On TNR's blog The Plank, here, Jamie Kirchick writes:
Dept. of Corrections
I recently wrote that that J Street, the "political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement," backs "the Right of Return" and "unconditional territorial concessions by Israel." The group doesn't. I also mistakenly imputed that position to several bloggers -- Eric Alterman, Matthew Yglesias, and Ezra Klein. I now know that none of them have explicitly endorsed either unconditional territorial concessions or the right of return. I was wrong to imply that they did.
To be clear, I continue to think that the policies promoted by J Street are dangerous and naive. And I'll return to this debate again soon. But my serious disagreements do not excuse these inaccuracies, for which I apologize.
I appreciate the correction but do not accept the apology, as I dispute the notion that Kirchick claims to "now know" that his statements were false. He knew it when he wrote them here, as there was never any evidence whatever to support his allegations. And as they were already discussed and debunked here and here and here, he certainly knew it when, upon being corrected, he attempted to evade responsibility with more wild allegations here.
And there is no mention in the above of his slanderous lie about me regarding Andrew Sullivan that I have now been forced to correct three times, including this rather lengthy letter and finally again here.
So, thanks, but I have to wonder about how many people and institutions Kirchick has purposely slandered who do not have the resources or knowledge of how to call these slanders to the attention of his editors. Remember, Jeremy Ben-Ami was on vacation when I informed him of what had been written. Will they continue to be at the mercy of his dishonesty? Or will adult supervision finally be supplied before the damage is done? (The assumption here is that because Kirchick is Marty Peretz's personal assistant, and is representing Peretz's interest in attacking those writers and critics of TNR to whom Peretz lacks the courage to respond himself, the young man's employment status, alas, is untouchable.)
P.S. The first commenter on Kirchick's apology writes, "I think at the time you wrote your sneering piece, many commenters pointed out these 'inaccuracies' -- as they always do, whenever one of your pieces appear. It's good that you have acknowledged these -- there may well have been letters exchanged between lawyers to get you there -- I just hope that you have learned something from this, the same thing that many of us have been saying for a long time: distortions, sneering and sarcasm are not proper journalistic techniques." For the record, there were no lawyer letters from me nor, I feel certain, from Matt or Ezra. We relied on the editors of TNR to deal with the issue, however belatedly, on their honor.
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To read the rest of today's Altercation, click here.