But, really, is there a better epithet for Martin Peretz than “cunt”?
This kind of thing looks just diseased from Europe, but it is worth remembering that it is treated as a perfectly respectable contribution to left-wing centrist journalism in the USA. [ No it’s not left-wing says PNH, in comments].
On a related topic, there is news from Planet Melanie in today’s Mail: The only people who have ever opposed a lawfully constituted Palestinian state are the Arabs. Not many people know that.
I think it is an insult to the female genitalia, though. An alternative that springs to mind would be an insult to the male genitalia. I think the best description would be something like “baboon’s arse”. However, that would be an insult to a baboon’s arse.
“it is treated as a perfectly respectable contribution to left-wing journalism in the USA“
This is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard you say.
I can’t think of a single American who (1) calls themself “left-wing” and (2) wouldn’t regard Peretz’s blog post, and for that matter Peretz, as deranged.
It’s certainly appalling that Peretz and his sentiments are respected. But they are certainly not regarded as “left-wing” or respected by anyone of substance on the self-identified “left.”
But isn’t TNR respectable? And Democrat?
It is a reflex here to suppose that “Democrat” is the left-wing, or the less right-wing label. But I take your point. I will suppress the reflex in future. Because, clearly to call yourself “left-wing” in the USA implies something different.
Actually not so simple.
You can’t speak of the US as one homogeneous group. In my adopted state, Massachusetts, left-wing means liberal democrat.
Except when John Silber, President of Boston University, was a gubernatorial candidate, he was anything but left wing, but stood as a Democrat, Texas flavour, which is most certainly not left wing or liberal.
No, I’m afraid The New Republic has been neither left-leaning nor (in my opinion) respectable since the early 1980s, when it was taken over by a bunch of flaming right-wingers. It has remained an organ of the nutcase fringe ever since, as far as I can tell, and Martin Peretz has done nothing to make me revise that assessment.
You may take the remark as what it clearly is – the ranting of a far-right ideologue – and must not mistake it in any circumstance for anything that anyone around or left of the center would subscribe to.
Let me add my assessment, as a subscriber until the early nineties. They would claim liberal themselves, but have been consistent scolds of everything genuinely so, I don’t mean left-wing, just liberal, for about twenty years. And have launched the careers of a number of clearly right-wing journalists, like Andrew Sullivan, Charles Krauthammer, and Morton Kondracke. And on Israel and the Middle East, tendentiously racist and prone to wretched judgment of people and events. Still considered on the liberal side of the overall spectrum, and employing liberal journalists whose coverage of American domestic issues can be good and sometimes center-left in the American context, but that TNR passes for left is indicative of the sad state of establishment thinking.