Magazine Boots Editor For Clinton Columns

The New Republic’s owner said Saturday he has fired the political magazine’s editor for being “obsessive” about President Clinton’s scandals.

Martin Peretz said more than half of what Michael Kelly wrote in his column was about “this marginal issue.”

“His opinions were far from my opinions and the opinions of my staff,” said Peretz.

“I thought it was very, very strange for a column which traditionally covered a field of American politics to focus in on this.”

Kelly could not be immediately reached for comment. But he was quoted by the Washington Post on Saturday as saying his firing came a few days after he refused to publish an unsigned item by Peretz saying the latest allegations of improper fund raising by Vice President Al Gore were “overblown and old news.”

“I didn’t think that should be our editorial position. I wrote him a memo saying, ‘Here’s why I think you’re wrong and I’m right.”’

But Peretz, a close friend of Gore, said he fired Kelly because “he was obsessive about Clinton’s scandals.”