The American Prospect articles from March 2003

The American Prospect archives from March 2003

Radicals in power.(possible war between the US and Iraq)
March 1, 2003... In the debate about America and Iraq, two questions keep getting confused. First, does the United States have grounds to remove Saddam Hussein? And second, is an American invasion the best available course of action, after we balance all the...

Karl Rove's Model Union Leaders. (Correspondence).
March 1, 2003... IN A DEC. 30, 2002, ARTICLE, "Karl Rove's Model Union Leaders," The American Prospect betrays its knee-jerk fealty to the Democratic Party while attempting to show disunity in the labor movement. Had you done a scintilla of research--or...

House Rules. (Correspondence).
March 1, 2003... MARY LYNN F. JONES, IN her Jan. 13, 2003, article, "House Rules," is saying (in the case of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, anyway) what all liberal citizens schooled in the techniques of propaganda have been saying for some time. The media seems to have...

The High and the Mighty. (Correspondence).
March 1, 2003... STANLEY HOFFMANN'S largely excellent article on President Bush's new American hubris ["The High and the Mighty," Jan. 13] usefully criticizes the "vast tent" of the so-called war on terrorism, but then Hoffmann himself uses the phrase in a way...

New Gang, Old Myths. (Correspondence).
March 1, 2003... ROBERT S. MCINTYRE inadvertently makes the progressive case for repeal of the double taxation of dividends ["New Gang, Old Myths," Jan. 13]. As he reports (and as many economists and law professors have noted), corporations engage in...

Children Left Behind. (Correspondence).
March 1, 2003... STEPHANIE MENCIMER'S article on the lack of a national child-care program ["Children Left Behind," Dec. 30] is an excellent and moving piece, demonstrating once again how flawed welfare reform has been. But her observation that "California...

Gypsy Rose Bush. (Devil in the Details).(Pres George W. Bush's military policy)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... THOSE WHO THOUGHT the classic striptease had vanished with Gypsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand can take heart. The original act of the 1930s and `40s hardly featured gyrating babes who bared all; to the contrary, it was a slow undressing that...

The ticking clock. (Devil in the Details).(possible war between the US and Iraq)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... OF LATE, THERE IS A NEW argument for going to war: Time, the president and his underlings tell us, is running out. And what dread apparition becomes real when time runs out? Is Iraq on the brink of making nukes? No, that's North...

Bad, old Europe. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... FIRST, DONALD RUMSFELD calls Germany and France "the old Europe" in comparison with dynamic Poland and Italy, whose leaders have offered support to the Bush administration for its war. (Actually, polling shows public opinion in Poland and...

While you were sleeping. (Devil in the Details).(investigating terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Say you wanted to hire somebody to run an independent, nonpartisan investigation of the intelligence failures preceding the 9-11 terrorist attacks and how the nation handled the crisis once it occurred. Selecting a Bush administration crony...

Brave new words. (Devil in the Details).(Pres. George W. Bush's economic policies)
March 1, 2003... DOUBLE TAXATION The pernicious and inexcusable practice of taxing stock dividends both as corporate profits and then again when they're passed along to shareholders. To be eliminated by the Bush stimulus package. Not to be confused with the...

No-count Republicans. (Devil in the Details).(halting layoffs reporting)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... FROM THE ADMINISTRATION that argues that we have to go to war because we say so comes an argument in much the same spirit, though technically it's inverse, or converse, or perverse: It's that the economy isn't as bad as it is if we don't say...

The last shall be first. (Devil in the Details).(Washington, D.C. primary election)
March 1, 2003... THOUGH LAW AND TRADITION have made New Hampshire's snowy white Democratic primary the first in the nation, Washington, D.C., has apparently decided to try to steal the Granite State's electoral thunder. Jack Evans, a D.C. Council member who...

Heroes & zeroes. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... GEORGE W. BUSH GEORGE W. BUSH For African AIDS assistance For everything else in State in State of the Union. of the Union. ALAN GREENSPAN SEN. ZELL MILLER Federal chairman douses ...

Vast right-wing conspiracy. (Devil in the Details).(conservatives appointed to government positions)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... Not content to stack the courts with Old Testament judges, the Bush administration has moved on to appointing faith healers at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The president recently plunked Dr. W. David Hager, author of As Jesus Cared...

Which governs least. (Devil in the Details).(Pres George W. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech)(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... HOW BEST TO JUDGE A State of the Union address? By memorable proposals the president unveils? By the level of ringing rhetoric? By the number of ovations? By how many times the speaker and the veep feel compelled to stand? The libertarian...

Off The Wall Street Journal. (Devil in the Details).(Brief Article)
March 1, 2003... In 1898, publisher William Randolph Hearst wanted the United States to go to war with Spain in order to annex Cuba. He had sent reporters, photographers and artists to Havana to document alleged Spanish atrocities and rumored preparations for...

Conspiracy nut nirvana. (Devil in the Details).(Yale University's Skull & Bones Society)
March 1, 2003... IF, AS PROSPECT EDITOR-at-Large Harold Meyerson predicts in this issue, John Kerry emerges as the Democratic presidential nominee next year, we are in for the greatest outpouring of conspiracy-theory ravings since the Freemasons and the...

Why Iraq? (Below The Beltway).
March 1, 2003... When a country goes to war, one question that already should have been answered is "why?" But many people in the United States, Europe and elsewhere are genuinely perplexed about why the Bush administration is so determined, even at the cost of...

Class warfare, Bush-style: the administration's stealth attack on U.S. unions. (Dispatches).
March 1, 2003... WHILE THE NATION'S ATTENTION IS riveted by the inexorable march to war against Iraq, the Bush administration has quietly opened a new front in the relentless, largely covert war it has been waging here at home against U.S. workers and their...

Hard money, harder races: Congressional Democrats look to 2004. (Dispatches).
March 1, 2003... ELECTION DAY 2004 IS STILL MORE than a year and a half away, but two men--Sen. Jon Corzine (D-N.J.) and Rep. Robert Matsui (D-Calif.)--are already busy planning how Democrats can retake control of Congress. The hurdles they face are huge:...

More years in the desert: Israel chooses Sharon and stagnation. (Dispatches).(2003 election of Ariel Sharon's government)
March 1, 2003... JERUSALEM--I RAN INTO THE LABOR party politician at a bar mitzvah celebration, a few days after the election in which the Israeli left suffered its worst-ever defeat. "Celebration" is a euphemism. The bar mitzvah boy was the son of a left-wing...

Liebermama: the return of Joe Lieberman means the return of his mother. (Dispatches).
March 1, 2003... ON JAN. 13, SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-Conn.) vowed to return to the national campaign trail and seek the presidency. And that can only herald one thing: the return of Marcia "Baba" Lieberman. The 88-year-old mother of Sen. Lieberman may be a...

The easy war. (Comment).(possible war against Iraq)
March 1, 2003... "If you want peace, understand war," the military historian B. H. Liddell Hart once wrote, and during the past century--some would say ever since Gen. Sherman's march through Georgia--that injunction meant anyone interested in peace needed...

The race case. (Comment).(Pres George W. Bush's opposition to affirmative action)
March 1, 2003... One of the pleasant fictions that helps justify the Bush administration's opposition to affirmative action is the pretense that America has left behind the evils of segregation and achieved something approaching a race-blind society. "Every day...

Saddling our kids with debt. (The Taxonomist).
March 1, 2003... I've long been a bit of a conservative on fiscal policy. Of course, that dates back to when conservative was spelled with a "c." What passes for conservatism in this country these days seems to be a combination of kooky economic theories, gross...

A national-security gender gap. (Comment).
March 1, 2003... We're hearing a lot about national security these days, but it's always defined in one-dimensional terms--as protection from external enemies. But there is another aspect of national security that is traditionally recognized as vital to any...

The tough dove's moment: why John Kerry is the Democratic presidential candidate most likely to succeed.
March 1, 2003... It is Saturday morning, Jan. 18, and in Washington and San Francisco, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have gathered to protest the president's pending war. In Des Moines, Iowa, hundreds of Democrats are turning out, too--both to oppose...

Meet Mr. Credibility: candidate or no, Wesley Clark upstages Bush on Iraq and national security.
March 1, 2003... THE DEMOCRATS, AS WE KNOW, HAVE MANY POLITICAL problems: their uncertainty, their inability to trade jabs with the Republicans, their likely minority status in Congress for some time to come. Checked out a map yet of which senators are up in...

From put-down to catch-up: the news and the anti-war movement. (Media).
March 1, 2003... AFTER MONTHS SPENT DILIGENTLY not noticing--or belittling--the anti-war movement, mainstream news media are suddenly listening up. But their sluggishness and incapacity illustrate a more general flaw: the inability of journalists to connect...

Not slumming it: City of God and the Latin American continuum.(Movie Review)
March 1, 2003... "ON THE FAIR GREEN HILLS OF RIO / There grows a fearful stain / The poor who come to Rio / And can't go home again." So wrote Elizabeth Bishop, although a visitor to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is just as likely to find something eerily beautiful...

The culture brawl.(Book Review)
March 1, 2003... WHOSE AMERICA? CULTURE WARS IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS BY JONATHAN ZIMMERMAN * HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS * 307 PAGES * $29.95 IT SHOULDN'T BE SURPRISING THAT the public schools have long been the biggest battleground in America's culture wars:...

Trickle-down pain. (The Last Word).(political support for trickle-down economics)
March 1, 2003... Even as the administration prepares for war in Iraq, Bush has revived trickle-down economics with an audacity that's leaving old supply-side fanatics breathless. He's pushing new tax-exempt savings accounts, more tax-favored retirement...

The right-wing assault: what's at stake, what's already happened and what could yet occur. (Court Packing).
March 1, 2003... Since the election of President Reagan, a disciplined, carefully orchestrated and quite self-conscious effort by high-level Republican officials in the White House and the Senate has radically transformed the federal judiciary. For more than...

At war with liberty: post-9-11, due process and security have taken a beating. (Court Packing).
March 1, 2003... As expected, September 11 has prompted an expansion of law-enforcement powers at almost every level. And who would have it otherwise? For those of us who live and work in Manhattan, 9-11 was not a single horrific day but an extended nightmare....

Affirmative reaction: the courts, the right and the race question. (Court Packing).
March 1, 2003... In racial matters, good news from the Supreme Court is generally no news. Since at least the mid-1970s, the Court has been mostly inhospitable to those seeking to advance progressive racial policies through litigation. That is why civil-rights...

First they came for the Muslims ...: the Justice Department's war on immigrants.
March 1, 2003... THE PALMER RAIDS WERE ONE OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS episodes in American legal history. A. Mitchell Palmer, President Woodrow Wilson's attorney general from 1919 to 1921, rounded up 3,000 allegedly "subversive" aliens for deportation. Only about...

Circuit breaker: if you're worried about conservative control of the federal judiciary, watch the District of Columbia.
March 1, 2003... CONSERVATIVES ARE ON THE VERGE OF CONTROLLING the second most powerful court in the United States. That's the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has sent more judges--Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia and...

A hostile takeover: how the Federalist Society is capturing the federal courts. (Court Packing).
March 1, 2003... If you want to understand the systematic nature of the right's takeover of American public life, consider the Federalist Society. During the first Bush presidency and less than a decade after its founding in 1982, the society had already gained...

No death-penalty doubts at justice: DNA testing and racial bias raise questions of fairness--but not with Ashcroft. (Court Packing).(Attorney General John Ashcroft)
March 1, 2003... In a time of growing doubt about whether the death penalty is being administered fairly and accurately, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is hewing to a policy of full speed ahead in implementing it. "He's the anti-Ryan," says David Bruck, a...

In the bedroom: come July, the United States might finally make homosexuality legal. (Court Packing).
March 1, 2003... YOU'RE MAKING LOVE. SUDDENLY THE POLICE BURST into your apartment, arrest you for engaging in "deviate sexual intercourse" and haul you off to jail in your underpants. Are you in: a) Afghanistan; b) Saudi Arabia; c) Cuba; or d) Texas? Yes,...

Courts v. Citizens: our increasingly right-wing judiciary has taken aim at the basic underpinnings of democracy. (Court Packing).
March 1, 2003... LIBERALS NEED TO THINK OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY'S spreading control over the federal courts in democratic and not just civil-libertarian terms. Our traditional anxiety is that conservative judges will fail to protect the rights of political...

A fickle federalism: the Rehnquist Court hobbles Congress--and the states, too.
March 1, 2003... The revival of a doctrine of federalism that constrains the power of Congress has been a signature feature of the work of the Rehnquist Court. The Court's five-justice conservative majority has repeatedly held that the preservation of states'...