Eulogy for the Public Interest

David Skinner has a heartfelt eulogy for the Public Interest in the Weekly Standard, "Farewell to 'The Public Interest'". The Public Interest was the domestic policy equivalent of the foreign policy journal The National Interest, and it was, for a long time, one of the foremost organs of intellectual debate in America. As Skinner puts it, "[Irving] Kristol and [Daniel] Bell established an editorial system that, above all, let intellectuals be intellectuals: showy, disputatious, charming, brilliant." Skinner's article is an interesting peek behind the doors of an influential journal.