Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Press Corps? (New Republic Edition)

Ah. Marty Peretz of the New Republic speaks:

The Plank: MID-DAY MEDITATIONS:

1. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has demanded that the United Kingdom and the United States be kicked off the U.N. Security Council. I want the U.N. to go to Lagos, where no one would go. Fini! The end of the bullshit, and no more Kofi Annan. The United Nations survives only because of big city New York, where hosts and hostesses still imagine it's a catch to have an ambassador from a foreign country to dinner. Provincial New Yorkers.

2. The oil-rich emirates and kingdoms are terribly upset about what's going on in Lebanon. They've put up, from here $1 million, from there $2 million, much less than the Scandinavians, for sure. Can they really be that upset?

3. I bet that there were more demonstrations and better-attended demonstrations against the Danish cartoons than for Hezbollah now.

4. And, yes, any demo against Israel is a demo for Hezbollah...

Memo to Jonathan Chait, Franklin Foer, Peter Beinart, Noam Scheiber, Spencer Ackerman, and anybody else working for the New Republic who wants to have a reputation:

It's time to bail out.