The Nation magazine is among the publications that rode the Iraq War to a bigger audience and it's more than fitting that the magazine which long, long ago walked away from the Iraq War has hit another circulation low. Katrina vanden Heuvel was wrongly credited with steering the publication to new heights but she's earned every bit of the scorn for the never-ending circulation plunge.
This past week (a week in which Mike 'awarded' it "Idiot of the week"), for example, the paper obsessed over Glenn Beck. One article wasn't even needed but would have been more than sufficient. But the magazine's never about what's needed.
Which is how you get garbage and fluff repeatedly. Boneheaded Leslie Savan being yet another example. Who the hell thought her simplistic prose was needed or that anyone was needed to write an article about Barack Obama's religion? When you count all the aetheists writing for The Nation -- a large number -- you really have to laugh. When you realize the war they've conducted on Christianity, you realize that karma -- like Katha Pollitt -- is a bitch and there's something strangely amusing about the magazine that can never stop attacking Christianity having to push that Barack is a Christian and that that's a good thing.
Having decided to write on the topic, the magazine was pretty much committed to doing so correctly. Again, however, there really aren't any Christians at The Nation. (There are several Jews and, again, a lot of non-believers.) So the article comes across as uninformed as Katrina herself writing about hard work and earning your own way.
Savan, whose mental facilities are as blunt as her features, has a fit about statements that Franklin Graham -- or as she prefers to mock him, "Rev" -- made. Graham may be many things but one thing he does know a bit about -- and a lot more about than Leslie Savan -- is Christiainity. Which is why Graham grasps -- and Savan doesn't -- that no one here on this earth can peer into your soul. Christianity operates on many beliefs and one of them is that God -- and only God -- can judge and only God can determine whether you have accepted Christ as your savior or not.
So when Savan's attacking Hillary for saying that "as far as I know," Barack's a Christian, or Graham or Mitch McConnell for doing the same, all she's really doing is explaining that a New Yorker thought they knew everything and didn't need to research or study before weighing in. One, of course, is instantly reminded of the other infamous time Savan decided to 'weigh in' on religion -- when she attacked Ralph Lauren for not being, in her mind, sufficiently Jewish and, yes, accused of him trafficking in Nazism. Maybe religion's really not a topic Slavan should handle?
Sarah Palin's not an issue the magazine should handle. For example, in their "MORE SUBSCRIPTION OPTIONS," you can encounter the magazine utilizing homophobia long after so many have moved beyond it. Check out their "Subscribe today" blurb and gasp. Then remember that this is the publication that could not and would not call Barack out for using homophobia in the primaries and in the general election. But then, what did Chris Hayes insist? That's right, he gave a long laundry list of crimes (all of which Barack's continued) to explain why they wouldn't hold Barack's feet to the fire or, for that matter, call out the homophobic Jeremiah Wright.
Homophobia drips off Dave Zirin and for good reason but what stands out the most about the 'sports' columnist is the fact that the Socialist is perfectly happy to sell out his own beliefs to support Democrats but wants everyone else to practice some form of safe-politics or, so very Nancy Reagan of him, just say no. One screed after another finds Zirin telling people what not to do. Last week's target was Albert Pujols.
Last week also found Tom Hayden avoiding Iraq still and digging through the s**t pile to once again go after the criminal -- but out of office -- Bully Boy Bush. More wiretapping of American citizens may have taken place, Tom huffs, and it was done on gang leaders of "the most violent gang in the US and Central America". How stupid is Tom Hayden?
We knew he was stupid, we just didn't realize he was that stupid. The magazine that couldn't and wouldn't defend Lynne Stewart (don't bring up that years and years old weak-ass column by the Georgetown professor) now wants to let Tom off his leash to run crazy. Are we on the left trying to argue that Bush did the right thing? If not, why are you wasting people's time with this article, Tom?
Seriously, do you think the average American will read your article and be offended for the gang members? Really?
Reality, just like the TV show 24, Tom Hayden is marketing illegal spying on American citizens. They have no concept of how they play out across the nation -- in fact, has a magazine so provincial ever had such a pretentious name?
Reality is also that Greg Mitchell is a rabid, sexist idiot. He was that when he was claiming to be 'objective' back in his Editor & Publisher days. He was that at his blog where, when confronted with a factual error, he altered his post but refused to issue a correction or note that he had altered it. Reality is that Greg Mitchell is a dumb f**k.
He gets off his walker long enough to hike his leg and piss on Sarah Palin. That's the really the only function his penis probably has left -- urination -- and prostate issues most likely make even that difficult.
Greggers wants you to know that the mistake John McCain made was in picking Palin and not some moderate or 'moderate' Republican. Yes, boys and girls, radicals (Greg's not a Democrat, he's further to the left than that) really can be that stupid.
Any honest evaluation of the campaign notes that Sarah Palin prevented loss of votes. The right didn't like McCain. The left made him out to be ultra conservative and you could read in The Nation, for example, about the homophobic man supporting his campaign (silent on Barack's homophobes invited to official campaign events and invited on stage to speak at them, but offended by some pastor endorsing McCain) and you could read 101 attacks on McCain but none of it was reality. John McCain's a Republican who is not conservative enough for the Republican Party. Sarah Palin shored up the ticket and McCain might have been Michael Dukakis in 1988 were it not for Palin on the ticket.
That's what the liars of the left like Greg Mitchell still can't get honest about. He's repeating the attack they launched after Palin was namded as the running mate. If you remember, the 'problem' -- even then -- was Palin.
The problem was Palin?
Really? Greg Mitchell was on the fence about voting for John McCain?
No, he wasn't.
The Republican ticket needs to appeal to Republicans. The left tilted the playing field -- and remember Greg was playing 'objective' back then and still controlling what Editor & Publisher published and what it didn't -- to make Sarah Palin an outrageous choice. But she wasn't one if you were a Republican. (Though she couldn't get honest in public, Katha Pollitt praised Sarah Palin's convention speech -- where else -- on Journolist.)
The 'article' is nothing but an excerpt from Greg's bad, boring and non-selling 2009 book about how groovy Barack is. Greg's taken one too many bong hits over the years and it's really starting to show up in his bad writing.
But worse than that is what it reveals about The Nation? It's nothing but a vanity press at this point. It's a circle-jerk. It's everything but a political magazine. It advances no new ideas at all. It exists solely to react to what Republicans are doing and have done. And it is the reason that the left is in such a sorry state today.