There was an interesting post in Gawker about how the most recent issue of “The New Republic” was nearly ad free.

All that subscriptions pay for is ink on paper and postage, and generally, not even that. The money in newspapers and magazines in the ad revenue.

The fact is that TNR has been a weapon against liberals since Marty Peretz took it over. You hear it over, and over, and over again from Conservatives, “Even the liberal New Republic…..”

There will be a part of me that will be sad, because for its first 60 years it was a decent magazine, but since it’s become a welfare program for plagiarists (Ruth Shalit), fabulists (Stephen Glass), sock puppets^* (Lee Siegel), and enthusiastic endorsement of poorly researched racist agitprop (Andrew Sullivan).

When you consider the contributors before it Peretz, John Dewey, W. E. B. DuBois, Walter Lippmann, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Hannah Arendt, Philip Roth, etc., it’s a bit of a pity that it will likely go away, and a bigger pity that Marty pissed all that down the drain.

^*Full disclosure, I’ve sock puppeted. I acknowledge that this means that I have no personal credibility. Confirm what I write by going to the links I cite, and reviewing my arguments. Seriously. FWIW, I’ll try not to sock puppet in my own comments section. I haven’t yet.

Seriously, if I say the sky is blue, go check the Weather Channel to confirm this.