On Tue, 1 Sep 29, SA wrote:
> I just came back from the library, going through a lot of old
> National Review issues from their first few years under Ike. Man,
> their attitude - their whole tone - could not be more different from
> today's Nation. Their prose does not give off the slightest
> indication that the editors viewed the Eisenhower administration as
> representing them or their point of view. They made it clear the GOP
> was to be preferred, but they almost never actually praised or
> apologized for the incumbent regime. They constantly criticized -
> actually, the tone was less one of criticism than of gentle mockery
> and ridicule.
Interesting -- but are these comparable? Are you sure it's not the era that's the difference? Because my impression is that in our era, the National Review under Bush had pretty much exactly the same position as the Nation has under Obama. (I.e., defending it even when it betrayed central principles, identifying with it, and yet somehow simultaneously managing to see itself as a critical nudger and radical lantern holder.)
So I guess if were you, I'd be curious to at least take a look at the Nation under Truman and see what that tone was like.
It might be that most political intellectuals saw being apart as part of their identity back then. There's been quite a successful incorporation of house intellectuals by the white houses of both parties since then.
At any rate, if you're in the archive testing hypotheses ... :-)
Michael