Too Hot, Indeed

I've known for a couple of days, but now I suppose it's public that Spencer Ackerman's gone from The New Republic: "The ostensible reason for my release concerns my relationship with Franklin Foer and the magazine's other editors. However, the irreconcilable ideological differences between myself and the top editors at the magazine have been clear to me for months now, and clear to them as well." So read Spencer's blog and look for his articles soon to be forthcoming in various other publications -- he's got a big story in the about-to-be-published issue of The American Prospect, among other things. And, yes, this means that I now live in a house of four people none of whom have jobs, per se.

I probably shouldn't say any more about the particulars of this situation, but in an unrelated development Martin Peretz is mocking The Boston Globe for dully repeating itself ad nauseum that it would be good policy for the United States to make a strong push for Israeli-Arab reconciliation. And, yes, one does become bored hearing this and, indeed, bored saying it. Nevertheless, it sort of needs to be repeated endlessly in circumstances where the political agenda is controlled by people like Peretz.