Andrew Sullivan on The New Republic

He believes that African-Americans are unfair to blacks.  His defense: 1) there are no qualified blacks to hire in the magazine: "Did we fail to find and nurture and promote African-American staffers? We did – along with almost every other magazine and newspaper at the time. I regret this. I tried – but obviously not hard enough. I’m no believer in affirmative action, but I’m a deep believer in the importance of differing life experiences to inform a magazine’s coverage of the world." 2) he defends the magazine decision to publish racist arguments by notorious racists but maintains that it was legitimate because one of the two racists in question had a Harvard connection: "One was a celebrated Harvard professor".  3) blacks were allowed to publish occasionally in the magazine provided they toed the line.  4) he said (totally erroneously and falsely) that Andrew Hacker was published in the magazine and that his views are those of the racist magazine: "The white contributors were just as caustic. Andrew Hacker, whose racial politics echoes TNC’s".  Hardly. 5) As for the record of the magazine in racism against Arabs and bigotry against Muslims, it is not important.