Hello. My Name Is Ezra Klein. You Insulted My Magazine. Prepare to Die!

Ezra Klein dons the shoes--the high heels--of Ana Marie Cox, puts on her lipstick, and draws his rapier to wreak vengeance on The New Republic:

Wonkette: My honor has been impinged, my magazine’s good name scurrilously impugned. I refer you, good sirs, to The New Republic’s promotional e-mail:

Dear Reader, You may want clear opinions from The New Republic or from any magazine of political commentary. But you certainly don’t want predictable opinions or simple opinions, which, alas, is what you get from The Nation and the National Review, The Weekly Standard or The American Prospect. Why, I bet that you could write their articles in advance. No challenge, no mystery, no surprise, no puzzling through of argument. Not like The New Republic. Subscribe today for as little as $9.97 to read all of our unconventional wisdom.

The next sentence?

In this week’s issue, we say “NO” to Samuel Alito—in two articles actually.

Pretty awesomely unconventional if you ask me. I mean, I would’ve expected one article saying “no” to Sam Alito, but two? And in all caps!? That’s the sort of liberal apostasy you can only get from TNR.

Other unpredictable items from this week’s New Republic include Jon Cohn on why Lyndon Johnson’s Medicare rollout was smoother than George W. Bush’s, Frank Foer on more reasons that Jack Abramoff is sucky, and a satire of suicide bomber rhetoric implying that Western values are superior to the ethos of terrorists. For a left-of-center magazine, these truly are bold and unpredictable stances, and I applaud The New Republic for taking them. The only question is whether they’re willing to survive the inevitable counterattack from the called-out coalition of Mike Tomasky, Katrina Vanden Huevel, Bill Kristol, and Rich Lowry. And what’s Paul Glastris? Chopped liver?