>Cheers to Katha Pollitt for resigning her editorial post at the Nation
>(she will remain a columnist) in protest against the magazine publishing
>a signed editorial by a rightwing entrepreneur by the name of Unz. Unz
>wrote about public schools and while he is opposed to vouchers, he says
>many ridiculous things about schools. Pollitt correctly points out that
>the Nation has given this dog a liberal credibility utterly undeserving.
I too cheer Katha Pollitt for taking a principled stand. It's seems to me very courageous to resign a post from one of the few lefty mags that can actually pay a livable wage. But I do have a couple of problems with her decision, at least as it has been presented in the two places I have read of it. It's possible, even probable, that I don't know all the facts, but I do have some initial, admittedly knee-jerk, responses:
1) Why keep the columnist job? If it's a statement of principles she is making, retaining the weekly (bi-weekly?) writing gig cheapens that statement. My first reaction is to think that she doesn't feel very strongly about her reasons for quitting. It also make her seem afraid of losing her weekly check (which is a fear I, and probably everyone on this list, can understand). Resigning the ed post but keeping the column seems like, say, a totalitarian leader resigning his post as president but staying on as dictator.*
2) I don't know this guy Unz, and I am sure he is a crackpot, but doesn't quitting based solely on the fact that the Nation printed something you don't agree with seem a little, well, intolerant? Can't Pollitt use her column to rebut this unsavory character? The Nation has been drifting toward the middle of the road for years now; isn't this trend, as opposed to this one instance, a much greater cause for protest?
Even more problematic is the notion that "the Nation has given this dog a liberal credibility utterly undeserving." This reasoning blew all the circuits on my bullshit detector. So it's not really about beliefs at all, only fleeting, superficial concepts like "authenticity" and "credibility." Pollitt is a smart person and an insightful writer; as I've said, she could, in a few words, dispense with this businessman. (Btw, could this be the heart of her problem: That The Nation would give space to a businessman?) It make no sense, and is so very typical of 90s leftists, to turn a political matter into a lifestyle one.
Again, I don't know all the facts, and I could probably be convinced that I am wrong on some of these points, but these are my initial thoughts.
Eric Beck
*In no way do I mean to equate Pollitt with a dictator; it's just the handiest analogy available on this early morning.