The New Republic's problem with race, circa 1995 to present

[AP]

There's a 200 post thread going on down below discussing Affirmative Action. One of the arguments that has been addressed is whether an article published in the TNR fairly characterizes Clinton as being interested in removing race as a cosideration in Affirmative Action just before the Supreme Court issued their Adarand opinon.

The article, however, is free of direct quotes from Clinton which support the thesis. Furthermore, a July speech by Clinton after the Adardand decision proves that Clinton was committed to keeping race and gender based AA programs.

The poster citing this TNR article refuses to tell us who wrote it (I think it was Fred Barnes). I've been doing a little research on the state of this debate, and I came across this very interesting commentary on TNR's problems with race in 1995.

http://www.liberalslant.com/dh061303.htm

Some interesting quotes:

The NR in black and white (but mostly white)

There was a wonderful spat back in1995 between “the liberal New Republic” and “the liberal Washington Post.” (To be fair to the Post, its ludicrous “liberal” label is not self-designated.) The NR’s Ruth Shalit penned a long, critical essay on the Post’s affirmative-action program, drawing conclusions that delighted NR editors: Post goes easy on the city’s black-run government and downplays rampant black crime; mediocre black journalists land jobs and promotions at the Post over better-qualified whites. (Hey Ruth, the Post has a history of passing over highly qualified whites. But the mediocre beneficiaries are typically white and leaning right: Bob Woodward, Meg Greenfield, Fred Hiatt, Howard Kurtz, Michael Kelly, Katharine Graham and Graham’s kids, Donald and Lally.)

Yes, TNR's editors didn't like Affirmative Action. Hmm? Perhaps a motivation existed to misrepresent the Clinton adminstrations attitudes towards race.

Some might think it odd that the “liberal” NR’s favorite black scholars all have (or had, in Loury’s case) prestigious seats at conservative or neocon think tanks: the Hoover Institution (Steele), the Manhattan Institute (McWhorter) and the American Enterprise Institute (Loury). After all, the conservative National Review and neocon Weekly Standard don’t look to the progressive Institute for Policy Studies or the liberal Campaign for America’s Future for insights on the issues of the day. Conservative magazines prefer to ignore, criticize or villify thinkers at liberal and leftwing think tanks rather than provide them a platform.

Frankly, I feel like my case is closed.

Anyone trying to use TNR to justify the notion that race shouldn't be a part of affirmative action is regurgitating neocon BS.

[La_Serpiente]

1. The New Republic doesn't have the right to call itself a liberal magazine

The National Review and The New Republic recently went into a collaboration where a a liberal magazine and a conservative magazine would team up. However, there are many libertarian, conservative, and neo-conservative writers at The New Republic. Jonathan Chait, one of the editors, and Andrew Sullivan, a gay libertarian, and others run the place.

They had a this writer, Daniel Drezner ( His Blog ) who is a "self-proclaimed Libertarian-Republican" write an entry on their website. He wrote about the South American crisis in Bolivia and how they foreced out De Lozada (who eventually moved to the South and Central American dictatorships in exile capital of the world, Miami, because they are friendly with the United State) He wrote in his article that the reason why the people were pissed were not primarily because of the oppression the indigenous people suffered, but because of a natural gas pipeline that would run through Chile, whom the Bolivians hate because the Chileans took over its access to a harbor early in the last century. Although this could have been the "sparking" factor, the resentment of de Lozada has been occuring for YEARS. He threw out the idea that this had anything to do with his ousting. If anything, this was the underlying reason.

The New Republic needs reform. The Nation and Mother Jones are the true liberal, progressive magazines. The New Republic is middle of the road.