Rules: Emailer R suggests that New Republic, under Marty Peretz, had a “No-Trash-Gore” rule similar to Tucker Carlson’s “No-Trash-Fox” rule at Daily Caller. That was not my experience. True, Marty had his areas of … concern. But I remember several times trying to quit on principle — there’d be all that good publicity, plus no deadlines for a while — only to have Marty or his editors at the last minute graciously relent and publish. So annoying.  People at TNR argued with Marty a lot — you never had to worry that he was secretly mad at you. But he also had an academic’s tolerance for wild contention. Seems quaint now. …

P.S.: The Washington Monthly under Charlie Peters was different. TWM, as others have noted, wasn’t a forum for ideas. It was a forum for Charlie’s ideas. If you wanted to get your piece published you pretty much had to convince Charlie it was right, on policy as well as facts. But you knew that was the deal going in (plus Charlie has sound judgment). And once he had something he wanted to say Charlie was fearless about saying it even if it might offend people who could do him lots of favors — which he, in fact, repeatedly did. (I do remember he had a “One Block Rule,” which is he would avoid angering neighbors he actually had to see in the morning when he went out the front door.)  Perhaps as a result, Charlie did not get rich off his magazine– even lawyer-rich. But he didn’t seem to need to. [Also quaint?-ed You said that …].