Peretzelhead
Thanks to Tim Cavanaugh, I was able to pick this up off the New York Times website. It's a clarification letter from Martin Peretz, the owner of the New Republic, on the late Michael Kelly, who recently died in Iraq and whom Peretz fired a few years ago as TNR editor:

To the Editor:

Re: "Michael Kelly, 46, Editor and Columnist, Dies in Iraq" (obituary, April 5):

I do not mean at all to mar the coverage of the tragic death of Michael Kelly in Iraq by quibbling. But I did not fire Mr. Kelly as editor of The New Republic in 1997 because of how he configured "the magazine's coverage of Vice President Al Gore."

Mr. Kelly wrote incandescent prose. As an editor, however, Mr. Kelly's single-minded focus on President Bill Clinton's improprieties distorted his perspective on the policies of the Clinton-Gore administration and brought him into conflict not only with me but also with much of the intellectual history of the magazine.

Mr. Kelly's true career began in 1991 in the sands of Iraq. He knew the nobility of purpose that brought American troops and himself back to the region 12 years later.

MARTIN PERETZ
Editor in Chief, The New Republic
Washington, April 5, 2003

So if we are to understand Marty right, the intellectual history of TNR is such that it precludes focusing on the improprieties of a president.