diluting the brand

Mickey Kaus takes a whack at The New Yorker:

**–You won’t learn much else from Lizza’s article. It’s … not one of his best! A classic dumbed-down Remnick-era New Yorker piece–remedial reading for U.W.S. cocooners. Lizza skips over all the wonkish aspects of the immigration debate (like whether “comprehensive” reform will actually work) as if they have nothing to do with the politics, paints opponents as unfeeling racists, ignores well-publicized evidence (e.g., from Carville and Greenberg) that Democrats might have political problems from supporting legalization, falls for the recent Pew hype and generally fits the issue into a comfortable Civil Rights template (moral moderates vs. pathetic bigots). Did I mention that it’s a bad piece?

As long as we’re tearing down our journalistic institutions, why not The New Yorker? It’s not all that. Not anymore.