Soothsaying raconteur Martin Peretz has a little story for you. Come children, gather ye rosebuds, for it is time to hear the sorry tale of Sidney Blumenthal, who is, at this very moment, maybe already on Hillary Clinton’s travel diplomacy team! You see, Blumenthal once worked for Peretz at the New Republic magazine, a “The Spine” avant la lettre, if you will. Despite knowing absolutely nothing about foreign policy (or literally anything) and overcoming his debilitating addiction to borrowing $3000 from Peretz and not paying him back, Blumenthal ascended the ranks of Peretz’s Arabic-language fiction quarterly!  Sacre Blume! MORE »

Ha ha ha, Graydon Carter’s defunct satirical monthly The New Republic has produced a comical slide show titled “Celebrities With Thoughts.” Apropos of Bono’s most recent instant-classic New York Times editorial — a poetic intellectual exercise, the thrilling denouement of which is: “Could it be that all Americans are, in that sense, African-Americans?” — TNR has aggregated some quasi-contextualized gems from the nation’s op-ed pages. Each and every one is absolutely required summer beach reading. [TNR's The Plank]

Michael Kinsley, the dignified journalist and dinner companion to David Denby, starts his review of the new Newsweek reboot with this: “Having recently been dumped by Time, I naturally had great hopes for this week’s much-anticipated makeover of Newsweek.” And 2,000 annoying words later — including a long bit about masturbating to a large photograph of the homophobic idiot Miss California — he closes with this: “Don’t forget to cancel your subscription to Time while you’re at it.” MORE »

The New Republic’s Gabriel Sherman has a lovely new story out about the dystopian hell chamber that is the Politico newsroom. The snarling, leprous leadership of Jim VandeHei and John Harris (a.k.a. “VandeHarris,” or simply, “AnusHair”) greets its intrepid blog reporters each morning at 5:30 a.m. with a hot shower of molten lava, followed by a threat to feed them to the rabid, one-eyed Beast of Ancient Times (held in an office storage pod in Manassas) if they do not get a Drudge link by 11 a.m. “SMITH, BEN SSSMITHHHH,” the death demon VandeHarris roars, spittle flying from its mouth, before slithering back to its dungeon for a breakfast of live rats, copper shavings, and ostrich blood. “YOU MUST WIN THE MORNING… A GUEST SLOT ON HARDBALL COMPELS YOU…” MORE »

It was only a matter of time before the The New Republic stopped being an inevitability in this little feature. Well, the time has come—just one week in! Let’s take a look what worthwhile things are afoot in these storied pages this week, for our new feature, Thursdays Are For Magazines. MORE »

Uhh: “On a recent reporting trip to Alaska, TNR senior editor Noam Scheiber came across a piece of paper from an old Wasilla city budget, on the back of which Palin doodled and brainstormed her potential mayoral campaign themes (’time for a change,’ ‘you would be my boss!’) and qualifications (’life-long alaskan,’ ‘NRA supporter,’ ‘taxpayer!’).” The PDF is kind of comical but mostly illegible. Still, good lord this woman makes it tough. It is the job of COMEDIANS to PRETEND that the dumb governor likes to doodle about her silly ambitions on the back of government-held paper. [The Plank, letter (PDF)]

Important news from the Wonkette Inbox(!): “Today on TNR.com, Dayo Olopade offers the definitive fact-check of Paris Hilton’s energy recommendations in her new ‘campaign’ video. While Hilton’s video is perhaps a humorous response to McCain’s recent ‘celebrity’ ad featuring her likeness, Olopade concludes that even Paris, alas, gets the facts wrong on offshore drilling.” While this seems like the perfect setup for a Rick Roll, or a blinking screen that says “No Shit,” Mr. Olopade did, in fact, write this article challenging Paris Hilton’s claims. What’s next? Jamie Kirchick’s imaginary response? UPDATE: Oh dear, someone e-mails to say that it is actually “Ms.” Olopade, which we strongly considered Googling to confirm, but now we’re just racist. [TNR]

Have you seen how many articles have been in the New York Times these past few months? Thousands, for Christ’s sake! What is wrong with the Times when they won’t explain the process behind each one? Fortunately we have the New Republic’s Gabriel Sherman, who first told us why the Times printed a story about John McCain and now explains how the newspaper made a political endorsement, of Hillary Clinton. Why isn’t the Times more transparent? Who cares? Gabriel Sherman can fill us in on all the secret editorial “decisions.” MORE »

Paultards are still up in arms trying to figure out who wrote the crazy, conspiratorial, racist screeds that were published in “The Ron Paul Report,” a newsletter that went out to God even knows who for almost 30 years. The New Republic posted the tirades last week, but it wasn’t the newsletters that hurt Paul as much as his total inability to not sound like a racially insensitive tool on CNN that destroyed his status as the presumptive GOP nominee for president and a shoe-in to the White House in November. Paultarded fingers nonetheless point to Dr. Congressman Paul’s former chief of staff, Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., as the likely (and definitely, totally only) racist in their midst. With a name like that, dude’s got to be a racist. [TNR] MORE »

Kids love Michael Crichton’s popular dinosaur stories, but they probably don’t know he’s a demented right-wing crank who stuffs his wooden-plotted thrillers with puerile attacks on his many, many enemies — mostly journalists who call him on his endless sociopathic bullshit.

The latest victim of Crichton’s typing-with-boxing-gloves characterization skill is New Republic writer Michael Crowley, who magically becomes a child rapist in the wonderful imagination of Michael Crichton. Details after the jump.

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New Republic senior editor Lee Siegel was suspended Friday for anonymously attacking people who left mean comments on his TNR blog. MORE »