Monday, September 27, 2004

Puppet Profile: Peter Beinart

Beinart is Editor of THE NEW REPUBLIC, a magazine of modest interest and circulation but much establishment clout.

Son of a Harvard professor, stepson of NEW REPUBLIC theater critic Robert Brustein, Peter graduated Yale in 1993, became a Rhodes Scholar, graduated Oxford in 1995 then immediately went to work for TNR. In 1999 at age 27 he was named Editor of the mag. This mainstream pet has jumped through every hoop set up for him; has had the road greased every step of the way.

Yet despite the impressive credentials, and the time and expense that went into grooming him, Peter Beinart is a steadfast mediocrity as a thinker and writer-- merely a jingoistic mouthpiece for the System that created him-- a ventriloquist's puppet.

(Beinart can often be heard as a guest on radio talk shows, as some kind of "expert" I guess, sounding much like a hysterical girl.)

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