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2020-11-01
Should I say that it is very curious
than none of the other alumni from
the
Old New Republic
—none of them
—measure up to even the relatively
low bar set by Peter Beinart: that of
having a meeting to discuss the
problem?
Or should I say that it is not very
curious at all?
Do note that Michael Kelly’s war on
Al Gore was unprofessional. Do note
a great deal about Michael Kelly was
unprofessional, including his insane
cheerleading for the Iraq War, which
he helped spark and in which he
died…
Peter Beinart: Mensch
<
https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0ugNwDAAs8Zu19wBofFWovw1Q
> <
https://github.com/braddelong/public-fi les/blob/master/peter-beinart-mensch-2020-11-01.pptx
>
Hoisted from the Archives:
Peter Beinart Is a Mensch
<
https://
www.bradford-delong.com/2017/11/must-read-the-lead-makes-me-think-peter-
beinart-was-a-real-idiot-and-he-is-very-very-late-to-the-party-for-so.html
>:
Must-Read
: The lead makes me think: "Peter Beinart was a real idiot, and he is
very very late to the party." For somebody to be such a moron as not to realize
that people that Marty Peretz, Leon Wieseltier, Andrew Sullivan, and others were
scorning as under qualifi ed affi rmative action hires had harder rows to hoe than
he did—that almost beggars belief.
Nevertheless, in the words of Viktor Laszlo:
"Welcome to the fi ght!":
Peter Beinart
(2017)
:
Reflections of an Affi rmative-Action Baby
:
‘
In 1991...
Stephen Carter wrote... Reflections of an Affi rmative Action Baby.... Little did I
realize that the book’s title applied to me...
‘
...Two years after Carter published his book, I joined the New Republic as a
summer intern
…
I had the right sort of clips.... I also had the right sort of
identity. It was diffi cult to disentangle the two. And I didn’t really try.... At some
level, I knew
….
Marty Peretz
…
ignored women almost entirely. There were
barely any African Americans on staff....
Marty felt a particular hostility to
affi rmative action. The irony—which I didn’t dwell on at the time—was that the
magazine was itself a hothouse of racial and sexual preference... never stated
formally.... To borrow Ta-Nehisi Coates’s metaphor, my race, gender, and class
provided me a “tailwind.” I was running hard. But without that tailwind, it’s
unlikely I would have become the magazine’s editor at age 28
…
.
‘
I’d like to say that when I became editor, I fundamentally changed all this. But I
did not.... Had I challenged that culture more emphatically, I would probably not
have become editor in the fi rst place.... A series of moral compromises. From my
time as a junior editor, I was handed pieces to edit—generally written or
commissioned by Marty—that made sweeping, hostile generalizations about
Palestinians, Arabs, or Muslims. I would cut as much as I felt I could get away
with, and soften or nuance the rest. But I didn’t refuse to edit the pieces at all,
since that would have imperiled my relationship with my mentors. (In fact, when
I began writing more critically about Israeli policy after leaving the magazine,
my relationships with both Marty and Leon swiftly declined.)...
‘
When Marty fi red Michael Kelly (who later became editor of The Atlantic), in
part because Kelly was critical of Marty’s friend and former student, Al Gore, I
considered resigning. But I feared I’d never fi nd another job I enjoyed as much.
Two years later, I was editor myself.... Those concessions created the template
for my response to my former colleague Sarah Wildman when, in 2002, she told
me about Leon’s inappropriate sexual advances. I believed her.... I also knew that
I lacked authority over Leon.... So I called Marty—who spent most of his time in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York—and asked him to come to
Washington to tell Leon that his behavior was unacceptable. (Marty has told Vox
that I never reported the incident to him and that he doesn’t “remember Sarah
Wildman.” Leon did not respond to my request for comment.)
‘
Marty, Leon, and I met at the Willard Hotel. When I confronted him, Leon—
who had a gift for intimidation—reacted ferociously. “Is this some kind of
intervention?” he roared.
‘
Marty didn’t push back. That was it.... I could have threatened to resign.... I
might have shifted the power dynamic, and forced Marty into taking some action
that punished Leon and validated Sarah, which might have begun to erode the
impunity that made Leon’s behavior possible. But I did not. By 2002, I had
already made a series of moral compromises in order to stay at TNR, and in
ways I didn’t fully realize, each laid the foundation for the next.
‘
I don’t know know whether my experience is typical of men who are complicit
in institutions that tolerate sexual harassment. What I do know is that the
affi rmative action I enjoyed, and the sexual harassment Sarah suffered, were
connected. I was given extraordinary opportunity at TNR, in large measure,
because talented women like Sarah Wildman were not. In this regard, I suspect, I
have something in common with the supporters of Donald Trump. It’s not
pleasant to realize that the bygone age you romanticize—the age when America
was still great—was great for you, or people like you, because others were
denied a fair shot....
‘
A lot of white American men look at Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, and
mass immigration, and the global competition for jobs, and the taking down of
Confederate monuments, and even the revolt against sexual harassment, and fear
all this means there will be less left for them. And they experience these attacks
on their privilege as a desecration of the natural order, an attack on institutions
that benefi tted them, and to which they felt deep loyalty in return…
