Euston in America

Jeffrey Herf on the Open University blog announces the launch of NewAmericanLiberalism.org, a rather crudely HTMLed offshoot of the Euston Manifesto project designed, as Herf puts it, to call for "a 'new political alignment' among those ranging from the democratic left to 'egalitarian liberals.'"

In addition to the co-authors, the now 178 signers include many people who are closely associated with The New Republic, notably Martin Peretz and Leon Wieseltier, past and recent contributors such as Daniel Bell, David Bell, Walter Laqueur, Daniel Goldhagen, Robert Leiken, Benny Morris, and Ronald Radosh, and a host of other very distinguished scholars, intellectuals, and policy analysts too long to be included here but readily available on the websites. The full list of signers is at the website.

An awful lot of these people seem to me to just be rightwingers, a stratnge starting point for a reconstruction of American liberalism.