Peretz Versus Walt

New Republic editor in chief Martin Peretz: "Stephen M. Walt, professor at the Kennedy School at Harvard University, had had a lackluster career until he (and John Mearsheimer) happened on the Jews." Lackluster, really?

He got a BA from Stanford, then an MA and a PhD from Berkeley. He taught at Princeton and the University of Chicago before coming to Harvard. His book on The Origins of Alliances won the 1988 Edgar S. Furniss National Security Book Award. He's the author of two other books -- Revolution and War and Taming American Power. He's on the editorial board of Security Studies, Foreign Policy, and International Relations and he's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. All this before he ever wrote "The Israel Lobby." It's a pretty successful career. Certainly, I think it stands up well to using your wife's money to buy a prestigious magazine and then wreck its finances and reputation, but maybe that's just me.

The crazy thing about recent Spine-blogging, from my point of view, is that the guy doesn't even own the magazine anymore.