The New Republic

I don't know that we should be so quick to congratulate ourselves here. Both Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann have had Michael Moore on their shows- which are probably the most important and visible of all liberal media- and nary a remotely adversarial word. This means one of our entertainers continues to have a fair amount of stature with the left, even if not from its intellectual leadership. That doesn't make us so screwed up as the right has become, but it's hardly appropriate to choose as a standard the lowest of all bars. There remains miles of room for improvement on the left as well.

- I Majorajam

May 10, 2010 at 11:17am

Clearly, Jonathan is talking about periodicals here, not entertainers. I have long said that there is no magazine on the right like the New Republic in its intellectual honesty and adherence to standards of quality and fairness.

- liberal reformer

May 10, 2010 at 12:44pm

Well, the claim actually regards liberal intellectual magazines, and it is Kristula-Green's, not Chait's (or at least not originally). But I would consider Maddow to be an intellectual figure more than an entertainer, certainly by the standards of the punditry, (she's a PhD from Oxford and a Rhodes scholar whose approach- choice of guests/experts, choice of arguments, etc.- is far better described as intellectual than visceral, notwithstanding the different medium). And on that basis, I was disappointed to see her give such deference to Moore in their interview. Actually, that was preordained once he got there. I was disappointed to see him invited on. So in the spirit of the post, rather than its literal sense, seemed to me push back was appropriate (of course, the initial claim also used the word 'some' intellectual magazines, but here again I'd say 'some' matters much less to 'epistemic closure' if they're obscure against the 'not some' that are not. Relatedly, TNR is anything but reliably liberal in the past decade).

- I Majorajam

May 10, 2010 at 1:08pm

Rachel Maddow is a cheerleader and an entertainer, not a critical, intellectual force, no matter what her educational background is.

- liberal reformer

May 10, 2010 at 1:26pm

I'm with liberal ref on this one.

- jet

May 10, 2010 at 2:35pm

QED liberal reformer. Spose there's no chance you're familiar with the difference between argument and assertion. Yours was the latter, fyi.

- I Majorajam

May 10, 2010 at 2:37pm

Well, Maddow can be a bit of a cheerleader, and she certainly tries to have fun with her broadcast, which can result in glibness or facile sarcasm. But she is also more consistent than most in her medium (and here I certainly include not only cable news networks but also the news divisions of the original three broadcast networks) in attempting to uphold some standards of intellectual rigor and integrity. Olbermann, for example, while not an ideologue, is most often a strict partisan, and as a result he's simply boring. Maddow rarely bores. She sometimes surprises, and, almost alone in the medium, she regularly engages in thoughtful self-examination and takes ideas seriously on their own terms, independent of personality or partisan position. That's better than can be said of most of the print press these days.

- rhubarbs

May 10, 2010 at 4:45pm

This is the difference between conservative entertainers and liberal entertainers - Rachel Maddow, who, as a TV personality observes slightly different rules than print writers do, arguably functions as an "entertainer" on TV, but she's an entertainer with more substantive knowledge and depth than all but a few of conservative "non-entertainers" like Brooks, Douthat, Frum, Freidersdorf and perhaps a very few others. Her truth-to-lie ratio is at least four hundred points better than that of her closest conservative competitor. On the conservative side, other than the aforementioned, everyone's an entertainer. No one respects even the basic rules of civil discourse, and no one even tries to make arguments that might appeal to reasonable people, only propaganda intended to dupe the dupes. If someone says something stupid on the liberal side, other liberals jump on his/her case, and the person who said the stupid thing is either chastened, or continues to bull forward in stupidity a la a Nader or a Moore or a Naomi Klein. The guys who continue to bull forward drop out of the "conversation" - no reasonable liberal takes them very seriously. If someone says something stupid on the conservative side, other liberals jump on his/her case, and conservatives say "Those damn liberals are jumping on a good conservative's case - we need to defend him/her." Their principles adapt as necessary to accommodate the person who said the stupid thing, and they usually find a way to deflect allegations by criticizing the critics. Group solidarity trumps intellectual integrity and honesty. It's good that at least some conservatives are paying enough attention to "the liberal media" that they actually recognize the diversity of opinion and openness to self-criticism on our side. Maybe conservatives will find a way to clean up their act a little

- Geoff G

May 10, 2010 at 5:37pm

Equating Moore and Levin is absurd on its face. Moore may take liberties with small details occasionally and he certainly frames things in a way that makes his targets look bad, but he's by no means the kind of fact-free hack you find on the right. The fact that "serious" liberals are so quick to criticize Moore strikes me as more than "openness" to self-criticism; it elevates such criticism to a fetish.

- santoast

May 10, 2010 at 6:43pm