Peretz cracks me up no matter how many times I read it.

He's an insufferable name-dropper, he's gratingly pedantic (he can't avoid the word "perfervid," using it five times in those 40 columns), and he's so enamored of his own wit that he can't resist recycling his previously published punch lines. "If [Amin] Gemayel is a researcher on anything, I am an astronaut," he wrote in the May 8, 1989, New Republic. Six months later, in a dispatch from Paris, he wrote, "[I]f the Palestinians are any closer to actual independence in the West Bank and Gaza than they were a year ago, then I am an astronaut." OK, Marty! OK! You're an astronaut!

Posted by Christopher M | September 13, 2006 6:54 PM

I've been told that Marty Peretz once said, "The only two things in my life that I've truly loved are the State of Israel and my freshman roommate at Harvard."

Posted by Libelous | September 13, 2006 7:11 PM

I heard it was the State of Israel and Eugene McCarthy. Which is scary. How does one go from being a McCarthy supporter to being a right-wing extremist? What happened to him?

Posted by JP | September 13, 2006 7:15 PM

Who is this guy anyway? How did he get on the staff of TNR and why do people read his stuff?

I've just never understood how somebody can spew bile so consistently. Personally, I find it impossible to read his stuff. It's consistently just so hateful.

Posted by b | September 13, 2006 7:15 PM

Hew owns TNR (now as part of a larger ownership group, I think).

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | September 13, 2006 7:19 PM

The people who should not do cute for some reason cannot be told that they don't have it in them to do cute.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | September 13, 2006 7:26 PM

How did he get a rich girl to marry him and bankroll his blowhardship? Is he very good looking, or is she quite ugly?

Since the big dick explanation is clearly out... Unless she got confused about the two potential meanings of the phrase.

Posted by flippantangel | September 13, 2006 7:41 PM

Shouldn't the editor, Franklin Foers, be recruited by the State department? Easing Peretz, with his ambiguous ownership of the mag, out of the blog that people actually go to into his own special romper room surely required diplomatic skills of a high order. Foers has been the good soldier throughout, and probably enthused to M.P. that the Spine was going to be a sensation, and that the loss would be to the Plank, b-b-but we all have to make sacrifices. He even got the NYT to do that piece about the New Republic's not very noteworthy suspension of Lee Siegal so that Peretz and his blog could be mentioned. Foers undoubtedly knows that it will sink out of sight, visited by the stray New York Sun reader and those of us who are nostalgic for Abe Rosenthal's pretzel prose.

Ah, Foers -- your country needs you.

Posted by roger | September 13, 2006 7:46 PM

In the same way as Marshall Whitman is the 'Bullshit Moose', does anyone have a nice turn on "The Spine" ? I think we'll need it.

Posted by otto | September 13, 2006 9:18 PM

"The Spine" is way too ridiculous and pretentious to require a cheap Atrios-ization. Leave it the way it is, and let it hoist Peretz by his own petard.

Posted by DivGuy | September 13, 2006 9:30 PM

"The Sphincter." I mean, as long as you don't mind cheap Atrio-izations.

Posted by Kyle | September 13, 2006 9:39 PM

Oh man, it's been a hard day, and the laugh is really appreciated. I just can't bring myself to keep track of this kind of stuff (to 'stroll the Plank') on my own, so thank god for bloggers like MY who can stand to do it for us. I'm not an astronaut!

..weak and pithless.

What's vinegar without pith?

I feel so refreshed!

Posted by jonnybutter | September 13, 2006 10:32 PM

I know as a pundit, you've probably got to keep reading TNR, but personally I've given up. It's been profoundly flawed for a long time, but lately The New Republic has just become a satire of itself. It's had a good 92-year run. But enough is enough.

Posted by GiantDuck | September 14, 2006 1:06 AM

Al's middle name is tu quoque.

Posted by cleek | September 14, 2006 8:52 AM

There is so much to dislike just in these two sentences:

"It is called being "correct," even if what one is saying is palpably false. The choice in such a circumstance, people who calculate this way seem to think, is either to be correct or to offend."

What Marty believes to be PALPABLY false - which I take to mean self-evidently, although he may be hinting at something that just feels wrong; call it falsiness - must, therefore, BE false. To deny this is to be weak, or a scoundrel. And yet, unaccountably, most people seem to do just that. Marty needs must offend them, because giving offense seems to bear the same Weberian relationship to being right, that material prosperity bears to salvation.

Since the discussion has drifted into a consideration of body parts, let me offer Oliver Cromwell and the stomach:

"I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken."

Posted by Dave L | September 14, 2006 9:21 AM

Sometimes, all a man needs is a good, hard pith.

I think 'The Spleen' would be a better alias for it.

Posted by Thomas Dent | September 14, 2006 10:23 AM

I swear he writes like a TownHall "columnist." "If you shy away from saying what you believe, most especially when men and women are being counted, . . . " What the hell does that even mean? And all the self-congratulation. Just too annoying.

Posted by bobbo | September 14, 2006 1:18 PM

I don't get it. What's the worst consequence that Marty Peretz faces for his "bravery" -- that his wife might cut off the allowance for the hobby magazine? Jay-zus H. Key-rist what a putz the man is!

Posted by sglover | September 14, 2006 3:55 PM

I don't understand all the vitriol against the guy. He says some stuff which I don't agree with (defending the path to 9/11 was excessive, although he makes good points about how the general character may not have been far off). Maybe even a lot. But why does everyone dislike him so much?

It seems to have something to do with his not coming into the industry from writing, but instead from having a lot of money. Well, OK. But seriously, I don't get it, why is it such a big deal? I also disagree with Mickey Kaus but I find him an entertaining read.

I can understand why people disagree with or even dislike his writing, but I think mainly people are just jumping on the "Peretz is a douchebag" bandwagon. It all seems rather silly.

Posted by mk | September 14, 2006 6:44 PM

'I can understand why people disagree with or even dislike his writing, but I think mainly people are just jumping on the "Peretz is a douchebag" bandwagon. It all seems rather silly.'

A douchebag who defiled an icon of American journalism, and brought a windbag like Leon Weisielter to prominence.

Posted by boonie | September 14, 2006 10:42 PM