The American Prospect articles from December 2003

The American Prospect archives from December 2003

The President's new crusade.(Prospects)
December 1, 2003... On Nov. 6, George W. Bush claimed the legacy of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan in a speech setting out a "forward strategy" to extend freedom and democracy to the Islamic nations of the Middle East. Liberty, the president...

Deaniacs react.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA absolutely nailed the philosophical underpinning of the Howard Dean campaign in her stellar piece "Shock of the Old" [November 2003]. It was particularly revealing for me, a displaced New Englander, to realize that the...

This guy really hates Bush.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... NOTHING COULD RE TRUER than the headline of Robert Kuttner's latest editorial ["A Foreign-Policy Emergency," November]. There is no question that catastrophic mistakes have been made in Washington, or that Iraq is a complete failure. It is an...

Like Bobby did.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... I WAS DELIGHTED TO READ Jason Vest's "Red State Army" [November] and his observations on Wesley Clark's underreported visit to DePauw University. I traveled from California to Indiana for the occasion, and was present at the student...

W.'s captured Bishops.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... AS A "CORE" CATHOLIC, I agree with Sarah Wildman's article "Bullies in the Pulpit" [October] that heavy-handed Catholic rhetoric against abortion-rights Catholic politicians has the potential to backfire. Any Catholic politician remains fully...

Grade A's.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2003... IN HIS DISCUSSION OF Michael Lewis' Moneyball ["The American Game," October], Andrew Zimbalist has whiffed, badly. The significant positive changes brought about by the management of the Oakland A's have been surpassed only by those of the...

Murray: whites win!(Devil in the Details)(Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... WHEN IT COMES TO Charles Murray, no news is good news. Which is the best we can say about the spotlight-monger's new book, Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950. Trackers of the...

Grassy Knoll, chapter 847.(Devil in the Details)
December 1, 2003... NOV. 22 MARKS THE 40TH anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's tragic assassination in Dallas. Don't worry about marking your calendars, though; the networks are flooding the sweeps month with special after special exploiting the defining...

Europe can change a man.(Devil in the Details)
December 1, 2003... IF, AT THE BOSTON "AMERICA Rocks the Vote" debate on Nov. 4, retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark looked a bit like Dieter from Saturday Night Live's "Sprockets" in his quasi-existential all-black ensemble, it may have been because the former supreme...

While you were sleeping.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... Those of a certain age, as they say, will recall that one of the sights of the Vietnam War that did in both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon was the image on the nightly news of the deceased American soldier's body, in a flag-draped coffin,...

Brave new words.(Devil in the Details)
December 1, 2003... SOCIALIST REVOLUTION A term used by conservative federal appellate nominee Janice Rogers Brown to describe FDR's New Deal. PROGRESS According to the president, casualties in Iraq are a sign of it. We'll know things are really going badly...

Oops, he forgot.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... CITIZENS OF MISSISSIPPI, meet Haley Barbour, your new governor. He has been a tireless advocate in Washington for such underdogs as Phillip Morris, Lockheed-Martin and Microsoft, and now he's just jumpin' at the chance to serve you, too. A...

Wasserman.
December 1, 2003... SIR--CBS HAS CAVED ON THE REAGAN SHOW! CAN WE PRESSURE THEM TO CANCEL THE NEWS?! [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Roadwork on memory lane.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... EVERYONE FROM SEAN Hannity to Barbra Streisand knows that right-wingers killed The Reagans. The controversial CBS miniseries, a semi-fictionalized portrait of the 40th presidency, was originally slated to air in mid November, but Republican...

Vast right-wing conspiracy.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... On Nov. 3, the American Enterprise Institute--a key VR-WC pillar--hosted a lecture by Governing Magazine Editor Alan Ehrenhalt with the intriguing title "The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and How It Grew." Ehrenhalt brought with him a...

Heroes & zeroes.(Devil in the Details)
December 1, 2003... CHRIS MATTHEWS (You read that right!) Tells Brown students that case for war was "nonsense" and Dick Cheney's power in administration is "scary" CONRAD BLACK Conservative media magnate defends FDR, New Deal on Wall Street Journal...

Turkeys take note.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... THANKSGIVING WILL ATTRACT the bulk of November's holiday attention, but let's not forget that it is also, by proclamation of the president, National Family Caregivers Month. The White House press release recognizing the designation contains...

One less Republican in Florida.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... AFTER SEVERAL WEEKS OF traipsing to burned-out hillsides alongside Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger steps out all by himself on Nov. 17 when he takes the oath as California's governor. If his initial appointments offer any indication of his...

Off the Wall Street Journal.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... The Journal is outraged that Democratic staffers on the Senate Intelligence Committee proposed a back-up plan to demand an independent investigation in the event that the White House keeps stonewalling the bipartisan committee's repeated...

Teach these to the kids.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2003... EVERY SO OFTEN, THE POLITICAL vocabulary needs updating. A decade ago, "spin" was created to mean PR that didn't pass the smell test. Now, in our age of right-wing screaming and deceit, the bloggers have updated the political discourse...

The quiet revolution: all eyes are on Iraq, but the most breathtaking democratic reforms in the Muslim world are happening in Turkey--with Islamists leading the way.(Dispatches)
December 1, 2003... IN A YEAR OF ENORMOUS GLOBAL turmoil, the most astonishing political revolution of all has been unfolding not in Iraq but next door in Turkey. The first hint of its depth came on March 1, when Turkey's parliament shocked the world by refusing...

Gay rites movement: conservative Episcopalians huffing over the consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson are standing on the wrong side of history--their own church's.(Dispatches)
December 1, 2003... SUNDAY, NOV. 2 DAWNED SUNNY AND hot, more like late spring than mid-autumn. At St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington's posh Georgetown neighborhood, the open doors brought a welcome hit of air to women in sleeveless dresses, who drew shawls...

The wrong target: democratic candidates obsessed with Bush's deficits are missing a free shot at his greatest economic vulnerability: the lack of jobs.(Dispatches)
December 1, 2003... "IF WE'RE GOING TO CREATE JOBS, THE first thing we have to do is make sure that George W. Bush loses his." John Kerry's refrain elicits raucous cheers wherever he goes, and it's echoed by the other Democratic presidential contenders. All share...

Loophole-consolidation program.(The Taxonomist)
December 1, 2003... We live in scary times. War and terrorism certainly top the list, but President Bush's tax and budget policies are pretty frightening, too. Yet apparently not everyone is as worried as I am. To illustrate, in early November the Republican...

The -Ism that failed: neoconservatism relies on a history in which it alone won the Cold War. But that's not what happened. As neocons lead us deeper into holy war, it's time for a history lesson.
December 1, 2003... THE AFTERMATH OF THE IRAQ WAR WILL SURELY SEE U.S. foreign policy at the forefront of national debates for years to come. Conservatives will claim--as they have been claiming for months--that only they were sufficiently prescient about "the...

Judging Terry: the DNC's Terry McAuliffe hasn't been Mr. Popular, especially since '02. But he's quietly been assembling the machinery for '04. His rep--and a lot more--hinges on the outcome.
December 1, 2003... Terry McAuliffe doesn't know how to shut it off. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), says Democratic strategist Harold Ickes, "is a great salesman; he has this infectious optimism." Even in the face of abjectly awful...

Crime and redemption: states are using fiscal scarcity to find more creative approaches to reducing crime. The most notable holdoit is Attorney General John Ashcroft.
December 1, 2003... BECAUSE THE TEXAS LEGISLATURE IS IN SESSION A MERE five months out of the year, serving as a Lone Star state representative is not the most time-consuming of jobs. It's hardly unusual, therefore, that Ray Allen, the Republican chairman of the...

The research wars: hard-liners gave long prison sentences credit for the drop in crime. They were mostly wrong.(Smart Justice)
December 1, 2003... Walking to my hotel through Amsterdam's deserted early morning streets, I felt a sharp poke in my back and heard an accented voice behind me. "Do you know what this is? It's a knife. Now, you are going to give me your money or else I will stab...

Reform done right: a Chicago program demonstrates the logic of preparing prisoners for life on the outside.(Smart Justice)
December 1, 2003... Christopher Mixen, 23, looks very much like a college student in baggy cargo jeans, clean white sneakers and an oversized navy sweatshirt. His blond hair is cropped close, and his sharp, blue eyes gaze out from behind wire-framed glasses. But...

Treatment with teeth: a judge explains why drug courts that mandate and supervise treatment are an effective middle ground to help addicts stay clean and reduce crime.(Smart Justice)
December 1, 2003... IN THE MOVIE TRAFFIC, THE RECENTLY APPOINTED federal drug czar, played by Michael Douglas, is returning with his advisers on an airplane after viewing an interdiction site on the Mexican border. He asks them to "think outside the box" for a...

The Shawshank succession: maine built a state-of-the-art prison to replace the one made infamous in the movies. It filled up almost overnight, but many inside don't belong there. Now the question is what to do with them.(Smart Justice)
December 1, 2003... IN THE MID-1990S, WHEN THEN-GOV. ANGUS KING UNveiled an ambitious prison construction plan, the proposal had nothing to do with any "lock-'em-up" agenda. Maine had one of the lowest incarceration rates in the country, a tradition of moderation...

No resources, no results: Kentucky had good intentions in releasing some nonviolent offenders to save money. But the state shortchanged its post-release programs, and an opportunity was lost.(Smart Justice)
December 1, 2003... In the early 1970s, America's prison population began a dramatic expansion that has continued, uninterrupted, ever since. By the year 2000, one in every 14 general-fund dollars spent by the states was being spent on incarceration. Vast...

Lawful re-entry: in Brooklyn, a novel program is reducing recidivism and finding ex-offenders decent jobs. The real surprise is who's running it: a social worker hired by the district attorney's office.(Smart Justice)
December 1, 2003... ON AN AVERAGE DAY IN 2000, MORE THAN 10 PERCENT of all black American men in their 20s were either in prison or in jail. Most of them had very little schooling. About one in three black male high-school dropouts were behind bars. A black man...

'60s for sale: a new let it be and the coming 40th anniversary (!) of the Beatles' U.S. invasion will bring waves of nostalgia. Too bad; they deserve better.(Music)
December 1, 2003... SINCE DECLARING THEMSELVES DEfunct more than 30 years ago, the Beatles have alternately receded and loomed as figures of cultural authority and musical influence. While their spirit has hovered over and coursed through reinventors as diverse as...

The 2-percent Illusion.(The 2% Solution: Fixing America's Problems In Ways Liberals And Conservatives Can Love)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... THE 2% SOLUTION: FIXING AMERICA'S PROBLEMS IN WAYS LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES CAN LOVE. BY MATTHEW MILLER * PUBLIC AFFAIRS * 320 PAGES * $26.00 MATTHEW MILLER IS A SERIOUS, WELL-read man of genuinely public-minded impulses. A veteran of...

The unraveler.(The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way In The New Century)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... THE GREAT UNRAVELING: LOSING OUR WAY IN THE NEW CENTURY. BY PAUL KRUGMAN * W.W. NORTON & COMPANY * 462 PAGES * $25.95 PAUL KRUGMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES columnist and Princeton University economist, is not quite the liberal most of his...

Forever Young.(Rapture: How Biotech Became The New Religion)(Merchants Of Immortality: Chasing The Dream Of Human Life Extension)(Book Review)
December 1, 2003... RAPTURE: HOW BIOTECH BECAME THE NEW RELIGION. BY BRIAN ALEXANDER * BASIC BOOKS. 289 PAGES * $25.95 MERCHANTS OF IMMORTALITY: CHASING THE DREAM OF HUMAN LIFE EXTENSION BY STEPHEN S. HALL. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN * 439 PAGES * $25.00 TO SEE...

The religious wars.(The Last Word)
December 1, 2003... The outcome of the 2004 presidential election will depend partly on what happens in Iraq and to the U.S. economy between now and election day. But it will also turn on the religious wars--the intensifying battles over gay marriage, abortion,...