Views and Reviews

I've been subscribing to this magazine for more than thirty years, so I must like it. THE NEW REPUBLIC is basically a weekly but is published only forty-four times a year. (The staff apparently gets eight weeks' vacation.) I'd say the TNR view is mainly somewhat left of center, although it sometimes has pieces that sound pretty conservative to me. Sometimes I violently disagree with one of their writers; then I write a letter. One such recent essay was "Delaware: The Worst State." A writer who was stuck in traffic on I-95 without air-conditioning on a hot day decided to vent his frustrations on little old Delaware by criticizing its highway tolls and lack of sales tax. Hey, any other state is free to do the same.

I read this magazine from cover to cover, skipping only the ads, which are few and unobtrusive.

For me, the best part of TNR is "the back of the book," as the editors call it: the movie, art, theater, and book reviews.

Almost every issue has something I really enjoy, although the current issue (September 9 & 16, 2002), devoted to the anniversary of 9/11, was hideously boring and annoying.

An excellent Magazine

I'm primarily a liberal person, but I love to read political magazines coming from all sides of the issue. The New Republic, though, is easily my favorite periodical. The political articles, the commentary on the arts, and the book reviews are always lucid and insightful. I'd say that overall, the magazine is 70% liberal and 30% conservative. In the words of respected political commentator Mickey Kaus, the magazine is "Left on welfare, right on warfare." This slogan oversimplifies things too much, since the magazine has featured numerous articles and editorials questioning past and present military endeavors. Nevertheless, it does display the fact that the magazine's agenda differs greatly from many other political periodicals. The magazine never follows the Democratic Party line verbatim, which seems to be what some liberal critics of the magazine want it to do. Unlike many other political periodicals, then, The New Republic appeals to a variety of liberals, moderates, and conservatives.

It is true that sometimes the articles seem high-brow, but this is no automatic reason to shun the magazine. After all, I think the same claim could be made against most political magazines. (Though, there are those magazines--such as Adbusters--that do everything possible to be anti-establishment. I think such magazines, however have very poor reporting standards).

In comparison to other moderate or liberal periodicals, this is what I think:

*It's more liberal than the Atlantic Monthly
*It's a little less liberal than the American Prospect
*It's moderate in comparison to The Nation

Generally a good liberal magazine

This is generally a well written liberal publication (much better than the NYT) but occasionally mired in pathological republican and Bush hatred.