Awhile back, Marty Peretz wrote a fundraising letter offering this stirring encomium to the magazine he was methodically ruining:
You may want clear opinions from The New Republic or from any magazine of political commentary. But you certainly don't want predictable opinions or simple opinions, which, alas, is what you get from The Nation and the National Review, The Weekly Standard or The American Prospect. Why, I bet that you could write their articles in advance. No challenge, no mystery, no surprise, no puzzling through of argument. Not like The New Republic.
In today's edition of The New Republic online, mini-Peretz Jamie Kirchick goes to a gay pride parade in Israel and realizes that "in a region of the world where homosexuality can be met with state-sanctioned death, Jerusalem's sixth annual gay pride event is yet another testament to the freedom, openness, and diversity of the Jewish State."
Such challenge! Such mystery! Such surprise! Such puzzling through of argument! There's no way I could have intuited the conclusion of this column in advance.
