Tim Rutten suggests today that the Nation (158,810) overtaking longtime leader the National Review (157,616) in circulation at the top end of the opinion journal rankings could be about growing anti-war fervency. The L.A. Times column is partly about those two magazines and the other leading opinion organs, the New Republic (61,723) and the Weekly Standard (55,000) -- and partly about the divide over Iraq in the country and the Democratic Party.

In the piece, commentator William Schneider says high levels of vitriol on the left stem from George Bush being "the most right-wing president ever, and that has made the left apoplectic. Its contempt for Bush was brought to a head by the war. Preventive war goes against everything people on the left believe. They are energized in way they have not been since 1972, and they have found a candidate in Howard Dean and a voice in the Nation."

Discuss.