The American Prospect articles from December 2006

The American Prospect archives from December 2006

The people, yes.(World Trade Organization)
December 1, 2006... AS OUR COVER PACKAGE OF ARTICLES SUGGESTS, the Democrats triumphed in 2006 not just because of Iraq and Republican blunders running the gamut from Katrina to macaca, but because Democrats at last ran as economic populists. Although the economy...

Not just retirement.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2006... OLD AGE HAS ITS ADVANTAGES. Three paragraphs in Ann Crittenden's book review entitled "Do This for Mom" [October 2006] dealing with Social Security are wrong. It is only divorced spouses who have to have been married for 10 years before they...

What opposition?(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
December 1, 2006... BRUCE ACKERMAN AND Todd Gitlin call Tony Judt's claim ["We Answer to the Name of Liberals," November] that liberals have "acquiesced in President Bush's catastrophic foreign policy," "nonsense on stilts." Supposedly, they and their numerous...

Correction.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Correction notice)
December 1, 2006... In our November issue, "A Republic, If We Can Build It" was written by Richard M. Valelly and not Richard N. Valelly. We apologize for the error.

The odd couple.(Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... THE 110TH SENATE WILL BE COMPRISED OF 49 REPUBLICANS, 49 Democrats, and two Independents--more specifically, two Jewish men in their mid-60s from New England states who will caucus with the Democrats but hold out the possibility of breaking...

Accentuate the negative.(Up Front)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... In the initial round of election post-mortems, one conservative after another offered up a humorous (if poignant) explanation for the GOP's crushing losses: the party's abandonment of rigid rightwing orthodoxy regarding government spending....

Whatta mandate.(George W. Bush's presidency )(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... Though George W. Bush's presidency should be said to have exploded the notion that electoral "mandates" exert a meaningful effect on political officials' behavior, a look at the aggregate vote totals for November's midterms is still...

The terrorist vote: crucial.(Fox News Network L.L.C. reports on George W. Bush)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... The American people spoke on November 7, and the ballots they cast sent a decisive message of aid and comfort to Osama bin Laden. As George W. Bush had told supporters just days before the election, "However they put it, the Democrat approach...

The question: did this election augur a permanent structural realignment of the electorate?(Up Front)
December 1, 2006... "Yes. The decades-spanning Southernization of the GOP has finally wrought its complement: consolidation of Democratic control in the North." --Jules Max, Junior Deputy Editor, The American Prospect "I tend to blanch at such overly...

Honest about lying.(George W.Bush elections)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... At the president's November 8 press conference, a reporter cited the "America loses" line and asked the president what had changed to prompt his new calls for engaging constructively with the Democrats. "What's changed today is the election is...

Noted without comment.(Up Front)
December 1, 2006... For the record: On October 18, a reporter in Iowa had asked John McCain what his reaction would be if Democrats took over the Senate. "I think I'd just commit suicide. I don't want to face that eventuality because I don't think it's going to...

Influence-peddling.(Up Front)
December 1, 2006... There were other elections of note in November. For example, before The Atlantic released its "100 Most Influential Americans" cover story, it conducted an online poll to see how some of the candidates ranked among readers. Ronald Reagan came...

Unchecked, unbalanced.(United States. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit)
December 1, 2006... Before the midterm elections, Congress helpfully provided official backing for the administration's then still-rogue approach to holding, trying, and prosecuting terror detainees. The congressional sanction has evidently put the wind back in...

Rush Limbaugh, still liberated.(PARODY)(Brief article)
December 1, 2006... "Now I'm liberated from having to constantly come in here every day and try to buck up a bunch of people who don't deserve it, to try to carry the water and make excuses for people who don't deserve it."--Rush Limbaugh, November 8, 2006 ...

The reverse K Street Project.(THE OUT YEARS)
December 1, 2006... IN NOVELS, FILMS, OR REAL LIFE, THERE'S REALLY only one Washington story: Newcomer comes to town, full of idealism and ready to change the country, but soon encounters the permanent government that defines what you can't do and whom you have to...

Lessons for Democrats.
December 1, 2006... THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON TO BE LEARNED BY Democrats from recent events in both the real and political worlds is that economic growth alone is not enough. Expansion of gross domestic product is a good thing, but 4 percent annual growth does not...

Strategic two-fers: how the Democrats can do good and help their friends.
December 1, 2006... JUST A FEW YEARS AGO, LIBERALS were cowering before Karl Rove's plans to permanently marginalize the Democratic Party and construct an enduring Republican majority. With Rove's reputation at an apex and the hapless Democrats still reeling from...

While thousands die: the U.N. force to secure Darfur from genocide hasn't budged an inch.(AFRICA)
December 1, 2006... THIS AUGUST, THE UNITED NATIONS Security Council authorized a major force--more than 22,000 strong--to deploy to Darfur. Under the Security Council's mandate, the U.N. troops would take over Darfur's defense from the undersized and ill-equipped...

Gettysburg, again: four decades after the South started going Republican, its influence is receding as the North becomes more Democratic. (Which is why the Democrats aren't moving right.).(2006 ELECTION SPECIAL)
December 1, 2006... THE REVOLUTION IS OVER. After 12 years of GOP control of both chambers of Congress and a majority of American governors' offices, the Republican era has finally imploded. And while it was accelerated by self-inflicted wounds from bribery...

It wasn't just Iraq: while the economy vexed the Republicans, some old-fashioned populism helped the Democrats. How can the Democrats build on their success for 2008 and beyond?(2006 ELECTION SPECIAL)
December 1, 2006... JUST ABOUT EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS THE importance of Iraq to the Democrats' success in the 2006 midterm elections. Far fewer, we suspect, understand that the Democrats owe a good chunk of their 2006 success to an issue that has historically been...

The populist persuasion: the incoming Senate Democrats may differ on cultural issues, but they all like unions and alternative energy, and can't stand drug companies and free trade.(2006 ELECTION SPECIAL)(Column)
December 1, 2006... NEARLY FOUR DECADES AFTER IT HAPPENED, the assassination of Robert Kennedy still presents us with the greatest might-have-been of the past half-century of American politics. In the months before his murder, campaigning across the country in...

Gut instincts: in 2006, the Democrats belatedly learned to connect with voters emotionally. A little political nerve--and understanding of voters' neurons--goes a long way.(2006 ELECTION SPECIAL)
December 1, 2006... IN POLITICS, WE TEND TO THINK IN TERMS OF issues and policies. And as the dust begins to settle on the midterm elections, pollsters and pundits have begun to settle on the meaning of the elections: "Voters were angry about Iraq," or "Voters...

Permission to stand down: by mid-March, the Baker-Hamilton Commission will declare withdrawal from Iraq a respectable option. That will be a disaster for Republicans, and great news for Democrats eyeing the White House.(APPRAISAL)(Column)
December 1, 2006... SOMETIME BETWEEN NOW AND MARCH 15, 2007, everything you know about the Iraq debate will change. It won't be because of any dramatic shift in the fortunes of a disastrous war: If current trends continue, the five coming months offer the...

Uncivil libertarians: civil war rages at the ACLU, as the old executive director attacks the new one. It's all about first principles. Or wartime exigencies. Or stresses of growth. Or generational change. Or Oedipal tensions. Or quarrelsome DNA. Or all of the above.(REPORT)
December 1, 2006... Ira Glasser is a fighter. He's been defending freedom of speech, the right to privacy, and the right to due process for more than 30 years through his work with the American Civil Liberties Union, including 23 years as the head of the...

In but not of Israel: right-wing Israeli Jews want to redraw borders to shift Israeli Arabs into Palestine. But the Israeli Arabs--even the Islamists--want to stay.(REPORT)
December 1, 2006... FIVE DAYS INTO ISRAEL'S WAR WITH HEZBOLLAH, I VISITED THE UMM EL-FAHM Gallery in the town whose name it bore. Umm El-Fahm, the largest Muslim community in Israel, with a population of 43,000, anchors the largely Arab Triangle area on the...

Times out of joint: in Los Angeles, profiteers and bean counters conspire to drag down a great American newspaper. Can local gazillionaires save it?(MEDIA)
December 1, 2006... LAST SUMMER, I MADE THE MISTAKE of asking a Los Angeles Times reporter how he felt about life in a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tribune Company. He made a sour face and said he was worried about his pension. Dinner was ruined for a while. ...

Heroes, weren't they?(The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... THE RACE BEAT: THE PRESS, THE CIVIL RIGHTS STRUGGLE, AND THE AWAKENING OF A NATION BY GENE ROBERTS AND HANK KLIBANOFF Knopf, 518 pages, $30.00. ON FEBRUARY 6, 1956, PETER Kihss of The New York Times was covering the enrollment of the first...

The good in good politics.(The Moral Center)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... THE MORAL CENTER BY DAVID CALLAHAN Harcourt, 260 pages, $24.00 EVER SINCE THE 2004 EXIT POLLS, progressives have been puzzling over how to reclaim so-called values voters. Or, to put the problem another way, how can Democrats satisfy...

Restraining the judges.(The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America)(Book review)
December 1, 2006... THE MOST DEMOCRATIC BRANCH: HOW THE COURTS SERVE AMERICA BY JEFFREY ROSEN Oxford University Press, 256 pages, $25.00 WORRIED ABOUT STEM-CELL research? Concerned about education, affirmative action, gay marriage, environmental quality, and...

Vicca with a W.(OFF TOPIC)(jewish music)(Column)
December 1, 2006... WHEN I TALK TO MYSELF, I SOUND LIKE AN OLD Jew. This is not because I am all too quickly actually becoming an old Jew, mind you. It's that the voice I use to argue with and amuse myself is my grandparents--all of them Russian Jews who came to...