By 1975, Peretz was agitated by having his own articles rejected for publication, pointing out that he had been pouring more and more money into the magazine to cover its losses, and he fired Harrison.
In the 1980 presidential election, the magazine endorsed the liberal Republican John B. Anderson, running as an independent, rather than the Democratic incumbent, Jimmy Carter.
[5] During Peretz's stewardship of The New Republic, the magazine generally maintained liberal and neoliberal positions on economic and social issues while assuming correspondingly pro-Israel and neoconservative hawkish stances on foreign affairs.
By turning TNR into a kind of ideological police dog, Peretz enjoyed... [playing] a key role in defining the borders of 'responsible' liberal discourse, thereby tarring anyone who disagreed as irresponsible or untrustworthy.
"[8] During his tenure as owner of The New Republic, Peretz repeatedly used the magazine's editorial pages to attack and marginalize people he perceived as enemies of Israel, among them even many mainstream Israeli politicians and activists.
Kelly told The Washington Post that his "firing-by-phone came days after he refused to publish an unsigned item by Peretz saying that recent allegations of improper fund-raising by Gore were overblown and old news."
In an interview with The New York Times, Kelly said: "As long as Marty Peretz has the involvement with Al Gore and with the magazine to the degree that he does, I think the job is structurally impossible.
[14] Peretz later expressed disappointment with Obama, telling The New York Times Magazine: "I'm not sure I feel betrayed, but it's close... our first African-American president has done less to fight AIDS in Africa than George Bush.
[1] In December 2014, journalist Robert Parry wrote, "Though The New Republic still touts its reputation as 'liberal', that label has been essentially a cover for its real agenda: pushing a hawkish foreign policy agenda that included the Reagan administration's slaughter of Central Americans in the 1980s, violent U.S. interventions in Iraq, Syria and other Muslim countries for the past two decades, and Israel's suppression of Palestinians forever.
[23]In September 2010, Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, denounced Peretz's comments, asking: "Is it possible to imagine the same kind of casual slur tossed off about blacks or Jews?
Islam is no more monolithic than Christianity or Judaism, and these kinds of sweeping generalizations have historically led to dehumanizing other groups in ways that lead to discrimination and violence.
[26]On September 17, 2010, Peretz issued yet another apology: ... [I]n this past year I have publicly committed the sin of wild and wounding language, especially hurtful to our Muslim brothers and sisters.
[29] The Atlantic's James Fallows summarized Peretz's reputation, concluding that if his legacy were settled that day, despite being "beloved by many students and respected by some magazine colleagues", he would be considered a bigot.
[32]Jefferson Morley, a Peretz friend who worked at The New Republic from 1983 to 1987, told Jack Shafer of Slate, "I could never reconcile this intellectual strength with his racism and unpleasant attempts to play the bully.
In January 2015, The New Republic, after having been purchased by a new owner, Chris Hughes, published a long, detailed report on the magazine's history of alleged racism.
The article, by journalist Jeet Heer, also alleged that during Peretz's tenure as owner of The New Republic, women were rarely, if ever, given opportunities to write or edit for the magazine: One may also ask if a staff dominated by privileged white males might not have benefited from greater diversity, and not just along racial lines.
In a 1988 article for Vanity Fair, occasional contributor James Wolcott concurred, noting, "The New Republic has a history of shunting women to the sidelines and today injects itself with fresh blood drawn largely from male interns down from Harvard."
"[34] One woman whom Wieseltier harassed, Sarah Wildman, a former assistant editor of The New Republic, has written that she was fired in retaliation for complaining: "In disclosing this incident to my superiors, the outcome was, in many ways, far worse than the act itself.
[36] The Glass fabrications were "the greatest scandal in the magazine's history and marked a decade of waning influence and mounting financial losses", The New York Times later assessed.
In the 1993 novel Blue Hearts, set in Washington D.C., PBS news anchor Jim Lehrer included Peretz as the roman à clef character "Jonathan Perry".
[21] Lehrer wrote of the fictional Perry:He was a lightweight sociology professor of no special talent or accomplishment who owned and edited the magazine The New World because his wife was a shoe company heiress who bought it for him.
He was a joke in all circles except those that believed money was important...[he] had made himself even more foolish by writing a recent column accusing the producers of...public television and radio, of blacklisting him for his strong pro-Israel views.
Press critic Jack Shafer noted that Peretz, in a column titled "Blacklisted", described having "leaned on NPR News Veep Bill Buzenberg for just a little mike (to no avail) and that he told PBS's Jim Lehrer he wouldn't turn down a date on The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, either."
Peretz was married briefly in his twenties to Linda Heller, the daughter of prominent citrus growers who lived on Fifth Avenue, and in Miami Beach, Florida.
[1] They helped finance Ramparts magazine in the 1960s, until it published articles critical of Israel's governmental policies, which led Peretz and his wife to withdraw their support.