The American Prospect articles from April 2003

The American Prospect archives from April 2003

A war for democracy?(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Like Woodrow Wilson during World War I, George W. Bush has held out the promise that by going to war, America can make the world safe for democracy. Once Saddam Hussein is ousted, we can turn Iraq into a political and economic model for the...

Let's Get Ready to Rumble! (Correspondence).
April 1, 2003... GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA has clearly put on the brass knuckles in the battle with the Rev. Al Sharpton ["Let's Get Ready to Rumble," February 2003]. I had just returned from my college bookstore when I read the sentence about "the sort of Marxist...

John Zogby's Creative Polls. (Correspondence).
April 1, 2003... TO READ CHRIS MOONEY'S account ["John Zogby's Creative Polls," February], the Zogby poll on evolution--commissioned by the Discovery Institute--was primarily about intelligent-design theory. That's not true. The chief thrust was the...

The Taxonomist. (Correspondence).
April 1, 2003... ONCE AGAIN, ROBERT S. McIntyre is right on target ["The Taxonomist," February]. He correctly noted the faulty logic when the right wing claims that dividends are "double taxed." However, he missed an opportunity to score another direct hit on...

We Disport. We Deride. (Correspondence).
April 1, 2003... WHILE TODD GITLIN'S analysis of cable news in general and Fox News in particular ["We Disport. We Deride," February] was right on, we can't afford to let ourselves believe the premise that the left's agenda is somehow fundamentally incompatible...

Post-Gore Democrats. (Correspondence).
April 1, 2003... IN HIS COLUMN ON THE Democratic field for president ["Post-Gore Democrats," Jan. 13], Harold Meyerson devotes a paragraph to each candidate, except for the one candidate who brings his wish list to the table. Gov. Howard Dean is the only...

That Cheney touch. (Devil in the Details).(Dick Cheney)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... NO SOONER HAD GEORGE W. Bush predicted that his war in Iraq would democratize the Muslim world than--voila!--the Turkish parliament, controlled by the pro-Islamist Welfare Party, turned against its leaders and refused America the right to use...

God and country. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... THE 9TH U.S. CIRCUIT Court of Appeals--the sole remaining unabashedly liberal bastion in the entire federal government--has spoken, and has struck down the "under God" part of the Pledge of Allegiance as unconstitutional. John Ashcroft, of...

Your democratic scorecard. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... WITH THE DEMOCRATIC presidential field building up about as fast as U.S. forces in the Middle East, the Prospect intends to present our readers with regular updates on the ins and outs, ups and downs and, now and then, the arounds and throughs...

While you were sleeping. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... If all the tributaries to the Mississippi ran dry four months a year, would you consider them "isolated"? The Bush administration would, or at least would like to. That way it could exempt them--and a whole series of intermittent streams,...

Brave new words. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... CONSERVATIONIST n 1. According to a recently leaked COP strategy memo, the term Republicans should use to identify themselves as enviro-friendly. 2. As opposed to "environmentalist," which, according to the memo, carries the "connotation of...

There goes Hoffa. (Devil in the Details).(Jim Hoffa Jr.)
April 1, 2003... SINCE HE FIRST BECAME president, George W. Bush has had two distinct approaches toward America's unions: 1) Divide and conquer, and 2) Smash them into eensy-weensy bits. Bush came to the White House armed with a Texas Republican's hatred of all...

Vast right-wing conspiracy. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... What won't the administration do to try to sell its tax cut? When the Blue Chip Economic Forecast (BCEF), a monthly survey of 53 top economists, projected a growth rate of 3.3 percent this year, the Bush administration claimed that the estimate...

Heroes & zeroes. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... ROBERT BYRD Senior senator recalls function of legislature, condemns war. GEORGE VOINOVICH Ohio Republican senator declares Bush tax cut too big. CHRIS DODD Democratic senator decides not to run for president. GEORGE...

Deporting adjectives. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... FROM THE COUNTY THAT brought us the butterfly ballot comes this: Burt Aaronson, commissioner of Florida's Palm Beach County, wants to rename French fries. Inspired by a menu change at Cubbie's restaurant in Beaufort, N.C., Aaronson suggested...

Recalling Gray. (Devil in the Details).(Gray Davis)(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... YOU MAY HAVE THOUGHT the 2002 elections were over, but a fat lot you know. Just three months after he squeaked to victory over a certifiable stiff, California Gov. Gray Davis may be facing a formidable recall campaign. Recalls, as our more...

Off The Wall Street Journal. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The Bush administration is crusading to bring democracy to the Middle East. But the region's biggest democracy, Turkey, isn't doing Bush's bidding. Despite all manner of U.S. arm-twisting and outright bribery, on March 1 the Turkish parliament...

A case for hell. (Below The Beltway).
April 1, 2003... Much of the furious debate at the United Nations has been over whether inspectors are capable of disarming Iraq, but what really divides the United States from its chief critics on the Security Council are two diametrically opposed scenarios of...

The Republican railroad: squelching Democratic voices on the Hill. (Dispaches).
April 1, 2003... IN JULY OF 1994, JUST FOUR, MONTHS before Republicans swept the elections and won control of Congress, then-Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga,) blasted the Democratic leadership trying to ram health-care reform legislation through Congress without...

The fakeout: Bush promised billions for AIDS--but not until he's left office. (Dispatches).
April 1, 2003... PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH'S GLOBAL AIDs--relief proposal seemed like a historic announcement. "[T]o meet a severe and urgent crisis abroad, tonight I propose the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief--a work of mercy beyond all current international...

Freedom to fail: the false flexibility of the president's welfare plan. (Dispatches).
April 1, 2003... AS ANY ADVOCATE FOR THE POOR WILL tell you, measuring the success of welfare reform depends on how one defines success. If it's simply a matter of cutting the welfare rolls, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program has been the...

Asylum interrupted: is America still a safe haven? (Dispatches).
April 1, 2003... THE UNITED STATES HAS NEVER OPENED its arms to immigrants seeking asylum. Before September 11, aliens would arrive only to be shackled and handcuffed to an airport bench, suffer through multiple interviews, wind up in a county jail or private...

Dissent in America. (Comment).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... The shooting may or may not have started by the time you read this. But one thing that has certainly begun is the campaign to force dissenters to keep it zipped when the shooting commences. "Once the war against Saddam [Hussein] begins, we...

Bush's tax missimplification. (The Taxonomist).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... As we file our often complicated income-tax returns this April, should we take heart that President Bush's budget includes a section titled "Simplify the Tax Laws"? Not really. Elsewhere in the budget are some five dozen proposed tax breaks...

Real marriage, real life. (Comment).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Laughing at marriage, that age-old comedy staple, is trendy once again. The Bachelor, The Bachelorette, Joe Millionaire and the "reality" genre's latest entry, Married by America: Watching what fools these mortals be is setting Nielsen records....

Just the beginning: is Iraq the opening salvo in a war to remake the world? (Cover Story).(Cover Story)
April 1, 2003... For months Americans have been told that the United States is going to war against Iraq in order to disarm Saddam Hussein, remove him from power, eliminate Iraq's alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and prevent Baghdad from...

Clash of civilizations: in the battle between America and Europe, we better hope that they prevail.
April 1, 2003... I. BUSH V. WORLD George W. Bush may believe he has the mandate of heaven for what, as I write, is still the looming war in Iraq, but he's not doing very well on earth. Indeed, he's all but unified the planet in opposition to the notion of...

Beyond left and right: a guide for the unwary.
April 1, 2003... I recently attended a forum, sponsored by one centrist and two liberal groups, on opportunities to bridge ideological extremes. The panelists were discussing a new report titled "Crossing Divides." The report addressed recent policy innovations...

Breaking the Frame: Susan Nall Bales has a lesson for progressive groups: Message matters. Get with it, or forget about making the world a better place.
April 1, 2003... WHEN COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT SUSAN NALL BALES talks to environmental groups, she tells them that they can't fix government policies until they first fix themselves. For Bales, that means these groups must become acutely conscious of the...

The pro-war Post: the paper's opinion columns turn hawkish on Iraq. (Media).(Washington Post)
April 1, 2003... WHAT'S THE ROLE OF AN OP-ED PAGE? Echo chamber for a newspaper's editorials? Ping-Pong table for both sides of the story? Or supplier of third, fourth, and nth sides and angles of the polyhedral truth? The reader might guess that this writer...

Paved with good intentions: The Quiet American and the din of imperialism. (Film).
April 1, 2003... WHAT WOULD GRAHAM GREENE DO? Or more to the point, what would he write about our current time, its terrorist horrors, its shadows of war on the horizon? Perhaps our situation would sound familiar to the author, who set a similarly foreboding...

Why we need Europe.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... OF PARADISE AND POWER: AMERICA AND EUROPE IN THE NEW WORLD ORDER BY ROBERT KAGAN * KNOPF * 112 PAGES. * $18.00 FRANCE AND GERMANY'S REFUSAL TO accept the Bush administration's definition of the Iraqi threat has made shockingly visible the...

Free market furies.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... WORLD ON FIRE: HOW EXPORTING FREE MARKET DEMOCRACY BREEDS ETHNIC HATRED AND GLOBAL INSTABILITY BY AMY CHUA * DOUBLEDAY * 340 PAGES * $26.00 AMY CHUA'S NEW BOOK IS NOT LIKELY to receive a warm reception at the Department of State, the World...

The co-presidency.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... BOY GENIUS: KARL ROVE, THE BRAIN BEHIND THE REMARKABLE POLITICAL TRIUMPH OF GEORGE W. BUSH * BY LOU DUBOSE, JAN REID AND CARL M. CANNON * PUBLIC AFFAIRS * 256 PAGES * $15.00 BUSH'S BRAIN: HOW KARL ROVE MADE GEORGE W. BUSH PRESIDENTIAL BY...

Bonfire of the Verities.(Book Review)
April 1, 2003... COSMOPOLIS * BY DON DELILLO * SCRIBNER * 224 PAGES * $25.00 EITHER DON DELILLO HAS WRITTEN his worst book or he's done something so sneaky I can't see it yet. Cosmopolis' tale of a new-economy billionaire who reduces the world's currency...

A tale of two fables. (The Last Word).(Brief Article)
April 1, 2003... Fable 1. The world is blessed with an advanced civilization renowned for its dynamism and freedom. Most of the world's peoples admire and emulate it. But this civilization fails to notice a primitive, evil force that emerges worldwide, intent...