Speaking of 'liberals... Dying New Republic trying to remain relevant - kos

[Leigh Meyers <the.buffalo.in.the.midst@xxxxxxxxx>]

I found this while posting the Baghdad bombing story to the my diary at 
dkos http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/2/25/13242/4805 .

There's a poll attached to my entry: Will You Be Marching On The 
Pentagon March 17th ?

So far:
Yes
6%    1 votes

No
53%    8 votes

If I Can Get There
26%    4 votes

Again? I Did This In 1967!
13%    2 votes



Dying New Republic trying to remain relevant
by kos
Sun Feb 25, 2007 at 09:22:26 AM PST

The so-called "liberal" New Republic is now cutting back publication to 
every other week, yet another sign of its inevitable death.

I mean, how can the editor of the magazine that supposedly covers 
politics get this simple observation so wrong:

[...]
   Mr. Moulitsas, [Franklin Foer] said, âis waging a war for 
ideological purity.â
[...]

I'm waging a war against out-of-touch DC-centric "punditry" that gets 
the biggest issues of the day wrong. Anyone who follows this site or 
politics with any modicum of attention will know that Jon Tester, Jim 
Webb, Patrick Murphy, Jerry McNerney, Gary Trauner, Jay Fawcett, Joe 
Sestak, Ned Lamont, Ben Chandler, Stephanie Herseth, and all the other 
Democrats we've supported with money and moral support are all over the 
ideological map.

If I'm waging a "war for ideological purity", I'm doing about as good 
job of it as the New Republic is of running its magazine.

Luckily, I'm not. And TNR has still lost half its circulation in the 
past six years.

How can we forget TNR's rabid support for the Iraq War? Or such 
foresight as its hilarious endorsement of Joe Lieberman in the 2004 
presidential primaries as the party's future?

[...]
   The deep irony of Lieberman's campaign is that many Democrats view 
him as timid. But how much courage does it take for Dean to throw red 
meat to the party faithful?

The Democratic Party is racing back to the '80s, with interest groups 
enforcing litmus tests on everything from partial-birth abortion to 
steel tariffs, and party activists dangerously out of touch with a 
country that feels threatened by terrorism, not Donald Rumsfeld.

Dean has helped create this mood of self-righteous delusion, and his 
competitors have, to varying degrees, accommodated themselves to it. 
Only Lieberman--the supposed candidate of appeasement--is challenging 
his party, enduring boos at event after event, to articulate a 
different, better vision of what it means to be a Democrat. Three years 
ago, that vision seemed ascendant. Today, it is once again at the 
margins. It may take years, or even decades, for Democrats to relearn 
the lessons we thought, naÃvely, they had learned for good under 
Clinton. But one day, Joe Lieberman's warnings in this campaign will 
look prophetic. And the principles he has espoused will once again guide 
the Democratic Party. It will be the work of this magazine, to whatever 
small degree possible, to hasten that day.
[...]

What's that about "ideological purity"?

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Tags: New Republic, media, ideological purity, Joe Lieberman, Democratic 
Party (all tags)

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/2/25/11576/1946