A Further Thought on the Demise of the New Republic

Jack summed up well my feelings on yesterday's news about the New Republic, and I have only two things to add---one of them institutional and one of them personal. On the institutional side, as readers know, Lawfare has had a productive relationship with TNR for a while now, one in which TNR promoted Lawfare's content and in which we developed a joint feature, Security States. This relationship was almost entirely a creature of Frank Foer's enthusiasm for Lawfare, and the considerable history of our writers' working with TNR. Jack has long written book reviews for the magazine, and I used to write a column on law for Frank, who is a friend I have known and worked with for many years. I cannot imagine that the TNR-Lawfare partnership will survive Frank's departure from TNR, and given the issues that led to it, I also can't imagine that it should. On the personal side, I want to say a brief word about Leon Wieseltier, the magazine's long-time literary editor who yesterday quit along with Frank. Jack has rightly noted his truly uncommon role as an editor over a long period of time. Less important to the world, surely, but of perhaps greater salience to me, I think it is safe to say that there is no person who played a bigger role than Leon in shaping my professional direction and ambitions. I met Leon when I was a college student at Oberlin College and he came to give a speech there. I was a regular reader of the magazine and a fan of his work. So I was part of a small group of students who were set up to have lunch with him. The combination of that lunch and the speech he gave made a huge impression on me. I was, at the time, confused about my future direction. I was a bit confused politically---disgusted by the politics of the left, yet unattracted to conservatism. I was also confused professionally. I wanted to be involved in the world of ideas, politics, and policy, but I had no interest in going to graduate school. My professors had no advice for people like me. Leon's visit that day, by contrast, gave shape in so many ways to strains of thought with which I was struggling. For several years, I wanted nothing more professionally than to work at TNR. That never happened, and I went on to have other mentors---and Leon other starstruck fan boys. But if there is a single day that changed my life and shaped a huge amount of what I came to want and to do, it was that day with Leon---in his capacity as literary editor of TNR---for which I owe him a great debt. UPDATE: Lawfare has terminated its relationship with the New Republic.