As Clay Waters reports, the old rant-rag of the Right, The American Spectator, is back in the hands of Emmett Tyrell and the frat-boy Right. Unlike Clay, I'm not particularly enthused.

I was a subscriber to the American Spectator back in...

...the early '90s. It was right around the time I left the Democratic Party. I'd always thought George H. Bush was a lousy President (which I still think) and I'd had modestly optimistic views of Clinton when he was first elected. Between election day and the end of his first 90 days in office, that optimism changed to contempt. As such, I was very much in the mood to see my old party skewered for its self-righteousness, and for the horrible mistakes that it had never owned up to. I was also pleased to see Clinton, who was apparently even worse than Bush, skewered royally.

Emmett Tyrrell's columns were usually fun, and I always enjoyed Ben Stein's "Diary," his monthly column about being a Republican in Hollywood. I even remember the issues where Ben described a new game show he was hoping would get off the ground, called Win Ben Stein's Money. He was talking about it at least a year before the show ever aired. The other columnists and writers were sometimes good and sometimes not so good. On the whole, the publication was fun and interesting, if uneven.

But after a while, something seemed wrong. They seemed anti-Clinton to the point of obsession, even insanity. Some of the early investigative pieces on the Clintons were quite solid, and eventually got picked up by the mainstream press. Some, on the other hand, were embarassingly stupid, like the "scandal" stories about how Hillary took a few bucks in tax deductions for donating Bill's used underwear to charity.

The reporting on Anita Hill by David Brock at first seemed very solid. But the more I read, the more inuendo-based and obsessive it seemed. Other stories on the Clintons read almost exactly like the "Halliburton scandal" that some Bush-bashers are trying to whip into significance today: little but inuendo, guilt-by-association, and dark, ominous accusations that people have done things that are, well, perfectly legal.

For a short while it even seemed like they were taking claims that Clinton had murdered Vince Foster seriously. To their credit, they eventually denounced that. On the other hand, they tried to get the world to bite on the notion that Clinton, as governor, had been involved in drug dealing out of Mena airport in Arkansas. This obviously had as much credibility as the notion that Ronald Reagan had been involved in drug dealing in Los Angeles. It was an embarassment.

In general, while some of the reporting seemed first rate, much of it seemed to be little more than inuendo. Tyrrell started to repeat himself, and turned into a right-wing Robin Williams--self-righteous, full of himself, convinced at all times of his own cleverness and of the obvious stupidity of anyone who disagreed with him.

For a while I was only subscribing for Ben Stein's column. But Ben alone wasn't enough. Eventually, I dropped my subscription. I never really missed it.

If you've read this far, you may want to read the surprisingly engaging story of the birth, life, and near-death of The American Spectator. Byron York's take is witty, ironic, and very human. I walked away from it realizing what the Spectator really was: a romp in the tall grasses that started out as a bunch of kids who barely knew what they were doing.

I also found myself forgiving them for their flaws. In the end, the old Spectator was no more irrational or mean-spirited than The Village Voice or The Nation. Yes, they were often juvenile, at times scurrilous, at times shallow, often mean-spirited, but sometimes funny and insightful. (Notably, "funny and insightful" are much harder to see these days over at The Nation or at self-righteous folks over at "Common Dreams.")

Besides, the story of the earliest days of the magazine, its origins in backwater Indiana, and as the only conservative voice in the "alternative" press back in the 1960s and 1970s, is alone worth the price of admission. Give it a read. I most especially recommend it to people who are still alien to the conservative counterculture and its origins. There's more real humanity there than you might think.

Am I looking forward to a new and revived American Spectator? No. I'll probably peruse it now and then, just like I peruse any of a half-dozen other partisan rags. I just hope they don't overreach and fall prey to that most insidious of character flaws in publishing and/or politics: taking yourself and your opponents too damned seriously.