The American Prospect articles from March 2002

The American Prospect archives from March 2002

Second thoughts. (Comment).(Pres. Bush's foreign policy)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... WHEN THE WORLD TRADE Center was attacked, some progressives went, almost reflexively, into antiwar mode. Most, however, supported military action, because the incineration of innocents in the heart of Manhattan was so appalling; because the...

The democrats' energy problem. (Comment).(need to criticize Republicans' deceptive accounting)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... IT IS NOT MUCH MORE THAN A year since the 2000 presidential election was finally decided, but it seems like an eternity. The Republicans have now accomplished what they were unable to achieve at the polls: They have gained decisive control of...

Globalization and the world's poor. (Correspondence).
March 11, 2002... THANK YOU FOR THE SPECIAL supplement on globalism [Globalism and the World's Poor, Winter 2001]. Your magazine put together more useful information than I've ever found in one place. Keep up the good work. LINDA SLEFFEL Columbus, OH...

Energy forever. (Correspondence).
March 11, 2002... ON SEPTEMBER 11, OUR chronic energy crisis went critical. According to Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins's two-part article ["Mobilizing Energy Solutions," January 28 (mistakenly titled "Supply-Side Stupor"), and "Energy Forever," February...

Suddenly serviceable. (Correspondence).
March 11, 2002... RICHARD JUST'S ARTICLE "Suddenly Serviceable" [January 1-14] should be widely read, especially by America's high-school and college students. The article is both thought-provoking and a call to action for young people. The horrors of September...

Controlling Pakistan's Nukes. (Correspondence).
March 11, 2002... IF THE SPECULATIVE SUBJECT of Ramindar Singh's "Controlling Pakistan's Nukes" [January 1-14] is substantiated, the impact will be far-reaching and crucial. What could be more important than decreasing the risk of a nuclear attack or accident...

All grown up and really dense. (Devil In The Details).(Washington Post coverage of Enron scandals)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... WE'VE NEVER REALLY SUBscribed to the adage that "all you really need to know you learned in kindergarten"--but lately, it's become clear that the KidsPost, a daffy Washington Post feature for children that runs on the back of the "Style"...

Jazz and justice. (Devil In The Details).(municipal minimum wage in New Orleans, Louisiana)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... THE CITY THAT GAVE nineteenth-century America a respite from Puritan morals and that brought jazz to the world at the outset of the twentieth century has already made a signal contribution to the new millennium. On February 2, New Orleans...

Lunatic league formed. (Devil In The Details).(Jude Wanniski and Louis Farrakhan)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Time was when Jude Wanniski was the reigning prophet of supply-side economics--the guru of Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley and all those who believed that the benefits of cutting taxes exceeded any need for either an active government...

Benching Bush's nominees. (Networks).(nomination of U.S. District Court Judge Charles Pickering to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and others)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... WHAT DO YOU THINK OF a judge who's published fewer than 10 percent of his opinions? You might think that he's hiding something because his record reflects an unsuitable judicial temperament or extreme views on such subjects as race and...

The facts and the farm bill. (Networks).(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... LET THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. That's what the D.C.-based Environmental Working Group hoped to do when they launched a Web site listing federal subsidies sent to every farm in America (www.ewg.org/farm). Now, with stories having appeared...

Sectual discrimination. (On The Contrary).(Christian sect The Body)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... REBECCA AND DAVID CORNEAU OF ATTLEBORO, Massachusetts, are Christian fundamentalists who belong to a small sect called The Body. Like Christian Scientists, they reject modern medical care in accordance with their religious beliefs. Unlike...

Snatching defeat: Bush doesn't want to push peace. Why not? (Below The Beltway).(Israeli-Palestinian conflict)
March 11, 2002... THE UNITED STATES SCORED a great military and diplomatic victory in Afghanistan. It drove out a hostile regime. It dealt a serious, though not fatal, blow to the al-Qaeda terrorist network and assembled a coalition against radical Islam that...

Beat the press: does the White House have a media blacklist? (Gazette).
March 11, 2002... IT'S SAFE TO SAY THAT BOB WOODward doesn't have much trouble getting his calls to the White House returned. If Woodward's latest opus for The Washington Postman interminable eight-parter titled "10 Days in September" co-reported with Dan...

Costs a bundle and can't fly: dubious weapons systems reap a Bush budget bonanza. (Gazette).
March 11, 2002... FOR THE PAST DECADE, NUMEROUS career military officers and defense analysts--whose politics run the gamut from left to right--have held that U.S. combat in the twenty-first century probably won't mean grand, conventional battles with large...

Outside shot: can the next NCAA president reform college sports? (Gazette).
March 11, 2002... DURING THE WINTER OF HIS junior year at tiny Albion College in Michigan, Dolph Grundman saw his basketball coach make an unusual decision: One of the team's seldom-used forwards asked if he could skip a game at nearby Olivet College to study...

One for oil. (The Taxonomist).(Carl Michael Smith, assistant secretary of energy for fossil energy; includes commentary on budget)(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... UNTIL THIS FEBRUARY, I HAD NO IDEA THAT WE HAD AN "assistant secretary of energy for fossil energy," although it turns out there's been one for decades. What does an ASOEFFE do? The current and ninth occupant of this position, Carl Michael...

Deal breakers: though most American Jews favor a negotiated settlement in the Mideast, two powerful Jewish organizations have worked successfully to thwart one.
March 11, 2002... IN SPITE OF GROWING AFFLUENCE AND ONGOING assimilation, Jews remain one of the most liberal groups in American society. And although concern about Israel's security has pushed some of them to the right, a majority have supported the Mideast...

A plan for peace: the solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict--once the two sides decide that they want a solution--is clear.
March 11, 2002... THE ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT IS SURELY the most protracted international dispute since the end of the Second World War. Today, however, it is easy to forget that over the past 25 years, various important and encouraging advances have...

Shooting Dumas's dog. (The Critics Film).(review of film adaptation of Alexander Dumas' 'The Count of Monte Cristo')(Critical Essay)
March 11, 2002... THERE IS POETRY--OR A GOOD rhyme, at least--in the fact that Disney's new adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's 1845 novel The Count of Monte Cristo was written by a man better known as a producer and creator of TV game shows. Jay Wolpert has labored...

Elvis is dead. (The Critics Tabloids).
March 11, 2002... ONE DEPENDS UPON A tabloid like The National Enquirer, whether surreptitiously in the supermarket checkout line, or luxuriantly and unapologetically over a nice bowl of soup, to be sleazy in its journalistic style, juicy in its revelations,...

History, hard-boiled. (Pulp Culture).
March 11, 2002... "I FOLLOWED... WITH MANY OTHER officers who were in the same situation as myself and succeeded in reaching Candahar in safety, where I found my regiment, and at once entered upon my new duties. The campaign brought honours and promotion to...

Fast-track liberalism. (The Critics Pulp Culture).(Brief Article)
March 11, 2002... Sometimes, we just can't wait. That's why, for the very latest coverage of burning political and cultural issues, you can turn to The American Prospect's Web site at www.prospect.org. We feature original online articles and commentary...

With the Grain of the Universe: the Church's Witness and Natural Theology. (Books in review: a theologian for these times?).
March 11, 2002... With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural Theology By Stanley Hauerwas. Brazos Press, 249 pages, $22.99 THERE WAS ONCE A TIME when American Protestant theologians were a vital part of the national civic debate. In...

The Invention of Art: a Cultural History. (Books in review: what happened to art?).
March 11, 2002... The Invention of Art: A Cultural History By Larry Shiner. University of Chicago Press, 382 pages, $35.00 HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE fallen. From such soul-vaulting achievements as Michelangelo's David, marble buttocks and glowering determination...

The Invisible Masterpiece. (Books in review: what happened to art?).
March 11, 2002... The Invisible Masterpiece By Hans Belting. Translated by Helen Atkins. University of Chicago Press, 480 pages, $45.00 HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE fallen. From such soul-vaulting achievements as Michelangelo's David, marble buttocks and glowering...

Dot.Con: the Greatest Story Ever Sold. (Books in review: the Old New Thing).
March 11, 2002... Dot. Con: The Greatest Story Ever Sold By John Cassidy. HarperCollins, 320 pages, $25.95 ABOUT TWO YEARS AGO, A journalist I know interviewed the five founders of a new dot-com for an article in a prominent business magazine. Despite not...

The road to Enron. (Comment).
March 25, 2002... FOR THE PAST QUARTER-CENTURY, America has been deregulating capitalism in expectation of a more dynamic and efficient economy. In fact, average economic growth since 1976 has slightly lagged that of the previous quarter-century, when capitalism...

Bowling Together. (Correspondence).
March 25, 2002... IN "BOWLING TOGETHER" [February 11], Robert Putnam identifies several methods of creating "institutionalized changes" and urges policy makers to back national-service efforts such as AmeriCorps. Fortunately, Putnam recognizes what many of...

The Poll Truth. (Correspondence).
March 25, 2002... WHILE RUY TEIXEIRA'S "The Poll Truth" [February 11] includes some thoughtful analyses, it misses at least one key point: Following a redistricting that raised incumbent protection to a crass new level, perhaps as few as 30 to 50 U.S. House...

Snatching Defeat. (Correspondence).
March 25, 2002... IN "SNATCHING DEFEAT" [March 11], John B. Judis says that George W. Bush should follow the example set by his father in the Middle East and "force peace." In Judis's view, the elder Bush "set the stage for the successful negotiations at Oslo."...

Can Buffy's Brilliance Last? (Correspondence).
March 25, 2002... UNTIL I READ GARRETT EPPS'S dazzling piece "Can Buffy's Brilliance Last" [January 28], I thought I was the only adult in this country who realized that Buffy is brilliant television. I could not agree more that the series, without preaching,...

The Other War at Home. (Correspondence).
March 25, 2002... I READ WITH INTEREST Emily Parsons's "The Other War at Home," which reviewed Judge James R. Gray's book on the failed drug war. Gray is quite right in saying that "the War on Drugs is about a lot of things, but only rarely is it really about...

Clarification.(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... DAN GERSTEIN, SENATOR Joseph Lieberman's communications director, has taken exception to the figure for total Enron contributions ($37,000) that we listed under Lieberman's photo on our February 25 cover. As noted, we included money given...

Sounds like Chomsky; votes GOP. (Devil In The Details).(Sen Sam Brownback)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... THE LAST TIME WE LOOKED, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback was your standard-issue Republican right-winger--a guy who, in the 2000 session of Congress, had run up a 100 percent positive voting record on the American Conservative Union's scorecard...

Seeking men of convictions. (Devil In The Details).(appointment of John Poindexter to antiterrorism agency)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... THE TITLE CERTAINLY sounds reassuring: the Information Awareness Office. A new little bureaucracy recently created by the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the office is charged with focusing on new kinds of military...

Our man Musharraf. (Devil In The Details).(Pervez Musharraf, dictator of Pakistan)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... FEW PEOPLE DID NOT FEEL outrage and sadness at news of the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Indeed, according to Colin Powell, Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's dictator, "took it pretty hard because he was trying to do everything...

The son also rises. (Devil In The Details).(confirmation of federal judge, senator's son)
March 25, 2002... Anyone who doesn't believe America is a land of opportunity should check out the case of David Bunning, who until a few weeks ago was an assistant U.S. attorney in eastern Kentucky. According to the American Bar Association, Bunning's career...

Congress on drugs. (Networks).(coalition for prescription policy)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... THE DEMOCRATS HAVE A terrific issue in prescription-drug coverage, but their caution on budgetary politics and deference to the pharmaceutical industry could blow their advantage. President George Bush says he supports drug coverage, but his...

Roe v. Bush. (Networks).(abortion policy of Pres. George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... ALTHOUGH THE 29TH ANNIVERSARY OF the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade came and went on January 22 without much media attention, reproductive-rights organizations were revving their engines. With the Bush administration opposed to abortion, and...

Secrets and lies. (On The Contrary).(Pres. George W. Bush use of secrecy)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... ASSUMING THAT THE LATE FORMER ENRON VICE Chairman Cliff Baxter died by his own hand and not the hands of others who feared he might testify against them, you might blame Baxter's suicide on guilt, shame, or fear of financial ruin. Linda Lay,...

Between Iraq and a hard place: invade now, pay later--or sooner. (Below The Beltway).
March 25, 2002... THERE ARE THREE GOOD REASONS why the United States should worry about Iraq: oil, weapons of mass destruction, and Saddam Hussein. Iraq has the second-largest oil reserves in the Mideast, and what its government does with them vitally affects...

Customized to California? Why Dick Riordan isn't the great GOP hope after all. (Gazette).
March 25, 2002... HE'S BEEN CALLED THE harbinger of a "New Republicanism"--a West Coast Michael Bloomberg who can customize the GOP for a Democratic California much as Bloomberg has for a Democratic New York. But for all the hype and hope that's been invested...

With victories like these ...: the glaring inadequacies of Shays-Meehan. (Gazette).(campaign finance reform)
March 25, 2002... WHAT A CRUEL TWIST OF fate: campaign finance reform that benefits Republicans and big money. The Shays-Meehan bill is back-to-the-future reform: legislation that takes us back to just before 1980, when there was no "soft money" but still a...

Saddam's real opponents: what you don't know about the Iraqi opposition. (Gazette).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... THREE YEARS AGO, THE INFLUENTIAL journal Foreign Affairs published an article on Iraq entitled "The Rollback Fantasy." It was a typically long and sober piece, challenging the thinking of those who were arguing for a United States role in...

Putting profits over patriotism. (The Taxonomist).(reincorporation outside the US to avoid taxation)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... IN A RECENT ARTICLE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES, DAVID CAY Johnston details how some sleazy American companies are reincorporating in Bermuda and other countries in order to avoid taxes. Insurance companies led the way a few years ago; and when...

Enron capitalism and how to fix it. (Cover Story).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Now is the season of reform. Or is it? In the wake of the Enron scandal, the leaders of our government--congressional delegates, state legislators, governors, and the president--have been scrambling to write new rules for the capitalist game....

Organizing people: the one sure way to defeat Enronism. (Enron Capitalism And How To Fix It).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... THE ENRON SUPERMARKET OF CORPORATE crime, fraud, and abuse has engendered its own media frenzy and congressional investigative momentum to document the wrongdoing and the harm to innocents; it will likely also stimulate civil lawsuits and...

Uncooking the books: restoring accounting. (Enron Capitalism And How To Fix It).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING HAS ONE quite simple goal: to give investors and other outsiders an honest report on a company's performance and management's stewardship. Accurate accounting ("transparency") is something that we Americans preach to other...

Securing Pensions I: the cult of bad ideas. (Enron Capitalism And How To Fix It).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... THE ENRON SCANDAL SEEMS LIKE A heaven-sent opportunity to reform the business excesses of our recent Gilded Age. But the fetish of markets retains a powerful grip on the American political psyche. Already, corporate lobbyists, elevating...

Securing Pensions II: some necessary reforms. (Enron Capitalism And How To Fix It).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... ENRON'S COLLAPSE--AND THE TERRIBLE losses suffered by Enron workers--has created the political space for a real conversation about how employers have chosen to finance their employees' retirement. That debate is centered on the fact that...

Regulating power: an idea whose time is back. (Enron Capitalism And How To Fix It).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... IGNORED IN THE SCANDAL ABOUT Enron's off-the-books deals is the fact that Enron's core businesses--trading and selling energy--made little economic sense. Starting in the early 1990s, Enron claimed it could make electricity generation more...

Not the people's choice: how to democratize American democracy.
March 25, 2002... THE TRUE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE DISPUTED 2000 election has thus far escaped public attention. This was an election that made the loser of the popular vote the president of the United States. But that astounding fact has been obscured: first by the...

The big bash theory: Mira Nair's latest movie revels and reels. (The Critics Film).
March 25, 2002... MIRA NAIR'S NEW COMIC melodrama Monsoon Wedding opens with a shot of a frowning man trying to prop up a traditional Indian marigold bower, then flits straight to his agitated cordless-phone conversation with a clownish "event manager." As we...

Kennedy's quidditas: Roscoe's place in the Albany cycle. (The Critics Literature).(William Kennedy)(Critical Essay)
March 25, 2002... THERE'S A LAW THAT SAYS YOU can't write about William Kennedy without invoking William Faulkner or James Joyce, or both, the idea being that if a novelist returns to a place in a number of works over time he is not so much writing books as...

Film business: labor as art: Cantet's Time Out and Human Resources. (The Critics Work).(Laurent Cantet)(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... WORK IS THE DIRTY secret of contemporary life--to judge by the movies, at any rate. Although work is where people experience roughly half their waking hours over the course of four or five decades, working life is not considered glamorous or...

Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World. (Books in review: the American way of power).(Brief Article)
March 25, 2002... Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World By Walter Russell Mead. Alfred A. Knopf, 374 pages, $30.00 THIS BOOK BEGINS WITH A bang and ends with a kvetch. "The United States has had a remarkably successful...

Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society. (Books in review: good schools, good citizens).
March 25, 2002... Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society Edited by Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti. Yale University Press, 368 pages, $35.00 THE CONTENTIOUS DEBATE over whether public funds should support private schools revolves around a...

Mrs. Paine's Garage and the Murder of John F. Kennedy. (Books in review: living with Oswald).
March 25, 2002... Mrs. Paine's Garage and the Murder of John F. Kennedy By Thomas Mallon. Pantheon, 224 pages, $22.00 WHY DID MRS. RUTH Paine of Irving, Texas, make the notation "LHO purchase of rifle" on the March 1963 page of her Hallmark pocket calendar?...