Huh

Huh.  (Derrida is rolling in his grave.)   

Update:  it seems the real story about The New Republic is elsewhere.

Comments

[Adam Kotsko]

I hope this new blog presents the same kind of tough-minded, serious foreign policy debate for which The New Republic is so renowned.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

The funny thing is, I didn't even realize what The New Republic had become, as I've never read it religiously. Well, never read recent issues religiously, that is: one of my exam lists had a wealth of material from its early, admirable instantiation. The cherry-picked articles I read always seemed sane enough. That said, it actually is unprecedented; the idea of senior faculty taking their work to the streets is novel, and I'm interested to see how it'll work out. (Although I fear, a little, that it'll all sound like Malcolm Gladwell: interesting, informed, but lacking in heft.)

[Matt]

Oh, I think it's just a distraction.

(Do we really need yet another blog debating the term "Islamofascist" with a straight face, now?)

Bérubé, Majikthise

[Matt]

Digby, McLemee - just to belabor this a little further.

[Matt]

Sorry to pile on, but Ezra Klein still probably deserves the last word on this (and for those who missed Charles' update).

[Charles]

Hey, at least they found an early friend in Brad "Clinton" DeLong, about whose "sensible Liberalism" Atrios had a few aptly cutting words lately:

...It's a dangerously wrong view of the world. First, there are absolutely fundamental differences of opinion about the direction of this country which will have tremendous impact on the lives of people. DeLong's been tangoing with Greg Mankiw long enough to know that we're not just talking about minor tweaks. There are wide differences of opinion about not just the means but the goals, and those differences of opinion aren't just about debates between Pat Robertson and writers for the Nation. Those differences of opinion exist throughout society, including in the club of technocrats.

Second, it's a useful conceit to imagine you're above ideology, to plant your feet in a place and call it the center, imagining you have the facts on your side and everyone else is an ideologue, but that's hogwash. Certainly some people are more informed by the facts than others, but that doesn't free them from ideology.

Third, as someone who has spent a reasonable amount of time around the kinds of people DeLong is talking about, I'm not sure I want them running anything. The sensible technocrats haven't exactly had the best track record lately, in part because imagining you're above it helps to isolate you from the consequences of what you're advocating.

How's that "free trade" working out for Mexico? How'd that currency peg work out for Argentina? How'd that energy deregulation thing work out for California? How'd that shock therapy work out for Russia? How's the privatization of federal government functions coming along?...

-via Max