Eric Alterman: Marty's Mini-Me (Peretz and the New Republic)

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Eric Alterman
Marty's Mini-Me
Posted July 28, 2008 | 06:09 PM (EST)




One would think that the magazine that unleashed Stephen Glass (and Ruth Shalit) on the world would be more careful before empowering yet another young person with no journalistic credentials to make fantastic allegations merely because they happen to be consistent with the prejudices of the people who run it. But you would be wrong.

Yes, I know, The New Republic is a magazine without editorial standards in matters relating to Arabs and Jews. This is, sadly, unavoidable. It has long been owned, and is still controlled by a man with no literary or journalistic talent who owes his entire career to his ability to disperse his second ex-wife's inherited fortune.

Everybody who wants to work there has to accept his racism and hysterics. But as I said, Marty Peretz owned the place, and since he lost it owing to bad stock investments, he still gets to run it on other people's dime. Nothing to be done about that.

But what about Marty's "Mini-Me," young James Kirchick, who works as Peretz's personal assistant? Surely just because the boy happens to work for Marty doesn't make him untouchable. And yet he continues to embarrass and shame his colleagues on the magazine's website and in its pages virtually every time he appears there. Kirchick acts as Peretz's id, attacking those who are more talented writers and thinkers than both of them -- and who isn't? -- but whom Peretz is afraid to engage in open discussion. Thing is, the guy is so incompetent, so transparent in his water-carrying, that all he does is embarrass the colleague who must share a masthead with him and see the brand of a once great magazine continually besmirched. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-alterman/martys-mini-me_b_115466.html