The American Prospect articles from February 2003

The American Prospect archives from February 2003

Never mind. (Comment).(Bill Richardson, North Korea and George W. Bush's administration)
February 1, 2003... OF THE MOST ASTONishing recent events is the spectacle of Bill Richardson, formerly Bill Clinton's ambassador to the United Nations, literally mediating between the Bush administration and the North Koreans. Even weirder is how this anomalous...

The rove machine rolls on. (Comment).(Karl Rove)
February 1, 2003... IT'S NO ACCIDENT THAT KARL ROVE was one of Richard Nixon's moles. Using techniques developed by his first mentor, dirty-tricks strategist Donald Segretti, Rove infiltrated Democratic organizations on behalf of Nixon's infamous 1972 campaign....

The Real Steel Deal. (Correspondence).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2003... BARRY LYNN'S ARTICLE ["The Real Steel Deal," Dec. 30, 2002] leaves the reader with the impression that the impact of the safeguard tariffs put in place by the Bush administration is much broader than is the case. Originally the tariff...

The Cult of Karl. (Correspondence).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2003... EVER SINCE KARL ROVE first confessed his adoration of William McKinley, commentators have been echoing the historical parallel between the administrations of McKinley and George W. Bush. Most recently is Harold Meyerson, who mentions Rove as a...

War and Leaks. (Correspondence).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2003... THE GRATUITOUS, SELF-congratulatory writing of Bob Woodward was a huge disappointment by any measure of professionalism. As a trained journalist living outside of the trade on a small island, I've come to think being "out of touch" is a...

The Other War. (Correspondence).(Letter to the Editor)
February 1, 2003... PLEASE CONVEY MY THANKS to Gary Hart for his article, "The Other War" [Dec. 16], and for speaking up. My attempts to argue with the senators and congressional representatives of Washington state that the Congress must insist on its...

Frist among equals no more. (Devil In The Details).(Bill Frist)
February 1, 2003... THE DOCTOR IS IN. SENATE Majority Leader Bill Frist has now hung his shingle on the door to his Capitol office, and it reads, "William H. Frist, M.D." Great PR, though not something that other GOP congressional leaders can readily adapt to...

Screening on the cheap. (Devil In The Details).(airport security screeners)
February 1, 2003... IT'S RISKY UP THERE, ON the front lines of the war against terrorism. You work long hours under constant pressure not to make a single mistake, not to let a single weapon or potential weapon escape your notice, not to permit a single shady...

Keep a straight face. (Devil In The Details).(North Korea)(Brief Article)
February 1, 2003... FROM A JAN. 7 NEW YORK Times article on the Bush administration's difficulties in handling the Korean crisis: "`Part of the reason that we don't want to get North Korea's problems in front of the [United Nations] Security Council too quickly,'...

The labor department theory of value.
February 1, 2003... This administration's policies on anything that even touches workers run from the ridiculous to the ridiculous. Consider its Advisory Committee on Trade Policy, which Bush unveiled back on Dec. 9. The 32-member panel boasts two academics, one...

New Year, new fear: Republicans play to the base while everyone else suffers. (Below The Beltway).
February 1, 2003... SHORTLY AFTER THE REPUBLICAN sweep of Congress in November, President Bush said he looked forward to working with lawmakers to "make our country a better and more compassionate place," And when Sen. Bill Frist was elected majority leader in...

Trading with a low-wage tiger: what happens to everyone else when China sucks up so much of the world's economic growth? (Gazette).
February 1, 2003... WHEN ROBERT MAO describes the fantastic manufacturing opportunities his company sees in China, he speaks with mixed feelings. "For the first time in the modern era," he marvels, "we have an inexhaustible reservoir of good, trainable labor." But...

The ABCs of smallpox: which methods of treatment make sense and why. (Gazette).
February 1, 2003... MEDICINE DEPENDS ON probability: the probability of a disease occurring, the likelihood that it will spread or can be prevented, the odds of a side effect resulting from a tool of treatment or prevention. A risk-benefit analysis evaluates the...

A tale of two cities: Davos and Porto Alegre square off on the global economy. (Gazette).(World Economic Forum, Switzerland; World Social Forum, Brazil)
February 1, 2003... TWO POLITICAL MOVEMENTS representing distinct visions of the global economy will hold their annual conventions the last week of January. The World Economic Forum--an organization of some 1,000 multinational corporations--will meet in Davos, a...

Who's right now? Europe's far-right resurgence fizzles out. (Gazette).
February 1, 2003... SEVERAL MONTHS AGO, AMERICAN journals--mainstream and progressive both--were filled with alarm about the rise of the far right in Europe. But recent election results in Germany, Sweden, Austria and elsewhere make clear that the panic button was...

A charged atmosphere: Mexican unions block Fox's campaign to privatize electricity. (Gazette).(Vincente Fox)
February 1, 2003... IF THE PROPOSALS FOR PRIVATIZING Mexico's nationalized electrical system bear an eerie resemblance to California's disastrous experiment in deregulation, it should come as no surprise. The proposals, after all, share some of the same authors....

Evildoer: George W. Bush just can't stop pushing more harmful tax cuts for the rich. (The Taxonomist).
February 1, 2003... IF, LIKE OUR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT, YOU strongly believe that cutting taxes leads to higher tax revenues, the past year and a half must have been very disappointing. Despite the huge tax cut enacted in the spring of 2001, personal...

Let's get ready to rumble! Al Sharpton gears up to take on the Dems.
February 1, 2003... THE HOUSE OF JUSTICE ON MADISON AVENUE between 124th and 125th streets in New York City may not look like the epicenter of a movement that could wreak havoc within the Democratic Party. The unremarkable, somewhat dilapidated edifice sits on a...

Where are the hawks on North Korea? Faced with a real crisis, Bush does nothing.(George W. Bush)
February 1, 2003... DOES GEORGE W. BUSH ACTUALLY BELIEVE HIS own foreign-policy pronouncements? A year ago he made North Korea a charter member of the "axis of evil" and vowed not to "permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most...

John Zogby's creative polls: and a closer look at his methods.
February 1, 2003... IN A RECENT NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE COVER STORY about animal rights, journalist Michael Pollan reported that 51 percent of Americans believe that "primates are entitled to the same rights as human children." It was a surprising finding, but one...

Tilting on the axis (of evil): Iran's puzzling relationship with the United States--and itself.
February 1, 2003... I NEVER THOUGHT I'D HEAR "HOTEL CALIFORNIA" IN the bleak desert landscape of Iran. Don Henley's tale of a bad trip was a big hit with our guide, Reza, however, and he'd turn up the volume whenever the song looped around on his tape player....

Dr. Frist to the rescue: how not to fix Medicare.(Bill Frist)
February 1, 2003... SEN. BILL FRIST (R-TENN., WHOM THE NEW YORK Times has taken to calling Dr. Frist), the Senate majority leader and President Bush's new fair-haired boy, wants to fix Medicare. This is the same Bill Frist whose father founded a for-profit...

The write stuff: from cult to culture, Dave Eggers and Co. are taking their idealism to the streets.
February 1, 2003... THERE IS A LONG, SLOW LINE. THE QUEUE OF narrow-shouldered boys in thrift-store shirts and black-tighted girls with Emily Dickinson stares is blocking aisles in a Washington bookstore. The faithful look to be just out of college or just past...

Scorsese's low score: gangs of New York is mere filmmaking, not mythmaking.(Martin Scorsese)
February 1, 2003... LET US HEARKEN BACK TO A time when gangs ruled the world. Gangs sizing each other up, puffed with pride, wagging their weaponry, painstakingly stylized in diction and dress. There were the Bowery Boys and the Forty Thieves, the Plug Uglies and...

We disport. We deride: it's all attitude, all the time at FOX News. (Media).
February 1, 2003... FOX NEWS ALERT," SCREAMS the screen, in red. "FOX NEWS LEARNS OF POSSIBLE THREAT TO NY HARBOR." DO we have your attention now? Who cares if FOX's reporter goes on to say that the New Year's Eve threat is "uncorroborated, noncredible [sic] and...

The new facts of life.(Book Review)
February 1, 2003... The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature By Steven Pinker. Viking Press, 509 pages, $27.95 Darwinian Politics: The Evolutionary Origin of Freedom By Paul H. Rubin. Rutgers University Press, 256 pages, $25.00 AMONG THE...