Readers of The New Republic know that Leon Wieseltier has an acid pen. But does he also have an itchy trigger finger?
Former TNR editor turned top-tier blogger Andrew Sullivan is fuming after Wieseltier, the magazine’s fiercely brilliant and eloquently mean literary editor, accused him of “Jew-baiting.”
“To be called a ‘Jew-baiter’ in the pages of a magazine I was once proud and honored to edit, and which I love and support, is an extremely wounding blow. It is also untrue and unfair,” Sullivan wrote on his blog.
Neocon chieftain and liberal bogeyman Bill Kristol made his debut as the newest New York Times columnist this weekend. His choice of inaugural topic? The great potential of candidate Huckabee — the same subject his fellow Weekly Standard hand turned Times Op Ed columnist David Brooks tackled months ago.
Funny, I suggested just last week that Brooks and Kristol are two peas in a neocon pod. (Okay, Slate’s Jack Shafer explains why the two are actually quite different here.)
The Web site Politico reports that news of the hire “caused a frenzy in the liberal blogosphere Friday night, with threats of canceling subscriptions and claims that the Gray Lady had been hijacked by neo-cons.”
Times editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal, however, chalked up the outcry to “this weird fear of opposing views.”
“The idea that The New York Times is giving voice to a guy who is a serious, respected conservative intellectual — and somehow that’s a bad thing,” Rosenthal told Politico. “How intolerant is that?”
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