BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Thursday, January 08, 2004
Where's Marty? Perhaps the
only surprising thing about the New Republic's endorsement of
Joe Lieberman is that boy wonder editor Peter Beinart is taking
pretty much sole credit for it.
Lieberman's politics - moderate on
social and economic issues, hawkish on national security - are
perfectly in alignment with those of Martin Peretz, the magazine's
principal owner and editor-in-chief.
Yet Peretz's name didn't even come
up last night when Beinart appeared on CNN's Paula Zahn Now to
discuss
the endorsement.
BEINART: It was a vigorous
internal debate within the magazine. In fact, in this issue of the
magazine we're publishing, four dissents in favor of other
candidates. At the end of the day, as the editor in consultation,
I made this decision feeling it was our responsibility to take a
side.
ZAHN: That's a nice way of
saying, you're the big cheese. You ultimately sign off on the
decision.
BEINART: After listening to a
lot of people.
Of course, the phrase "editor in
consultation" leaves a lot of room for the involvement of others,
including Peretz. But clearly a judgment was made to portray this as
the decision of the magazine collectively, led by Beinart. And it was
easier to do that this time around, since Peretz isn't known to be
personal friends with Lieberman or any of the other candidates, as he
was and is with Al Gore.
The endorsement itself is freely
available, so have
a look. What it really
comes down to is one thing: TNR supported the war in Iraq, and
Lieberman is the only one of the nine Democratic presidential
candidates to do the same. For instance, there is this:
Fundamentally, the Dean
campaign equates Democratic support for the Iraq war with
appeasement of President Bush. But the fight against Saddam
Hussein falls within a hawkish liberal tradition that stretches
through the Balkan wars, the Gulf war, and, indeed, the cold war
itself. Lieberman is not the only candidate who stands in that
tradition - Wesley Clark promoted it courageously in Kosovo, as
did Richard Gephardt when he defied the polls to vote for $87
billion to rebuild Iraq. But Lieberman is its most steadfast
advocate, not only in the current field but in the entire
Democratic Party.
That's a fair assessment. And I'm
reasonably sure that Lieberman would never have resorted to the
duplicitous arguments about weapons of mass destruction that were
used by the Bush White House to concoct its case for war.
But, short of the prospect of Iraqi
nukes, how could Lieberman - or anyone else - have convinced the
American public that waging war was the right thing to do? As
horrible a dictator as Saddam Hussein was, the chaos in Iraq today
shows that this war was a terrible idea. Now that we know
there were no weapons, what do we tell the families of American
soldiers (not to mention Iraqis) whose lives have been lost?
The editorial is accompanied by
pieces from the TNR staff favoring John
Edwards, Dick
Gephardt, Wesley
Clark, and Howard
Dean.
Nowhere in sight: Massachusetts
senator John Kerry.
Ed Gillespie, lying liar.
Even though Wes Boyd, head of the lefty political website
MoveOn.org,
has clearly explained that he had nothing to do with the ad comparing
George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler that had been posted by a contest
participant; even though the ad was removed as soon as it was brought
to his attention; Republican National Committee chairman Ed
Gillespie's disingenuous
rant is still up on the
party's website, GOP.com.
Here is MoveOn.org's
statement.
And here's an analysis
by Timothy Karr at Mediachannel.org,
complete with the requisite link to an unhinged column in the
right-wing New York Post.
New in this week's
Phoenix: John Kerry battles to revive
his moribund presidential campaign.
And the Narco News Bulletin
is back.
posted at 9:54 AM |
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
