Salon.com > The New Republic

Let’s have some more wars, TNR book critic says

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:48:00 +0000

New Republic literary editor and guy who also for some reason regularly writes political columns Leon Wieseltier did not enjoy Rachel Maddow's latest book, everyone. He thinks it is "an anthropologically useful document of the new American disaffection with American force," by which he means it is annoyingly anti-war.

Written in the same perky self-adoring voice that makes her show so excruciating, it offers some correct observations about certain lamentable trends in the American military— its reliance on contractors, its exploitation of reservists, its surfeit of nuclear weapons; but its righteous aim is to make the use of force itself seem absurd.

You have to appreciate a literary critic who objects to the notion that war is absurd. (As for Leon Wieseltier calling out another author's "self-adoring" tone, well ... no one would ever accuse Wieseltier of being "perky," I suppose.)

The New Republic’s hack list equal parts fun and annoying

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 18:21:00 +0000

The New Republic is out with their "lists" issue, because everyone loves lists. Much of the material is behind a paywall (you won't know who joins Evan Bayh and Lanny David on "the sell-outs" list unless you subscribe!) but they've given us the entirety of their "over-rated thinkers" link in order to generate cheap traffic through inspiring arguments and so on.

The list is a series of capsule-sized take-downs of media and political figures said to be public intellectuals.Some targets are incredibly easy (national laughingstock Newt Gingrich), and some are quite satisfying.

On foreign policy guru/TED conman Parag Khanna: "His recent book is actually called How to Run the World. It is a self-congratulatory anthology of clichés and platitudes—the life of the mind, Davos-style." And Fareed Zakaria, "exemplary spokesman for the always-evolving middle."