Another One Bites the Dust
As Bill Clinton was squashing most of the media's hopes for a Clintonista uprising against Barack Obama last night, Charles Kaiser, the veteran reporter and scourge of bad faith in journalism, was up in Newsweek squashing a perverse Clinton dead-ender, the increasingly and pathetically power-hungry Princeton professor Sean Wilentz.
As late as this week, Wilentz was still damning Obama with faint praise in a column - also in Newsweek -- that reeked of the empty ressentiment of someone thwarted in a desperate bid to become Hillary Clinton's presidential historian.
Pretending to worry anxiously about whether Obama is ready to lead, Wilentz signaled Newsweek readers that Obama isn't -- just as Bill Clinton was preparing to assure the country that he is. Kaiser deftly shows how many times and ways Wilentz tries to insinuate this, and he knocks him out of the park.
I'd thought that Wilentz had already disgraced himself in February by insisting, at diarrheatic length in The New Republic, that it was Obama who was playing the race card against the Clintons, not that Clinton surrogates were doing it against Obama. It was as if Wilentz figured that to become a presidential administration's Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., you have to become a presidential hit man first.
His slimy New Republic piece was demolished here and elsewhere - a suitable occasion, I'd have thought, for Wilentz to ponder Allan Bloom's caution that professors who strain to become counselors to the powerful risk ending up in the power of those they intended to influence.
But for Wilentz, it wasn't enough to lose his credibility as an historian that way; he seems to have some characterological need to prove himself a loyalist, not a scholarly thinker.
Politics needs both, of course. But Wilentz hubristically assumed he could be both all by himself.
At least what Schlesinger lost in gravitas for becoming an assiduous apologist for John F. Kennedy, he made up in ebullience and bravado, not to mention occasional brilliance. Wilentz is more weasily and posturing, his work "respected" most by media types looking for someone to fill the Schlesinger slot. Wilentz has worked a bit too hard to convince them he fills that bill.
For years, Wilentz worked tirelessly to make himself an avuncular arbiter of what was and was not appropriate for progressive young writers to say on any given issue at any given time. His modus was not so much to take a position and develop it as to look over his shoulder in three or four directions before positioning himself for the moment.
He became a smooth schemer and intriguer. Even now, he's trying to buff up his tarnished liberal credentials with a cover story in the September Rolling Stone, "How Bush Destroyed the Republican Party." Reading it, you wouldn't guess how hard Wilentz has tried to hurt Obama's chances of defeating Republicans, even since Obama won the primaries -- as if his losing the general election would somehow vindicate Wilentz's anti-Obama screeds of earlier this year.
Now, though, thanks to Bill Clinton and Charles Kaiser, Wilentz resembles the Japanese soldier found on a desert island in 1946 still fighting what he thinks is an unfinished World War. Wilentz lives in Princeton, not an island, however, and since the rest of Princeton's Clinton-Administration-in waiting has accepted reality, it's time he did, too. So thanks, indeed, to Kaiser for ushering him off history's stage for awhile. Editors and producers might take note and give him a rest.
Footnote on another schemer: Moments after Bill Clinton said last night that the world admires "the power of our example more than the example of our power," virtually the first words out of David Brooks' mouth in the PBS skybox were, "I'm not sure that Vladimir Putin admires our example." Brooks' reflexive neo-con emphasis on the world's darkness and cruelty as an excuse not to worry about the power of our example, was precisely what I attributed to him in my post of just yesterday. That makes it fun to read again now.
Isn't it time Brooks and other harnessed neo-cons read The God That Failed? Instead, he did something else ridiculously neo-connish last night: He announced that Biden's terrific performance makes it imperative that McCain make Joe Lieberman his running mate. I'd love to see Biden flatten Lieberman in a debate or two, as Kaiser flattened Wilentz.
Wilentz is one of those guys who thinks he can't be a racist because he owns a stack of Bessie Smith records. But his racism just drips.
August 28, 2008 7:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look who's talking.
August 28, 2008 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bev D is a troll. No politics. Just a PUMA loony. And she wouldn't have marched in Selma (to put it mildly).
August 28, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
You haven't a clue. She's a former Edwards supporter with a son that just got back from Iraq, and is far more well read than most people participating on this site. (She actually seems to have read most TPM Book Club selections before they are even posted on and I have seen her summarize them well for the rest of us.) Speaking of trolls, she knows how to spot trollish blog posts, that's one skill I would give her.
August 28, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jim and M.J., didn't you guys get the unity memo? You've chosen an odd time to go in for this kind of score-settling.
August 28, 2008 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Heh. The Democratic "unity memo"... to be followed next week by the Republican "compassion pledge".
On the veep-stakes, Mitt Romney is now a strong favorite with the bookmakers, but seems to me that Biden v Romney is a pretty good match-up for the Dems.
August 28, 2008 8:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dan K, obviously Sean Wilentz didn't get the Unity memo, and it's he and some others who've kept on sniping and worse in ways that prompted my post.
That said, you're right that, after the Clintons' speeches this week, we ought to give the dead-enders a few more days to lick their wounds. The rub is that things are so tight now that Democrats don't have enough margin for error to look very charitably on Wilentz's warped Newsweek missive to the multitudes.
Even though I came to detest the Clintons during the primaries, I understand and respect many people who fought for them right up through her concession speech and even a little beyond. But when anyone is as duplicitous in the service of thwarted personal ambition as Wilentz has done, that's not "the good fight," especially at a time like this, with the general election campaign upon us.
August 28, 2008 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, I don't get what's been up with Wilentz, either.
August 28, 2008 10:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
How long are you going to keep this personal grudge against Wilentz going - all this over a rejected book review from how many years ago?
If you really have to be this vituperative, you might want to control your propensity to steal others' thoughts, especially if those others' thoughts come from "The National Review" article of May 22, 2006 entitled "Sean Wilentz is the Modern Arthur Schlesinger". The other comparison you lifted "Sean Wilentz 'is a Japanese soldier found on a desert island in 1946' " was in the Washington Post just a few days ago, as being bandied about by Obama supporters at the convention as a barb at Clinton supporters.
Jacob Heilbrunn summed up your own motivation the best, "Jim Sleeper, a former traveler of the neoconservative movement who bashed away at affirmative action and political correctness has now reinvented himself as a man of the left bashing away at moderates such as...Sam Tannenhaus for allegedly being neocons."
At least Wilentz has the courage of his convictions and doesn't as Jacob Heilbrunn said of some, "can change them as easily as they change clothes".
August 28, 2008 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bev, your comment was quite interesting to me as I saw it related to some things I had just read:
Coates: The Problem with Traditional Media
and Yglesias
on the same.
I am thinking that this kind of personal sniping is one of the things that the blogosphere has brought to the job of punditry. Think about it: old school punditry was not Safire writing that Krugman is full of shit or Dowd sniping at George Will. They played any infighting behind the scenes. Now, since the days of Kos "smacking down" Istapundit and vice versa, it's all about pundit v. pundit, if you want to be considered "modern" and "understanding the new media." It came to me after reading comments on those threads, that it is now considered a higher form of "communication" to continually get personal, to discuss issues on a personal one-on-one basis, to see individuals as the same as ideologies were once seen: if you don't attack other pundits in public, you apparently don't get it. :-)
August 28, 2008 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
trying my second link a second time.
August 28, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is overkill and whenever you see it, you know it's personal.
August 28, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
And, much as I loathe the personal side of the blog trend, I like it that pundits now are able to get feedback from people like you. I would think if I was such a writer, I would appreciate hearing how my writing sounded to someone like you, and I might consider adjusting my writing so it didn't sound that way. So, like, real communication might occur? Of course, that's if the point was not a personal attack. If the point was a personal attack, well, mission accomplished, then, eh?
August 28, 2008 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well thanks, Artappraiser. I remember when Sleeper was for the Iraq war...before he found out how unpopular it was. At least Wilentz never has to apologize for being a neocon.
August 28, 2008 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jim,
I find myself really looking forward to and relishing your columns.
Your key virtue is the refusal to 'explain' too much by summing up or dumbing it down.
Ooh. Given Lieberman's 'grandpa' performance against Cheney, I can only hope Joe slaps Judas Leiberman around like a cat with a cornered mouse.
August 28, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wilentz told lies about Nader during past elections. Any who took note then are less surprised at his more recent antics.
August 28, 2008 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Too bad Sean Wilentz couldn't settle for being the modern Sean Wilentz. "Chants Democratic" was a great book.
August 28, 2008 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
BevD is the only sniper here; I've never, ever, seen her do anything else.
As usual, most of what she says is false, and, always, it is fed by some old grudge she won't explain. She won't identify herself. She won't tell us where she's coming from. I have a name and identity. She does not. Since we want this to be a democracy, where people stand up and speak for themselves without fear or favor, I suggest that Bev come clean.
Wilentz never rejected a book review of mine, and I have never seen the National Review article to which Bev refers, nor have I stolen or borrowed anything from anyone without citation. Everything I write comes to me originally, unless I identify a source; if others have come up with similar ideas, that's a sign of the times.
Jacob Heilbrunn was exposed as a serious plagiarist in his latest book, and his comment about me was discredited by my response in World Affairs Review. Bev, if you're going to hide both yourself and half of the truth while accusing others falsely of cheating, you're going to wind up like Sean Wilentz. Stand up for yourself, or go somewhere else.
August 28, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here, for the benefit of the woman without a name and anyone else who might be interested, are the links to
1) Corey Robin's expose of Jacob Heilbrunn's plagiarism: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080623/robin
and
2) My response to a passing swipe that Heilbrunn took at me in an article which the woman without a name excerpts above:
http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:y-B0zJAdJawJ:www.worldaffairsjournal.org/Letters%2520to%2520the%2520Editor/indexLetters.html+%22jim+sleeper%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&ie=UTF-8
Every time you open your mouth, BevD, you do yourself and your friends more damage than I'm sure any of you deserve. Try a different approach.
August 28, 2008 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm...I see. Heilbrunn is a plagiarist so it's okay for you to be one too. "I know you are but what am I" is more of a Peewee Herman retort than a defense for plagiarism. That doesn't however, make Heilbrunn wrong in his assessment of you, from one plagiarist to another, he seems to have you pegged.
August 28, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're sick BevD, get help
August 28, 2008 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
"squashing ... uprising.... squashing a perverse ... dead-ender, ... increasingly and pathetically power-hungry Princeton professor Sean Wilentz. Wilentz ... damning ...reeked of the empty ressentiment ...thwarted ... desperate bid to become Hillary Clinton's presidential historian. Pretending....anxiously insinuate ...knocks him out . Wilentz ... disgraced himself ... at diarrheatic length... surrogates ... a presidential hit man first. Slimy .... demolished ... caution .... strain .... powerful... risk. Wilentz... to lose his credibility ... some characterological need ... not a scholarly thinker.
Wilentz hubristically ....
...lost in gravitas ... an assiduous apologist Wilentz is ... weasily and posturing, his work "respected" ...Wilentz worked tirelessly ... avuncular arbiter ...to say on any given issue at any given time. ...look over his shoulder in three or four directions before positioning himself. .... smooth schemer and intriguer. .... tarnished liberal credentials ...how hard Wilentz has tried to hurt ... chances of defeating Republicans, .... Wilentz resembles the Japanese soldier found on a desert island in 1946 still fighting what he thinks is an unfinished World War...." And that's it, I'm not going to finish parsing this endless, dreary nonsense.
What amazingly elevated and violent language to describe a spat that in real terms, amounts to too eunuchs having a hissy fit in a wading pool.
No offense to Mr. Sleeper... well, he can be offended if he wants, but... how appallingly trivial.
Is this what the American Progressive dialogue comes down to? Infantile tirades of petty invective, gutless personal sniping, gossipy polemics more properly found in the girls bathroom of junior high school?
Honestly, if I had to pick one representative sample to show how progressives became isolated and irrelevant, how liberalism became so utterly impotent, such a universal target of scorn and contempt, this would be it.
We can do so much better.
So why don't we?
August 29, 2008 1:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nice to read you again, Valdron. You've been away a while.
August 29, 2008 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, the way we do better, Valdron, is to lift people's sights by showing them a better example, as I do in many of my posts -- not by becoming, like you and BevD, "eunuchs having a hissy fit in a wading pool" or by offering so obsessively, as you always do, in post after post, "gutless personal sniping" and "gossipy polemics more properly found in the girls bathroom of junior high school." You can stop hiding in the girls' room, identify yourself as a real grownup with a name and a purpose, and give us an example of what to affirm instead of what to cut down. But I guess that if you could do that, you would have done it somewhere by now. Instead you will respond with more invective, because you're helpless to do otherwise, as you will now demonstrate.
August 29, 2008 8:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I believe DGValdron's name is D. G. Valdron, so he doesn't appear to be hiding anything.
I like your posts, Jim, when they deal with your concerns about civic republicanism, race relations and other serious national issues. I don't always agree with you, but these are important discussions, and I respect your contributions.
But I have to agree that there are a bit too many posts that just seem concerned with long-running personal spats and literary wars of words between you and other individual writers in the greater NYC area. It's some kind of Manhattan querelle des hebdomadaires, that might nominally be about politics, but is more often taken up with clever exchanges of insults and bitter personal take-downs. Don't you think this can be a bit self-indulgent?
August 29, 2008 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't have a grudge against you, I have a grudge against people like you who use public forums to play out personal vendettas against other democrats. Now you started this with your Feb. 27, 2008 blog entry where you whined about Wilentz committing some grave sin against you which you conveniently edited out because you knew it was petty and revealing of your motives. You then called for a movement where people would surround Wilentz on his campus and scream and shout at him at which time several people pointed out to you the sheer stupidity and pitchfork mentality of inciting crowds to verbal violence, which often turns physically violent.
This is exactly, and I mean EXACTLY the kind of tactic used daily by David Horowitz, Karl Rove, Daniel Pipes and the rest of their cohort - they personally attack the character of their enemies and then manipulate others to ruin their enemies' reputations and livelihoods to settle some old score no one else knows or cares about.
John Updike laid down the rules for review more than thirty years ago - "Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in an ideological battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never (John Aldridge and Norman Podheretz) try to put the author 'in his place" making him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation."
Now you spent a good part of your career castigating liberals, affirmative action, "black charlatans" supporting neoconservative causes and the war - if you don't want to be reminded of this, if you don't want your entire career to be about your support of the war and neoconservatism, then don't use this valuable real estate to ruin the reputation of a decent man, a good historian and a loyal democrat - that he doesn't "cut his conscience to fit the current fashion" is to his credit, not his detriment - at the very least he has the courage of his convictions and the right to question any candidate about his. Only a fool sails on a ship that hasn't been inspected.
August 29, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
But not in this one? Is that your defense Jim? That this post is atypical. Sadly it's all too typical of the watery sludge that passes itself off as your writing. Or do you think that this post is 'showing a better example'? Sorry.
Like you do Jim, with your endless infantile polemics, your hamfisted grasp of issues, your writing on race that seems to me to smell of thinly veiled racism? Spare me.
Here are the rules Jim, and these are the rules that matter: You step up to the plate, you take your lumps. You don't whine endlessly.
Oh, I'm wounded. Obviously, only a chicken has a right to have an opinion about an egg. I'm not from New York, I'm not part of Jim's incestuous little social circle of nepotism and self aborption, so I obviously don't know anything about anything.
I might, hypothetically, be a lawyer who has spent twenty years working in the field of social justice waging battles successfully against billion dollar corporations. I might have been involved in all sorts of development projects. I might hypothetically have been a journalist. I might possibly have taken one of my degrees in political science. For a wild hypothetical, I might actually be someone from outside the conventional wisdom with a grasp of human nature, a working knowledge of history, an unbiased but jaundiced perspective and an acute interest in ongoing world affairs.... but none of that would matter, would it. I wouldn't be part of the 'Jim Sleeper Set' or whatever it is that you call the social network of which you are a part.
And as for the mighty Jim Sleeper, tireless crusader for something or other, devoted defender of his personal snits... well, I salute you, Mighty Jim.
Of course, let's be honest with each other. The reason you're addressing me to defend your work, is that you know your work is indefensible. If it really could stand up on its own two feet, if it had any merits, you wouldn't need to defend it. It would be solid, regardless of criticism.
If it had any intrinsic merit, you wouldn't have felt the need to go after me personally, would you? And you know it. Your response, such as it is, is dictated by the shortcomings, grotesque as they are, of your work.
Y'know Jim, reading TPMCafe, I'm often disturbed by the timid mediocrity and utterly conventional wisdom that passes for 'Liberalism' here. It seems to me that there's an obligation on people here to think crisply and clearly, to marshal facts rather than wishes, to engage in analysis and debate. Some of that happens, particularly among the readers. Seldom among the headliners - all too often, elite thinkers demonstrating their barreness.
But you're in a class by yourself, Jim. As near as I can tell, you have nothing to say. But you insist on wasting all our time.
This is how a smackdown is done, Jim. Hope you paid attention.
September 8, 2008 9:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, folks, I won't be reading any more comments like these. I've been too busy "castigating liberals" like David Brooks. BevD and Valdron, who still has no identity, are ciphers whose only purchase on life is their bitterness.
Dan K, I've read a number of your interventions, and while some have been useful, many, like this one,are just too prissy to be of any value.
This country is heading into the most fateful election I've known (including 1968 and 1980), and both Sean Wilentz and David Brooks, with their different intentions and methods, are on the wrong side of it. That's why I've assailed and exposed them. Both columns have generated too much useful response (from historians, in Wilentz's case, as well as in the rest of the media; so far, Wilentz hasn't a defender) to leave me time for impotent kibbitzers whose posts don't expose anything serious or advance anything good. So carry on down here in the ether to your hearts' content, or find some better venue to say something more constructive.
August 29, 2008 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink