OWS: Lech Walesa Likes ‘Em, Marty Peretz Doesn’t. Too Bad for Marty.

Once again, Marty Peretz picks the wrong side of history. From an e-mail blast earlier today:

Good morning,

The Editors of The New Republic take a stand against Occupy Wall Street in the November 3 issue of the magazine.

How should liberals feel about Occypy Wall Street? TNR says, “deeply skeptical.” Click here to read why.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need further information.

Thank you,

Annie Augustine
Media Relations, The New Republic
aaugustine@tnr.com / (202) 508-4482

Please click here to learn more about TNR’s new iPad App.

That’s right: Everyone’s favorite neoconservative neoliberal and hater of FDR and LBJ, the guy who bought what once rivaled The Nation in terms of helping to shape the American liberal mindset and turned it into a slightly spiffier version of The National Review, the guy who actual liberals (as opposed to the straw ones Peretz’ fellow traveler Howard Kurtz has discussed over the years) have laughed at, if not ignored, for over three decades, has come out against Occupy Wall Street.

I know, I know, I’m shocked too. NOT.

Meanwhile, an actual liberal, a bonafide hero, a Nobel Prize winner, and a man who’s put more on the line every week of the past four decades than Marty Peretz has during his entire adult life (well, besides the $380,000 of his Singer-heiress wife’s money he used to buy TNR in 1974), has come out in favor of Occupy Wall Street — and has promised to visit it soon:

Solidarity hero Lech Walesa is flying to New York to show his support for the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

“How could I not respond,” Walesa told a Polish newspaper Wednesday. “The thousands of people gathered near Wall Street are worried about the fate of their future, the fate of their country. This is something I understand.”

A former shipyard worker who led Poland’s successful revolt against Soviet communism, Walesa said “capitalism is in crisis” and not just in America.

“This is a worldwide problem,” he told the Lublin-based Dziennik Wschodni newspaper. “The Wall Street protesters have focused a magnifying glass on the problem.”

Oh, dear. Just another “professional protester”, as Dana Milbank and Marty Peretz would no doubt call him. (Y’know, just like Joseph Stiglitz, that other professional protester and Nobel Prize winner who’s endorsed Occupy Wall Street?) But then again, that epithet does have a touch of truth in it. He did parlay his protesting into not only freedom for Poland, but the presidency of Poland – if that’s not opportunistic self-promoting professional protesting, I dunno what is!

If I have to choose between the hot-tempered bigoted ass who used his wife’s money to ruin The New Republic and the guy who freed Poland and won the Nobel Peace Prize, I won’t be siding with the ass, that’s for sure.

(Crossposted at MyFDL.)