Martin Peretz: Lamont is Karl Rove's dream come true

In 1998, I had read The New Republic for 11 years, ever since discovering it my first semester in graduate school, but I cancelled my subscription that year upon hearing that editor-in-chief Martin Peretz had fired Managing Editor Michael Kelly. Kelly had struck me as a brilliant essayist; the word was he had angered Peretz for too many negative articles dealing with Peretz protege Al Gore. (Another angle on the story is enacted in the movie Shattered Glass.) Michael Kelly lost his life covering the Iraq liberation. Martin Peretz earned what I thought was my everlasting emnity.

But oh my, the boy can write.

His latest on the Connecticut Senate race is here.

Money quote:

The Lamont ascendancy, if that is what it is, means nothing other than that the left is trying, and in places succeeding, to take back the Democratic Party. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Maxine Waters have stumped for Mr. Lamont. As I say, we have been here before. Ned Lamont is Karl Rove's dream come true. If he, and others of his stripe, carry the day, the Democratic party will lose the future, and deservedly.