The American Prospect articles from January 2003

The American Prospect archives from January 2003

Post-Gore Democrats. (Comment).
January 13, 2003... GORE IS GONE, AND THE RACE for the Democratic nomination in 2004 is so wide open, says one Democratic pollster, "The plausibility of why-not-me? candidacies has just exploded." This isn't 1992, when Mario Cuomo's decision not to run failed...

Having it both ways on race. (Comment).
January 13, 2003... THE TRENT LOTT AFFAIR REMINDS us of the American capacity for mass denial, particularly where race is concerned. Republican racism, certainly, is an open secret. It isn't limited to good-old-boy senators from Mississippi or South Carolina who...

Tinker, banker, neocon, spy. (Correspondence).(Letter to the Editor)
January 13, 2003... I WAS DISAPPOINTED THAT Robert Dreyfuss simply rehashed the arguments of the status quo faction in his article on Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress (INC), ["Tinker, Banker, Neocon, Spy," Nov. 18, 2002]. He neglected to mention the...

Herrera's winning hand. (Correspondence).(Letter to the Editor)
January 13, 2003... JAMES B. GOODNO'S RECENT article, "Herrera's Winning Hand: A new kind of Nevada calls for a new kind of Democrat" [Nov. 18], did a disservice to the Prospect and to liberalism generally. Herrera lost by 57 percent to 38 percent in a district...

The cancel of Trent. (Devil In The Details).(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... NOTHING, WITH THE EXCEPTION of Trent Lott's racism, should he taken at face value in the controversy that began with Lott's disastrous stroll down a whites-only memory lane. His conservative critics have been frying other fish. And many Capitol...

Trent on mixing. (Devil In The Details).(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... IN HIS DEC. 13 NEWS CONFERENCE, Lott referred in passing to his having recently addressed "mixed audiences"--a phrase we'd long thought locked away in a dictionary of antique euphemisms. But the Lott affair brought to the surface all the...

In the Mississippi mud. (Devil In The Details).(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... AND WHAT GIVES WITH Lott's hero worship of Jefferson Davis? In the aftermath of the Civil War--which in the South lasted for only about the first no years after Appomattox--the great heroes of the Lost Cause were the South's military leaders,...

The bench tilts. (Devil In The Details).(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... DO REPUBLICAN JUDGES have any sense of honor at all? First, the all-power-to-the-states gang of five on the Supreme Court overthrows the sovereignty of Florida courts over Florida law to ensure the election of George W. Bush--noting in...

One more patriot besmirched. (Devil In The Details).(Brief Article)
January 13, 2003... Speaking of one-man disaster areas, we were surfing the Web when we came across ThePetitionSite.com, which offers all good Americans the chance to sign petitions for various causes, including one requesting a presidential pardon for G. Gordon...

Some Mideast realism, please: the war on terrorism hinges on renewing the peace process. (Below The Beltway).
January 13, 2003... AS GEORGE KENNAN OBSERVED 50 years ago in American Diplomacy, American foreign policy has been periodically affected by bouts of evangelical idealism, which date from the country's Puritan founding and which have led Americans to seek to...

House rules: Nancy Pelosi, Tom DeLay and the media's double standard. (Gazette).
January 13, 2003... IT WAS HARDLY A SURPRISE THAT Republicans didn't waste any time calling Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) names once Democrats elected her House minority leader. Wesley Pruden, the editor-in-chief of The Washington Times, named her the Democrats'...

States of decline: does Bush care about the Republican governors? (Gazette).
January 13, 2003... EIGHT YEARS AGO, CONNECTICUT'S economy was in decline," the campaign ad flashed across television screens last spring. "Thousands of jobs lost. Taxes going up. Education failing. Governor John Rowland set out to change all that and today the...

The DLC flunks politics 101: why Democrats need their base--as well as swing voters. (Gazette).(Democratic Leadership Council )
January 13, 2003... DEMOCRATS HAVE A PENCHANT for circular firing squads, particularly in the wake of electoral defeat. Once more, a first salvo has come from the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which has made its name sniping at other Democrats. In a...

Alien nation: the Justice Department takes on immigrants, er, terrorists. (Gazette).
January 13, 2003... IN THE MIDST OF THE WASHINGTON-AREA sniper attacks last fall, Montgomery County (Md.) Police Chief Charles Moose was forced to make an unusual televised appeal to immigrants. "Perhaps some of our immigrant community members feel like there...

Westward ho! How Democrats are connecting in a rural, Republican region. (Gazette).
January 13, 2003... PAT WILLIAMS WAS HAPPY to get back to Montana. "It was like going to an island of victory to be in Helena," says the former nine-term member of Congress. A Democratic progressive, Williams witnessed the election-day desperation of his party in...

New gang, old myths: and things to look for in the coming tax debate. (The Taxonomist).
January 13, 2003... WHEN GEORGE W. BUSH HIRED A NEW ECONOMIC TEAM in early December, the press speculated that the change might bring a glimmer of fiscal sanity to the administration's economic policies. Don't bet on it. As Stephen Moore of the anti-tax,...

Gored by the media bull: why the past would have been prologue for Al in 2004.
January 13, 2003... WE MAY NEVER KNOW THE REAL REASON AL Gore opted to bow out of the presidential race last month. In his interview announcing this decision on 60 Minutes, the former vice president said he wanted the 2004 race to be about the future, not the...

Corporate control of North America: and how to bring NAFTA under popular governance.
January 13, 2003... THE BUSINESS INTERESTS THAT PROMOTED THE North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have gotten their money's worth. Since the agreement went into effect in January 1994, American and Canadian corporations have moved production and jobs south...

The high and the mighty: Bush's national-security strategy and the new American hubris.
January 13, 2003... EVERY NATION SEES ITSELF AS BEING IN SOME WAY exceptional. Only the United States, though, has tried to develop foreign policies that reflect its exceptionalism. While other countries are content--or obliged--to practice a balance-of-power...

And the winner is ... unclear. Nevertheless, here's a look at the year in film. (The Critics Film).
January 13, 2003... ONE LEAF FIBRILLATING ON an otherwise naked bough, and a wind that seems to stain the lungs with ice: It's that time of year, so let's start rounding it up, let's start making our lists. Best films of 2002? Surveying the movie landscape of...

Surprise, surprise! Two other items of interest.
January 13, 2003... BEST PERFORMANCE BY A RAP STAR It's not Eminem in 8 Mile. No, the finest exhibition of hip-hop thespianism came courtesy of Sean "P. Diddy" Combs in Marc Forster's turbulent, clouded Monster's Ball. Combs plays Lawrence Musgrove, a...

Better living through fudbol: how nation building fares in Bosnia after September 11. (Civics).
January 13, 2003... WHEN I ARRIVED IN Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, last August, everyone was buzzing about the upcoming soccer match between local club Zeljeznicar and the British team Newcastle United. No one really expected the Bosnians to...

Patriotism in black and white.(3 books on patriotism and race)(Book Review)
January 13, 2003... Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism By Roger Wilkins. Beacon Press, 176 pages, $14.00 Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War North By Melinda Lawson. University Press of...