NYTBR‘s Political Spin Surprises Its Biggest Critic

Back in November, I wrote about Jim Sleeper‘s critique of the NYT Book Review, which he then regarded as “a neoconservative damage-control gazette.” So what did Sleeper think of yesterday’s special all-political issue of the Review? “Some of this week’s reviews could use more a bit more of the bite and panache we sometimes got from the war hawks,” he writes for Talking Points Memo, “but most of the reviews are richer and more rewarding for their being less sardonic and melodramatic.”

Sleeper also notes that none of the “pumped-up assailants of liberals” whose reviews provoked his original criticisms turned up in the issue, including several names (Leon Wieseltier, Joe Klein, Richard Brookhiser) one would ordinarily think of as givens for this kind of theme party.

(Clarification: One reader thought the above passage gave the wrong impression of Sleeper’s reaction to the issue, making it seem like he’d changed his mind about the Review—the point, however, is that the editors seems to have subtly shifted the section’s political balance, perhaps in response to Sleeper’s extensive critique.)

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