I don’t find Marty Peretz all that interesting as a person: there are plenty of bigoted, ostensibly-educated-but-stupid old men in this world. For my money, Jim Fucking Lehrer describes him perfectly via a fictitious character:
[Perry] was a lightweight sociology professor of no special talent or accomplishment who owned and edited the magazine The New World because his wife was a shoe company heiress who bought it for him. He was a joke in all circles except those that believed money was important. Perry was an occasional dinner guest at the Hollowells’ solely because his magazine published a long think piece by Bill Hollowell once a month. …
But I find the Marty Peretz phenomenon — would be intellectuals and wise men sucking up to a wealthy dim-wit — fascinating, because it’s so poorly hidden, e.g. on his upcoming Harvard honor:
Peretz simply said, “The notion that after teaching 45 years at Harvard and people giving money in my honor that I have to defend myself—please.” Just as a point of reference, here are the people giving the money in his honor. I wonder if Al Gore, EJ Dionne and the rest think he should defend himself?
Now, university fund-raisers are unabashed whores, as they should be (the greatness of our university system is due in part to these people’s ability to extract money from the Daniel Plainviews of the world). So what Harvard is doing here doesn’t bother me, nor does it amuse me.
What does amuse me is all the would be courageous truth-tellers in the world of journalism who at best, will timidly take a whack at Peretz once someone more important has cast the first stone, and at worst continue to kiss his ass. It will be the same with David Bradley, the rich guy who bankrolls The Atlantic, if he ever goes around the bend. In for a pony, in for a pound.
None of this is much different than what goes on at CATO or the various other serious, Koch-funded enterprises.
Cat Lady
I’d pay Harvard good money to arrange for Daniel Plainview to take a whack at Marty Peretz.
George
I really appreciate a nominal liberal referring to Lehrer by his proper name.
Pamela F
It wasn’t until I realized that Peretz was editor-in-chief (of TNR) that I understood how he had a job. The man is vile.
morzer
Peretz runs an intellectual brothel with his wife’s money. Harvard runs an intellectual brothel with other people’s money. How these things do converge….
cleek
Peretz ? who ?
why should i waste my precious brain thinking about this Peretz character ?
DougJ
@cleek:
The right phrase is “my beautiful mind”, cleek.
david mizner
Not to mention all the journalists who take a paycheck from the bigot.
MikeJ
@George:
He’s stuff white people like, per yesterday’s thread.
Midnight Marauder
Yeah, I’m sure you did try “valiantly” not to allow this thing you have full control over to happen, Andrew.
There’s a name for this kind of behavior: coward. You’re a coward, plain and simple.
arguingwithsignposts
Sounds Friedmanesque to me.
Jewish Steel
I couldn’t wait to give that fucking Harold Ross what-for.
We’ll see who makes me spell cooperate with an umlaut!
Asshöle.
DougJ
@Jewish Steel:
Does the New Yorker fixation with umlauts date back to Ross himself?
Jewish Steel
@DougJ:
Dating, as it does, from the Nineteen Twenties (hee hee! another style joke!) I always reckoned that it was a holdover from early 20th century practice.
But that’s pure speculation.
redoubt
@arguingwithsignposts: Agreed with the similarities, and why Marty Peretz will always be known to me as “Stitchy.”
Kiril
Sully prefers his racism with a veneer of plausible deniability.
El Cid
Since when did hating Arabs and Muslims and thinking they’re inferior and deserving of un-Constitutional treatment or dispossession of lands or death become bigoted? You PC libruls.
dj spellchecka
sully’s craven defense of marty’s blindingly obvious racism is just one more point of evidence toward sully’s race problems…
Napoleon
I have always liked Lehrer and the fact he would take such an obvious swipe at MP like that makes me like him all the much more.
dj spellchecka
i liked this from the atlantic’s bradley, “Everyone has a gift…George Will can write 800 words on anything.”
accuracy optional, i guess….crank up that word count…perhaps that helps explain mcmegan..
Sentient Puddle
You’re going to apply that test to pretty much everyone now, aren’t you?
gex
I love how terribly wrong the right is vis-a-vis free speech and the market place of ideas. When they aren’t vocally complaining that people criticizing their points are violating their free speech, they are proclaiming that their public words and actions do not need to be defended.
The right’s debating tactics:
1) Make some preposterous statement that is either untrue, bigoted, ignorant or some combination thereof.
2) Complain if anyone disagrees.
3) If people continue to disagree, declare debate over because you are too superior to have to defend your ideas. Besides everyone knows the people who disagree are liberal/soshulist/atheist/gay/anti-American non-real-Americans anyhow.
Us piddly peons think that this circular self-aggrandizing money making machine built on inflammatory rhetoric is bad for the country. That it is the unquestioned way of things for the small group of people who will have undue influence on the corporate and governmental machinery of our country. Those elites demand to know who the fuck we think we are to even bring it up.
DonkeyKong
Sometimes I’ll catch my three dogs licking each others balls the way they do and I’ll shout at them “Stop it, this isnt The Atlantic!”
Maybe I should rename them Sully, Goldberg and Marty.
Ruckus
@gex:
Right to the heart of it.
SiubhanDuinne
Fucking awesome.