The Veepstakes

One reason I like The New Republic and respect the National Review is that they seem to do political debate right. They each come from a vantage point, the former liberal, the latter conservative. But they also both understand that when it comes to the questions that engage public life (broadly defined and incorporating politics, policy, pop culture, books, and so forth) ideas matter and well-intended ideas that are thought out and effectively presented deserve to be taken seriously. (As an aside, one distressing aspect of academia is that there are actually lots of folks, and indeed entire departments, that seem not to care about ideas and to look askance at those who do -- this is not the majority, but it is a sizeable and distressing minority)

In recent years both magazines and their online arms have taken to collaborative efforts in the form of online debates. The War on Terror and the War in Iraq (I am not yet decided as to whether the latter is part of the former or not, though I am inclined to say that even if not, they are certainly closely related) have spurred many of these debates, but there have been others. This week, The New Republic's Michael Crowley, an associate editor at the magazine, and National Review's National Political Reporter John J. Miller engage in a reasoned, smart, and insightful debate about who should be John Kerry's Vice Presidential choice. Somehow I have a hard time seeing The Nation and The American Conservative having such a well done forum, and on a relative scale, there are a lot more shrill sources screaming and insulting and spewing vitriol than those two.

In the end, Miller believes that Gephart would be the best bet for Kerry, while Crowley goes with John Edwards. But in their three-day debate, they run the gamut of viable (and not so viable) candidates, including Hillary, Sam Nunn, John Glenn, Wes Clark, Bill Richardson (right now my favorite choice, unless rumors of skeletons in the noted bon vivant's closet turn out to have bony legs), Tom Vilsack, Gary Locke, and Roy Barnes.

This is a classic example of how rigorous engagement and debate can be done. There are those on the left who would dismiss National Review out of hand and those on the right who would do the same to The New Republic. In a lot of ways, it is hard to take such people seriously. Hopefully these two stalwarts of American Intellectual Political writing will maintain these standards throughout what is shaping up to be an election worth following closely.