Beinart/Goldberg
A lot of lefties don’t like Peter Beinart. And they have good reason. As editor of TNR, he was not only one of the most prominent supporters of the Iraq war, but he notoriously compared war opponents to soft on Stalin leftists like Henry Wallace. His book, The Good Fight, was the clearest evocation of why liberals should buy into the war on terror framework, even if it had an apology for his support for the Iraq war.
Since then, he’s done a very good job of taking account of why he went wrong in supporting the Iraq war and has correspondingly decisively broken with the neoconservatives moved his foreign policy coordinates well to the left. Interestingly enough, for such a smart, intellectually honest person, he’s apparently good friends with Jonah Goldberg. And, occasionally, he does diavlogs with him. And while I usually like bloggingheads where they have two smart, informed people who disagree with each other, the Beinart/Goldberg diavlogs are amazing for just how much more informed with the actual content of history, current affairs and ideas. For instance, look at Beinart take apart Goldberg’s complaints about the Obama speech or his making the very basic point that “black people are much more aware of America’s racial history” and that white people experience a lot of “ignorance and denial” — much to Goldberg’s shock. It’s all very good stuff, and it makes me feel good that Beinart is on my side.
