ANNALS OF LEFTIST AUTOPHAGY: Why isn’t Andrew Sullivan allowed to write his column?
Cockburn understands that Sullivan is not just forbidden from writing for the New York magazine about the riots; his contract means he cannot write on the topic for another publication. He is therefore legally unable to write anything about the protests without losing his job — at the magazine that, in 1970, published Radical Chic, Tom Wolfe’s brilliant and controversial excoriation of progressive piety. It’s the bonfire of the liberals!
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Sullivan’s card has been marked, partly because — many years ago — he edited the New Republic and dedicated an issue to a debate about The Bell Curve, the controversial book by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray on IQ. At magazines such as the Atlantic, where Sullivan did some of his best work as a journalist and pioneering blogger, this now makes him persona non grata.
Read the whole thing, but…the Atlantic? As Jim Treacher tweeted on Thursday to Sullivan:
Sullivan’s 2008 stint at the Atlantic caused serious damage to the magazine’s reputation, cemented by the hiring and then immediate shameful firing of Kevin Williamson by editor Jeffrey Goldberg in 2018. (The cause of which was a sneak preview of the New York Times’ meltdown earlier this week caused by its crybully young staffers.)