The New Republic: Starting to stop not making sense

What is the deal with the New Republic? A couple of days ago they published an intelligent article on the Middle East by Kenneth Pollack, and today they publish a long, intelligent article on the fact that no, America is not “declining” (unless you mean, like, morally, in which case it totally is), an article written, even more amazingly, by someone named “Kagan”! There are so many “bad” Kagans that I’ve lost track of them, and now there’s a good Kagan. Confusing!

And then, also today, there’s an intelligent review by David Greenberg of Chris Matthews’ new book on JFK, mostly explaining why Matthews is so largely a jerk (Hint: it’s that phony, two-fisted, Irish working class, totally not a sissy bullshit that Tim Russert (and others) used to pull.) And then, a couple of days ago, there was this behind the scenes take on the demise of former White House chief of staff Bill Daley by Paul Starobin, which, unlike every other behind the scenes article I’ve read in TNR, was actually worth reading! Amazing stuff! Is Marty Peretz, you know, dead?

Afterwords
It’s kind of a cheap shot, picking on poor old Marty, whose grumpy old man shtick is eminently avoidable these days, but, well, why not? He’s earned it.