Spencer Ackerman was just fired from The New Republic for, among other things, threatening to smash his boss Franklin Foer’s head in with a baseball bat. And so a once-august magazine’s retrogression continues. UPDATE: Ackerman tells me Foer knew he was being facetious. Which reminds me for some reason of Jackie Mason’s line: “Every Jew almost killed somebody. They always say the same thing: “If he said ONE MORE WORD…!”