Ironic, Indeed

Ed Kilgore writes:

When it comes to TNR specifically, one irritant to progressive blogospheric opinion is definitely going to be the continuing role of Marty Peretz as editor-in-chief. The big irony is that Marty's fantasy is an Al Gore candidacy in 2008, which also happens to be the fantasy of Markos and other netroots detractors of The New Republic. In the unlikely event that Gore decides to run, it will be fascinating to watch lefty bloggers make common cause with Peretz, as against the ostensibly more liberal cynics at TNR and elsewhere.

It's actually quite a bit worse than that. If you read the Spine, it's clear that Peretz -- like the bulk of the netroots, myself included -- doesn't care for the junior senator from New York and also shares a certain level of Obama-mania to which I'm by no means immune, though I'm trying to remain rational. How do I feel about this? Not so good! especially since my concerns with Clinton tend to specifically focus on the foreign policy issues where I'm least likely to agree with Peretz on the merits. The world is a strange place.

Comments

MY is a tool of teh oppressor!

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 27, 2007 6:55 PM

I assume what MY is alluding to is the pervasive view in the liberal netroots that HRC is little more than AIPAC's lapdog. Either they're way off base, I guess, or Peretz is still holding a grudge from that incident with Arafat's wife.

Posted by Steve | February 27, 2007 6:55 PM

Either they're way off base, I guess, or Peretz is still holding a grudge from that incident with Arafat's wife

Alternatively, he may hate her for reasons unrelated to Israel. It may even be personal animus.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 27, 2007 7:03 PM

Peretz has been a supporter of Gore for years and I have already worked that disturbing fact into my calculus. And I support Gore nonetheless.

Obama is actually the more interest case, I think, because it's clear that Kos is gearing up to endorse him and also that TNR is, not just Peretz.

Posted by Marshall | February 27, 2007 7:09 PM

The writers at TNR don't seem to recognize that a stream of rotten articles on Israel has sucked the life out of the magazine. Is there anyone other than the most ardent Zionist who thinks that TNR should have published half-a-dozen articles on "anti-anti-Semitism" in the last few weeks.

Posted by ndm | February 27, 2007 7:23 PM

It is weird how Peretz seems to like everyone I like. Then again, his love for Gore stems from once being his teacher at Harvard.

Posted by Reality Man | February 27, 2007 7:33 PM

I think Marty has a better memory of Al Gore, Vice President than most Al Gore fans.

Posted by Ed Marshall | February 27, 2007 7:42 PM

Isn't there an old saying, "Even an insane bigot is right twice a decade" or something?

Posted by Royko | February 27, 2007 8:24 PM

"Peretz on the merits" is a delightful-sounding phrase.

Posted by Seth D. | February 27, 2007 8:30 PM

A lot of Peretz's problem is just him -- arrogant, obnoxious, etc. (Ya, ya, anti-Semitic slur , bla bla bla.) He also seems to dislike a lot of other Democrats and have no reservations about zinging them.

I figured out awhile back is that Kos is willing to accept or work with the DLC or the Blue Dog position on most issues. Positionwise the Iraq War is almost the only one he's distinctly different on.

On the other hand, he supports an aggressive, populist, grass-roots strategy and he intends to win. From this perspective the DLC crime isn't mostly postions on the issues. It's that they did not want to win because they feared that a healthier party would move left. The problem isn't centrism, but sabotage.

Paranoid, right. But the me-too strategy required a weak party if it wanted to keep pulling the party to the right. And the DLC mostly did keep it weak -- starving the grass roots and the local parties, fattening up a lot of useless mercenary consultants who couldn't even be trusted to be loyal (Dick Morris, for chrissake), and selling out major policy issues in order to get buckets of money to be delivered immediately to mostly-hostile media organizations for TV time, and advertising.

So the differences are: Kos is willing to move to the center, whereas the DLC insisted on doing so. Kos is intent on winning, whereas the DLC was willing to win under certain conditions. And Kos wants to build the party, and the DLC didn't want to build the party.

Posted by John Emerson | February 27, 2007 9:42 PM

Gore would be acceptable to all Dem groups, from kossacks to DLC.

If Hillary gets the nomination she should consider Gore for VP pick. It would be a safe choice. He is qualified and tested.

Posted by DonB | February 27, 2007 9:43 PM

If Hillary gets the nomination she should consider Gore for VP pick. It would be a safe choice. He is qualified and tested.

Can anyone see any problems with this statement?

Posted by John Emerson | February 27, 2007 9:54 PM

Oh, come on! The fact that some nut job happens to agree with you on one issue doesn't mean that your stance on that issue (or candidate) is instantly suspect.

Ideas don't come in pre-packaged sets...there's no law that says that anything Peretz supports, Yglesias must oppose, or vice versa...

Posted by Mr. Noah | February 27, 2007 9:55 PM

"Can anyone see any problems with this statement?"

Yes, please state objections.

Lets say Gore decides against running. He gets a call from Billary offering him the VP spot. He is promised a big say on issues like Iraq and global warming. How could he turn it down?

Posted by DonB | February 27, 2007 10:02 PM

How could he turn it down?

Rather easily, I would imagine. I can't see him getting back into the political horrorshow for a bucketful of warm spit.

Posted by Jackmormon | February 27, 2007 10:24 PM

Gore, Hillary, and Bill all returning to the White House in 2009? Talk about a blast from the past, except everyone involved is 16 years older.

As to the issue at hand, presidential candidate must win 270 electoral votes, which basically means at least a plurality of the popular vote. Then consider that there are serious idealogical differences intra party, or even intra a specific faction of the party. Any winning presidential candidate is going to have a whole lot of supporters that pretty much hate each other.

Indeed, if your favored candidate is disliked by all your idealogical enemies--guess what, that candidate is doomed. So the phenomenon is perhaps not so strange. I would say this is one of the main attractions of Barack Obama, actually--his uncanny ability to attract broad and diverse support from all sorts of people.

Posted by Korha | February 27, 2007 10:38 PM

"his uncanny ability to attract broad and diverse support from all sorts of people."

It is due to Obama being a blank slate. People know little about him other than he gives good speeches and wants everybody to get along and be civil. He is a generic candidate.

Posted by DonB | February 27, 2007 11:37 PM

Matt, you are judged by the company you keep, not by the company you've mutually discarded. If neither of you is keeping company with HRC, I think you are safe. If, however, you both decide to support Obama, that is a bit more troubling. Certainly it's something that would make me consider Edwards more favorably. But would support for Edwards make Marty your friend under the enemy of my enemy logic? You might be screwed either way.

Posted by Just Karl | February 27, 2007 11:48 PM

If by "generic candidate," you mean "highly unusual candidate", then I agree with you.

The blank slate is true to some extent, but let's not take this too far. First, he has great personal assests: intelligence, integrity, charisma, literary skill, and a very powerful biography. Then his message of hope and common sense rhetoric make him appealing to independents, moderate republicans, and democrats alike. Meanwhile, his stuanchly progressive worldview and his forceful opposition from the beginning to the War in Iraq endear him to the left wing. Finally, for policy wonks there's his heavyweight legislative record in the Illinois Senate. None of the other presidential candidates can match these qualities; indeed, I would argue, no other politican on the national scene can.

Posted by Korha | February 28, 2007 12:00 AM

I have been an Obama supporter since I voted for him for my senator. I tried to be an adult. Then, I saw him at harkin's steak fry on cspan and found you cannot be an adult about it. The man has an effect. He is extreemly insightful and brilliant and I don't worry about his foreign policy as I beleive he'd bring a unique perspective and new ideas to the problems.
I actually feel better about him handling them then most of the so called experienced pros. they have failed for the most part over the many years in power. And bring the same ideas.
Being a constitutional professor, He would restore our rights and all the destruction done to it over the past years.
As a community organizer and civil rights attorney he knows first hand the problems and road blocks facing the poor and the reasons behind why so many programs do not work.
and he believes in people taking control of their lives.
HRC is a nightmare. Everything about her is wrong and bad. She would be as bad as what we have now. She must not be the nominee or we will face the same shit as the past 20 years.
I have long decided to admit that obama has something, a force of nature, that is what we need. He is one of those people who come to the country once every so often when we seem on the verge of imploding on ourselves and puts us on the right path and a new direction and makes the country strong again until we screw it up badly again.

Posted by vwcat | February 28, 2007 12:08 AM

It is due to Obama being a blank slate. People know little about him other than he gives good speeches and wants everybody to get along and be civil. He is a generic candidate.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

Posted by right | February 28, 2007 12:22 AM

Hasn't Peretz had a crush on Al Gore since they were both at Harvard? Just like classics professor Erich Segal had a crush on Al's roommate Tommy Lee Jones and made Tommy the basis for Oliver, the Ryan O'Neal character in Segal's huge bestseller "Love Story"? (Which is why Al thought "Love Story" was about him and Tipper.) It must have been pretty humid in Al and Tommy's dorm room, what with all the adoring professors.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 28, 2007 2:08 AM

Sometimes I wonder if wonky Dems are afraid of Obama not in spite of his charisma but because of it -- they're afraid that Obama is very popular for reasons that they don't think are really legitimate reasons for popularity, such as being able to say inoffensive, vaguely uplifting things which don't sound like platitudes while still coming off as sincere and being fairly handsome.

(I don't mean offense to any individual Obama skeptics -- it's just a feeling I get from time to time, rightly or wrongly)

Posted by Julian Elson | February 28, 2007 2:34 AM

Since Gore dissed Herr Lieberman in '04- hasn't that cooled Peretz's ardor? And, what about Al himself- would one be amiss in thinking that post-Iraq cakewalk he's cooled a bit on Israel and all its friends? Or is Al's legedermain such now that he can juggle countervailing forces? Sure, he's gone up a notch or two in Democrats minds since Bush- but has he suddenly become brilliant?

Posted by Trevor | February 28, 2007 3:16 AM

If Peretz is all that opposed to HRC, I'll have to rethink my opposition to HRC . . .

Posted by rea | February 28, 2007 6:54 AM

I hate to be a wanker, but that's actually not ironic.

Posted by Freddie | February 28, 2007 7:40 AM

"and made Tommy the basis for Oliver, the Ryan O'Neal character in Segal's huge bestseller "Love Story"?"

Eric Segal is on record saying Oliver character is based on a composite of Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore.

Posted by DonB | February 28, 2007 1:11 PM

Yes, a few of Oliver's more unpleasant traits are based on Al, all the good stuff on Tommy.

Posted by Steve Sailer | February 28, 2007 2:44 PM

wwcat, right:

I made this point on a thread yesterday: There was an article in "The Hill" yesterday that mentioned that Obama was ranked 17th out of the 17 presidential candidates for pro-Israeli positions by Haaretz. This was mentioned in connection with one particular position that pushed him further down the list: he supports Leahy/Feinstein legislation to restrict cluster bombs (Clinton, of course, is opposed).

Peretz is evidently less single-minded about the issue than me if he supports Obama in any way.

Posted by brendan | February 28, 2007 3:41 PM