The American Prospect articles from June 2007

The American Prospect archives from June 2007

Tax and spend.(PROSPECTS)
June 1, 2007... A HALLMARK OF THE BUSH ERA HAS BEEN THE SYSTEMATIC assault on government. The relentless removal of public dollars has not only crippled program after program, but the politics of permanent deficit has actually impaired the Democratic...

Not just Southern.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2007... AS HAROLD MEYERSON points out, ["Wal-Mart Comes North," April 2007] the resistance encountered by the big retailer in Chicago, Los Angeles, and other metropolitan regions constitutes but the latest battle waged between the low-wage, nonunion...

Creeping libertarianism.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
June 1, 2007... I WAS DISTRESSED TO READ Melvin Konner's review of Michael Sandel's book, The Case Against Perfection [May 2007]. His review does not accurately or adequately sketch Sandel's position before proceeding to denounce it. Konner misses the really...

Correction.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Correction notice)
June 1, 2007... Correction: In his column, "Is Rising Inequality Reversible?" [May 2007] Paul Starr referred to the total income of the 300,000 Americans who make up the "top 1 percent." In fact, 300,000 equals the "top 0.1 percent," or the "top tenth of the...

From the executive editor.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... THE MIDDLE EAST--BY ANY MEASURE, THE WORLD'S powder keg--was already beset by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the rise of fundamentalist Islam when the Bush administration came along to add its own distinctive touch: a disastrous war that...

Party poopers.(Up Front)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... LIBERAL BLOGGERS WAGING WAR ON WHAT THEY CALL "cocktail-weenie journalism should cheer the latest move by The New York Times. Following a heated argument at the Times table during the annual White House Correspondents Association awards dinner...

Deploying dick.(Up Front)(Dick Cheney)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... It's a tough time for the brave men and women charged with coming up with raisons d'etre for Dick Cheney. Of late, his job has narrowed to serving as bad cop in our long-distance dialog with Iran. Even as Condi Rice was trying to persuade the...

No there there.(Up Front)(Iraqui legislators)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... Remember the line in Hitchcock's North by Northwest when the farmer notes the peculiarity of the crop-duster dusting where there aren't any crops? That's nothing, it turns out, compared to nation building where there isn't any nation....

Offshoring offshorers.(Up Front)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... For auto workers who have spent years seething at arrogant newspaper editorialists who celebrated the offshoring of factory jobs, help--no, make that revenge--may be on the way. The 2-year-old Web site pasadenanow.com--a mom-and-pop operation...

Classy ballparks.(Up Front)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... When Prospect Executive Editor Harold Meyerson was a lad, spending his youth in Dodger Stadium to observe the miracle of Sandy Koufax's pitching, tickets came in three categories-box seats, bleachers, and general admission. The Dodgers have...

The question: what should Paul Wolfowitz's next job be?(Up Front)(Quotation)(Brief article)
June 1, 2007... "After seeing what he did in Iraq and the World Bank, he should become head of the National Republican Congress." --Eric Alterman, Columnist, The Nation "Special Counselor to President Sarkozy." --Bruce Ackerman, ...

Have you politicized your federal agency? A quick self-diagnostic test.(PARODY)
June 1, 2007... At the FDA, I have: A. Approved drugs impartially and based on rigorous tests of safety. B. Approved drugs only with testing, but drugs made by campaign contributors seem to move faster up through the pile. C. Approved drugs that...

Whose big government?(THE OUT YEARS)
June 1, 2007... THE MOST CONFUSING POLITICAL PHENOMENON OF recent times is "big-government conservatism." The lines on every graph show the same pattern: Government--whether measured by spending, the deficit, the number of employees, or earmarked...

American Jews and the Mideast.(COMMENT)
June 1, 2007... "SHALOM CHAVER" ("GOOD-BYE, FRIEND") WAS PRESIDENT Bill Clinton's memorable refrain at slain Israeli leader Yitzhak Rabin's funeral. And few things have demonstrated so clearly the profound link between the Israeli people and America as the...

A conversation with Zbigniew Brzezinski: after the failure of adventures based on fantasies, it's time for a big dose of reality in America's Mideast policy. America's most notable foreign policy realist speaks with the Prospect.(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)(Interview)
June 1, 2007... THE PREMISE OF THIS SPECIAL COLLECTION OF ARTICLES on peace in the Middle East is that all the major elements of regional conflict and cooperation are linked. These include U.S. relations with Iran, options for U.S. exit from Iraq, U.S....

To the incoming president: on Iraq it's January, 2009. A Democrat has just become president and confronts one mean conundrum: what's the best way to leave Iraq?(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)
June 1, 2007... TO: The New President FROM: The National Security Adviser DATE: January 21, 2009 ON MAY 1, 2003, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH STOOD on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln under I a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" and...

And the land was troubled for 40 years: even as the Six Day War ended, Israeli leaders said privately that the occupation of Palestine was colonial, racist, illegal, and dangerous. They were right. And still it persists.(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)
June 1, 2007... THE HILLSIDE BELOW US IS A TERRACED VINEYARD, or was until the bulldozers came. There's a sharp smell of sage and recent rain, and the steady grind of heavy machinery. It is a cold day; a Palestinian man with a black stocking cap pulled over...

Ten commandments for Mideast peace: three former peace negotiators for Israel, the U.S., and Palestine lay out a common plan that could provide the basis for an Israeli-Palestinian final settlement. All that's required is some political courage and leadership.(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)
June 1, 2007... IT HAS BARELY BEEN NOTICED, BUT THERE HAS BEEN A change for the better in the Bush administration's thinking--or at least talking--about the Middle East. For the first time in six years, Washington is putting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations...

Past failures, future possibilities: a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine cannot be achieved by Israelis and Palestinians. It requires the strong engagement of the U.S. and the international community.(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)(Viewpoint essay)
June 1, 2007... IT IS THE TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE NATURE OF THE ISRAELI" Palestinian conflict that has made it into such a protracted dispute. For it is not just a collision over territory, or a banal border dispute; it is a clash of rights and memory. The longing...

The Shia fellas: how the Bush Administration and the Neocons got into bed with Iran's agents in Iraq.(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)
June 1, 2007... BACK IN 2004, PRESIDENT BUSH WENT ON NBC'S MEET the Press to assure Americans that Iraq was not going to turn into an Islamist theocracy under the emerging Shia leadership. "They're not going to develop that," said Bush, noting that he'd...

The apprentice: Scooter Libby was a nice liberal boy until he met Paul Wolfowitz--who'd been a nice liberal boy till he met Albert Wohlstetter. A brief history of apocalyptic neoconservatism.(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)(Viewpoint essay)
June 1, 2007... "The amazing thing is that we are being taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives."--Seymour Hersh IN THE DAYS AFTER PATRICK FITZGERALD READ OUT HIS indictments of perjury and obstruction of justice against I. Lewis...

Riyadh revisions: administration policy on Saudi Arabia has lurched from an excessive embrace of the regime to an ill-informed democracy campaign. How can the U.S. and the Saudis play a more constructive role?(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)
June 1, 2007... IN JULY 2OO2, A RAND CORPORATION RESEARCH ANALYST named Laurent Murawiec gave a briefing on Saudi Arabia to the Defense Policy Board, a blue-ribbon group of former secretaries of defense, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and an assortment...

The Iran puzzle: the Islamic Republic is the most troublesome Mideast state, but has signaled its desire to deal with us. How should America respond to Iran?(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)(Viewpoint essay)
June 1, 2007... FOR NEARLY THREE DECADES, THE ENMITY BETWEEN THE United States and Iran has been an established fact of Middle East politics. At various times, both countries have attempted to transcend their animosity and arrive at mutually acceptable...

Europe and the Middle East: while Bush has done nothing to solve the Israeli-Palestinian impasse, Europe has stood idly by. It's time for the continent to assert itself.(THE MIDEAST ISSUE)(George W. Bush)
June 1, 2007... IT IS EXTREMELY UNLIKELY THAT THERE WILL BE AN EQUITABLE and lasting settlement in the Middle East without the balanced and sustained involvement and leadership of the United States. As the only superpower in a world of increasingly influential...

Guns on the brain: when it comes to gun controls, Democrats fall silent. As with many hot-button social issues, they can't figure out how to reach people's emotions. Here's how they can regain their moral compass--and their power of speech.
June 1, 2007... ON APRIL 16, SEUNG-HUI CHO, A SENIOR AT Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia, carried two semiautomatic pistols onto campus and killed 32 people. It was the deadliest shooting in modern American history. The following week, a...

Hollywood values save America! From Mel Gibson to Ann Coulter to Don Imus, the backlash against celebrity bigots has rolled eastward.(MEDIA)
June 1, 2007... AFTER RADIO SHOCK JOCK DON Imus was forced off the air for comments no worse than many he'd made over the past 35 years, his longtime sidekick, Bernard McGuirk, wondered where along the way the rules had changed. The answer was probably Malibu,...

The urban future that failed.(BOOKS)(FROM A CAUSE TO A STYLE: MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE'S ENCOUNTER WITH THE AMERICAN CITY)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... FROM A CAUSE TO A STYLE: MODERNIST ARCHITECTURE'S ENCOUNTER WITH THE AMERICAN CITY BY NATHAN GLAZER Princeton University Press, 292 pages, $24.95 NATHAN GLAZER'S NEW BOOK is a reminder of how distant even the recent past can seem. From a...

What we all escaped.(BOOKS)(THE WORLD HITLER NEVER MADE)(HITLER'S BENEFICIARIES: PLUNDER, RACIAL WART AND THE NAZI WELFARE STATE)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... THE WORLD HITLER NEVER MADE BY GAVRIEL D. ROSENFELD Cambridge University Press, 536 pages, $30.00 HITLER'S BENEFICIARIES: PLUNDER, RACIAL WART AND THE NAZI WELFARE STATE BY GOTZ ALY, Metropolitan Books, 431 pages, $32.50 VIEWED AS AN...

The sunlight solution.(BOOKS)(FULL DISCLOSURE: THE PERILS AND PROMISE OF TRANSPARENCY)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... FULL DISCLOSURE: THE PERILS AND PROMISE OF TRANSPARENCY BY ARCHON FUNG, MARY GRAHAM, AND DAVID WELL, Cambridge University Press, 282 pages, $28.00 PUBLIC POLICY HAS ITS FASHIONS--styles of government that come and go--but now and then...

Overheating: the sequel.(BOOKS)(FIGHTING FOR AIR: THE BATTLE TO CONTROL AMERICA'S MEDIA)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... FIGHTING FOR AIR: THE BATTLE TO CONTROL AMERICA'S MEDIA BY ERIC KLINENBERG, Metropolitan Books, 339 pages, $26.00 RARE IS THE BOOK THAT CHANGES your mind about a political issue. Before reading Eric Klinenberg s Fighting for Air, I shared...

Faster and fairer.(BOOKS)(THE AMERICAN DREAM VS. THE GOSPEL OF WEALTH: THE FIGHT FOR A PRODUCTIVE MIDDLE-CLASS ECONOMY)(GOOD CAPITALISM, BAD CAPITALISM, AND THE ECONOMICS OF GROWTH AND PROSPERITY)(Book review)
June 1, 2007... THE AMERICAN DREAM VS. THE GOSPEL OF WEALTH: THE FIGHT FOR A PRODUCTIVE MIDDLE-CLASS ECONOMY BY NORTON GARFINKLE, Yale University Press, 230 pages, $22.00 GOOD CAPITALISM, BAD CAPITALISM, AND THE ECONOMICS OF GROWTH AND PROSPERITY BY...

The fiscal guillotine.(THE LAST WORD)
June 1, 2007... SHORTLY AFTER BILL CLINTON WAS ELECTED PRESIDENT, he asked me to head up his economic transition team. He had promised during his campaign to "put people first" by reducing America's two deficits: the yawning budget deficit and the growing...