Is the first-most-prestigious the New Yorker or the New York Review of Books?

I'm saying the New Yorker. The New York Review of Books has such a specialized audience it doesn't really register, at least these days.

Trouble is, like a lot of other people, they would REALLY CARE if it was them gettin' shot.

Large-scale slaughter really does reflect badly on us. Better that death squads round up people at night. And having people displaced and starving is better than fighting in the streets.

I'm sure the Nazis didn't allow much picture-taking at Auschwitz.

So much propaganda, so little time.

Personally, I'm touched by Andrew's including the whole West in his little calculation. I detect a hint of cosmopolitanism here.

Not having read him in a while, I forgot what a schmuck Sullivan was-- and clearly still is. It reminds me of a TNR piece he wrote years ago in which he explained how high prices for AIDS and HIV drugs was good for people in Africa.

Time and again I wish we had a pundit brigade we could send to troubled hotspots to start our unnecessary wars for us. Unfortunately the current president would send them the massive reinforcements they'd request, completely negating their purpose.

The Sullivan quote ruins the first. You should have stuck with Packer.

By paging the ghost of Dr K, Sullivan is making it too obvious.

Packer is more subtle. If I were a social scientist, I would try this experiment. Ask 1,000 Americans whether Packer's quote supports their views that we Americans are:

1. A decent, well-meaning bunch who try hard in our own clueless ways.

2. A bunch of stinking, navel-gazing, self-loving scumbags.

A neat self-referential poll: a majority vote of X (ie, 1 or 2) proves that the truth is 3-X (ie, 2 or 1).

"Most prestigious" - I guess it depends who you ask. Not being connected with the cool kids who know these things, I wonder which magazine is

a) most selective - which is hardest to get published in

b)most expensive - which gets highest rates per page view from advertisers

c)most cited in writing, and public discussion generally (e.g. on tv, radio, etc.)

decades ago, I lived in one of the less-prestigious neighborhoods of cambridge, ma
I read in the supermarket tabloid "the national enquirer" that steve mcqueen (a movie actor of the time) had cancer

then within the same week i read in the most prestigious daily paper of the boston area, the globe, that steve mcqueen did not have cancer

then, months later, i read in the globe that steve mcqueen had died of cancer

so it goes

That was cool, Bernard. You should drop the computer science nonsense and take up polling full time.

and televisions hate america. sheesh this is a long list.