TNR has always had more influence than its small (and shrinking) subscription base would suggest.
As I was reading Roger Simon's bit on the subject of TNR's most recent suicidal hijinks with Beauchamp, the answer came to me to the question "Why does anyone care at all about TNR?" After all, TNR has fewer subscribers than Maggie's Farm has visitors in one month - and we are tiny.
We care not only because TNR was once a serious, thoughful magazine which many respected even if disagreeing (up through Andrew Sullivan's excellent editorship), but the main reason we care is because many of us policy and politics junkies relied on TNR in our foolish and liberal youths. We eagerly awaited its arrival in the mail. We have a sentimental attachment to the old rag. She always made us think, and she was always literate - more so than any blog I know. Way beyond what Timesweek was.
However, even my considerable sentimentality has its limits. TNR has passed them at this point.
I feel the same way about the NYT which I cancelled in disgust two years ago: I like the Book Review; I like their Arts pages; I like their Food stuff; I like their Theater stuff and and Car stuff and the Science section, etc - but their corrupting political partisanship and their PC obsession spoils all of the good stuff for me. Dang - I guess I could say the same thing about The New Yorker too since Tina Brown destroyed it for me.
Sad, sad, and sad. Past loves, all undone by a grandiosity that made them want to change the world in their own image, instead of being satisfied with the highly worthy and noble goal of illuminating it.
