The American Prospect articles from January 2006

The American Prospect archives from January 2006

Starting over.(PROSPECTS)(Bush will use the State of the Union address to try to relaunch his presidency)
January 1, 2006... IN HIS STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS IN JANUARY, George W. Bush is widely expected to try to relaunch his presidency. That he needs a new start is a reflection of just how badly his second term has gone, even in the eyes of conservatives. His...

Poor, Richard.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... IT WOULD BE EASY TO CHALLENGE Richard Parker's review of my America Beyond Capitalism for its dismissive tone and careless errors ["Back to the Future," December 2005]. For instance, contrary to Parker's claim that the book's report on...

The non-elites.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... I ENJOYED AND FOLLOWED the reasoning of Linda Hirshman's article ["Homeward Bound"] in your December issue. She is right that society and the business world seem inclined to let elite women "choose" the second shift of working at raising...

Spooky stuff.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2006... ROBERT DREYFUSS' EXCELLENT and depressing piece on the damage wrought by Porter Goss at the CIA ["The Yes-Man," December] leaves one's head as thoroughly spun as Linda Blair's in The Exorcist. For those of us used to viewing skeptically both...

A few changes.(Editorial)
January 1, 2006... MEET OUR NEW COLUMNIST: Eight years ago, when Mark Schmitt applied for a marriage license, the clerk asked his occupation. At the time, he worked for George Soros' Open Society Institute. Resisting the title "foundation executive" on a document...

Alito's excuses.(Up Front)(Samuel Alito)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2006... WITH THE DISCOVERY OF AN ENTIRE ARSENAL OF smoking guns documenting Judge Samuel Alito's fervent opposition to abortion fights, the media haven't really looked into the Supreme Court nominee's other questionable attributes. Which means we may...

Help wanted.(Up Front)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... It comes as no surprise that morale at the White House is not at its highest these days. Once upon a time, 1600 was inundated with resumes from eager potential recruits, but in early December the administration had to resort to an unusual mass...

The play's the thing.(Up Front)
January 1, 2006... The funniest e-mail we've received recently took us to tinyrevolution.com, where we found a brilliant work by one Jonathan Sehwarz entitled, 'A Short Play Starring Christopher Hitchens." The play, consisting of nine lines of dialogue,...

Spun silver.(Up Front)
January 1, 2006... In a December 4 interview in The New York Times Magazine, actor and "9-11 Republican" Ron Silver described "kibbitzing" with President Bush at the Kennedy Center honors: "He is really a likable guy. At one point he said: 'You're a good man,...

Hey, it's a compliment.(Up Front)(Steve King blocks Democratic measure to name post office after community activist Maudelle Shirek)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... Congressman Steve King, reliably crazy Republican of Iowa, led a successful surprise move earlier this fall to block a Democratic measure naming a Berkeley post office after 94-year-old community activist Maudelle Shirek, whom King alleged had...

The question: what should George W. Bush's New Year's resolution be?(Up Front)
January 1, 2006... "I will drop privatization and spend far more time trying to improve major league baseball, a subject about which I am genuinely knowledgeable and have sound views." --EJ Dionne, Washington Post columnist "I resolve to install a...

One-industry town.(Up Front)(homeless man's views on Bush's policies)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... "You know what the Democrats' problem is? They're trying to be the party, of the everyman, so they don't appeal enough to the upper crust. "The thing about Bush, man, is he's slick. You gotta give that to him. The man is slick. He attacked...

Ba-da-bing.(Up Front)
January 1, 2006... As spoken by a Democratic member of Congress at a recent party: "We now think it's pretty clear that Dick Cheney lied to Congress. This, of course, is an impeachable offense. But if we impeach Cheney, then Bush becomes president."

Works every week.(Up Front)(all-purpose headlines for the output of columnists)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... David Broder's December 1 column was headlined 'A Pox on Both Parties." As this could have been the headline of every third David Broder column since about 1981, it spurred us to think of all-purpose headlines for the output of other...

Cold "war".(Up Front)(John Gibson's book, "The War on. Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought")(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... FOX News host John Gibson and his network colleagues spent the season relentlessly flogging his book, The War on. Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought. So what do they have to show for it, among a...

Did he serve snacks?(Up Front)(Farid Ghadry seeks advice from Ahmed Chalabi)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... Some hardliners, impressed with the great success of our Iraq adventure, are still pushing the Bush administration to turn its attention to Syria. And so, into town in early December strolled Farid Ghadry, the head of the Syrian Reform Party....

Derb dish.(Up Front)(John Derbyshire's views on female attractiveness)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... John Derbyshire is a National Review Online columnist who, while frequently scribbling away on matters of import, remains perhaps best known for writing a coarse attack on Chelsea Clinton back in 2001 ("I Hate Chelsea Clinton"). Similar...

Our kind of gals.(Up Front)(Didi Goldmark gets Bush to acknowledge that Iraqis have died)(Brief article)
January 1, 2006... All hail Didi Goldmark of New Hope, Pennsylvania, who accomplished what no member of the White House press corps--despite their dozens of opportunities to ask the question in the past few months--has managed to pulled off: She got George W....

When liberals must conserve.(THE OUT YEARS)(Democrats need to restore conservative values)(Column)
January 1, 2006... "WE NEED A MESSAGE." "WE NEED A PHILOSOPHY." "We need a simple statement of what we believe, just like the right has." No meeting of progressives lasts long before these sentiments are expressed. Sometimes a committee will be assigned to frame...

Campaigns are destiny.(COMMENT)(Bush's low approval ratings are a result of the negative type of campaign he chose to run)
January 1, 2006... AS GEORGE W. BUSH GROWS ACCUSTOMED TO JOB approval ratings in the middle 30's, the number of explanations for his travails seems to increase by the day. In this case it's not success, but failure that has a thousand fathers: the bungling of...

Calendar whirl: new Hampshire loses pride of place. But what will change accomplish?(THE DEMOCRATS)(Democratic National Committee's (DNC) Commission on Presidential Nomination Timing and Scheduling)
January 1, 2006... THEY MAY BE A BIT RUSTY AT WINNING presidential elections, but Democrats haven't lost an ounce of their storied devotion to mucking with party procedures. On December 10, assorted party bigwigs assembled in a cavernous ballroom at the Hyatt...

Miller's tale: how one effective and largely unsung congressman beat the president.(CAPITOL HILL)(George Miller invoked National Emergency Act to force Bush to reverse course on suspending the Davis-Bacon Act in wake of Hurricane Katrina devastation)(Biography)
January 1, 2006... IN A YEAR MARKED BY DEMOCRATS' increasingly audacious push-back against Republicans, one move stood out for its legislative moxie and for the very public defeat it dealt the president. Nine days after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf,...

Mind the gap: democrats' policy disputes on Iraq are tiny. Political disputes are not.(IRAQ)
January 1, 2006... IT TAKES A UNIQUE SORT OF ADMINISTRATION to decide that the reason its almost three-year-old war shows no signs of concluding successfully is that the president hasn't given enough speeches yet. But on the morning of November 30, the...

Property wrongs: in Kelo's wake, a raft of anti-regulatory initiatives from the right.(THE LAW)(Kelo v. New London)
January 1, 2006... ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT Supreme Court rulings of the last few years was not about church-state issues, affirmative action, or even the war on terrorism. It was about real estate--15 houses located in a forlorn part of southeastern Connecticut...

Slightly un-orthodox: silent no longer: religious gay men and lesbians start speaking out.(ISRAEL)
January 1, 2006... TOVA ROSENBERG (NOT HER REAL name) lives in Rosh Pina, a little hippie town in the Galilee region of Israel that overlooks the Hula Valley. She is pretty in an unadorned way--her long red hair is cut in a blunt straight style, her glasses are...

Tax breakup: conservative think-tankers face an unexpected opponent: employers.(HEALTH CARE)
January 1, 2006... EMPLOYERS FACE NEW OPPOSITION in their efforts to rein in healthcare spending, and it's not coming from the employees whom they are forcing to foot more of the bill. Instead, employers are at odds with their allies in the conservative...

The arsonist: in his first six months at the UN, John Bolton has offended allies, blocked crucial negotiations, undermined the Secretary of State--and harmed U.S. interests. We expected bad; we didn't expect this bad.(Cover Story)(Biography)
January 1, 2006... THERE IS AN EXCELLENT COFFEE SHOP IN THE basement of the United Nations building in New York. The espresso is served bitter and strong, Italian style. Sandwiches can be bought on hard French baguettes, and the pastries are always fresh....

Security for sale: the Department of Homeland Security has a section on its Web site labeled "Open for Business." It certainly is.
January 1, 2006... AMID THE POLITICAL AND CULTURAL UPHEAVAL that followed the September 11 terror attacks, Americans were warned repeatedly that everything would be different because a vulnerable nation could no longer afford to remain complacent, careless, and...

Cant and recant: Milton Friedman's latest research on the Federal Reserve challenges key assumptions of a very prominent economist: Milton Friedman.
January 1, 2006... MORE THAN ANY OTHER INDIVIDUAL, MILTON Friedman was the intellectual inspiration of the conservative counterrevolution against activist government as an engine of economic efficiency and social justice. In his scholarly work contending that...

It's what we do: the administration says the terrorists hate us for who we are. But that isn't what the terrorists say--or what the record shows.
January 1, 2006... GEORGE W. BUSH, IN HIS GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR, has specifically avoided the clash of civilizations hypothesis, holding that the United States is not waging a war against the religion of Islam. However, the president has backed into the hypothesis...

The other Bryan: William Jennings Bryan, reactionary boob? That's one story. But there is much else to admire--and emulate.(Biography)
January 1, 2006... IMAGINE THE IDEAL DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT. He's twice won election in Nebraska, one of the reddest of states, and is just as popular across the South and Midwest. He's a charismatic, energetic orator. He's also a stalwart progressive...

All the president's friends: Miller's gone, and Woodward is (voila!) forgiven. And the editors of our leading newspapers are clueless about the respect they've lost.(MEDIA)(Judy Miller and Bob Woodward cases)
January 1, 2006... "LIKE MOST PEOPLE AT THE TIMES," New York Times executive editor Bill Keller told a Princeton gathering on November 14, "I am suffering from a serious case of Judy Miller fatigue." Aren't we all? But before we succumb, a deeper look would be...

Reality play: Steven Soderbergh's Bubble violates every commercial code by focusing its lens on the crisis facing workers in rustbelt America.(FILM)(Movie review)
January 1, 2006... "WE ARE NOT CONCERNED WITH the very poor," wrote E.M. Forster in a famous passage from Howards End. "They are unthinkable, and only to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are...

Realism and reality.(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... THE CASE FOR GOLIATH: HOW AMERICA ACTS AS THE WORLD'S GOVERNMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY BY MICHAEL MANDELBAUM Public Affairs, 320 pages, $26.00 MICHAEL MANDELBAUM'S Latest book is a superficial symptom of a grave, even potentially deadly...

Seven meals from murder.(The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... THE MORAL CONSEQUENCES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH BY BENJAMIN M. FRIEDMAN Knopf, 592 pages, $35.00 ONCE UPON A TIME I TOOK AN undergraduate course in the history of economic thought. The assigned text was a slim little volume whose author...

Reforming for quality.(Your Money or Your Life)(The Health Care Mess)(Book Review)
January 1, 2006... YOUR MONEY OR YOUR LIFE BY DAVID CUTLER Oxford University Press, 158 pages, $13.95 THE HEALTH CARE MESS BY RASHI FEIN AND JULIUS RICHMOND Harvard University Press, 320 pages, $26.95 IF SOCIAL SECURITY IS THE THIRD rail of American...

Why WWI?(OFF TOPIC)(pro-war sentiment)
January 1, 2006... THE MOMENT IT DAWNED ON ME THAT THERE might be something to this Internet fad, I remember, was on a day in 1998 when I thought to run an eBay search with the word, "Ypres." Within seconds I was awash in artifacts--aerial photographs, vases made...