The American Prospect articles from May 2008

The American Prospect archives from May 2008

Lullaby of Baghdad.(PROSPECTS)
May 1, 2008... IS REDUCED VIOLENCE IN IRAQ--REDUCED, THAT IS, from its peak in 2006--a sign that the United States is finally on the road to victory? Or is US. strategy in the war, as Steven Simon argues in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, "stoking the...

Attitude adjustment.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN "THE OBAMA DOCTRINE" [April 2008], Spencer Ackerman attempts to define Barack Obama's broad strategic thinking on U.S. national security. Opponents of the Iraq War and the Bush administration's boorish imperialism...

A vote for choice.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2008... YOUR ARTICLE IN THE April issue on Republican dirty tricks ["The Republican War on Voting"] to harass and fight increased voter registration would be more significant if you did not have an editorial condemning Ralph Nader's candidacy for...

Class struggles.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
May 1, 2008... THE MISSISSIPPI EXPERIence of African Americans leading the defense of immigrants' rights as the core defense of workers' rights belies all other pundits' commentary on a supposed (or hoped for) black-brown divide in the country. I...

From the executive editor.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Editorial)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... JOHN MCCAIN INSISTS THAT HE HATES WAR--BUT, AS Matthew Yglesias reports in this month's cover story, the evidence is all to the contrary. Since the mid-1990s, the Arizona Republican has championed the use of force in the Balkans and the Middle...

Martin Luther who?(Up Front)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN LATE MARCH, THE NATIONAL BLACK REPUBLICAN Association unveiled its latest attempt to reach double-digit membership: the "Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican" campaign. The first billboard proclaiming the...

Dee day.(Up Front)(Dee Dee Myers )(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... In 1993, Dee Dee Myers made history at the age of 31 when President Bill Clinton appointed her as the country's first female presidential press secretary. Now, in her first book, Myers has accused Clinton White House of gender-based pay...

Dana's denials.(Up Front)(Dana Perino)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Meanwhile, Myers notes that she's talked to current White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, who says she receives handsome compensation for her work. That is, good money to say ridiculous things. Here are some of her greatest hits thus far....

Fuel efficiency kills.(Up Front)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... Grover Norquist and his Americans for Tax Reform have found a new reason to attack fuel-efficiency standards with a new claim: They're deadly! "I mean, 2,000 people a year die because the environmentalists think that you should be in a...

The question: if their convention is deadlocked, whom should democrats turn to for the nomination?(Up Front)(Brief article)
May 1, 2008... "John McCain, circa 2001"--Matt Corley, research Think Progress [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Eliot Spitzer. He's been fully vetted already."--Matt Bai, reporter, New York Times Magazine "Dave Chappelle. His 'Black Bush' sketch proves...

We're sick. Sick!(Up Front)(Brief article)(Book review)
May 1, 2008... That's the diagnosis of Chicago psychiatrist Dr. Lyle Rossiter Jr. in his new book, The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. Read this book, the press release promises, and you'll discover that "the modern liberal agenda...

Padory.(Up Front)
May 1, 2008... "We have a dollar that's adjusting and I am for a strong dollar... And there are certain things that we can do."--George W. Bush, March 2008 DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY MEMORANDUM TO: George W. Bush FROM: Office of Advanced...

Maverick or maneuverer?(THE OUT YEARS)
May 1, 2008... EVER SINCE "AUTHENTICITY" BECAME THE QUALITY we most value in our politicians, its converse, "hypocrisy," has been the political vice of which we are most conscious. Thus, those who have noticed that Sen. John McCain enjoys a reputation as a...

Listening to Iraq.(COMMENT)(Viewpoint essay)
May 1, 2008... RECENTLY I HEARD HAIFA ZANGANA, A NOVELIST and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime, give a speech in Boston in which she urged anti-war activists around the world to work in solidarity with--not for--Iraqis to achieve peace. It was a...

The militarist: when it comes to foreign policy, John McCain is more Bush than Bush.
May 1, 2008... The collapse of the George W. Bush-era Republican Party is a multifaceted story, but no chapter stands out as clearly as the war in Iraq. As the occupation has dragged on and the U.S. casualties have mounted, Bush has watched his public...

The green gap: as environmentalists confront the challenge of climate change, can they also confront the race and class issues that have divided not just the movement but America?
May 1, 2008... Rodney Lee's hometown of Richmond, California, has a national reputation for two things: the highest per capita murder rate in the state and one of the highest rates of breast cancer in the country. The East Bay city of 103,000 has been wracked...

How we got into this mess: trade, the war on unions, and underfunded schools all lowered wages. Cheap credit propped us up--but now, the debt is due. Herewith, a national economic strategy to turn America around.(FIXING THE ECONOMY)
May 1, 2008... We are living through a profound financial crisis. That crisis has many proximate causes in the governance and deregulation of Wall Street. But its real roots lie in the long-term weakening of the real American economy in an era of...

Bubble and bail: for most of the 20th century, America manufactured things. For the past 30 years, though, it has chiefly manufactured debt. Here's how Wall Street, with the aid of both political parties, gravely damaged the economy.(FIXING THE ECONOMY)
May 1, 2008... As of spring 2008, we're probably just a third of the way through the unfolding debacle in the housing, credit, and financial markets. In political and regulatory terms, the ultimate problems and remedies have only begun to define themselves....

Good jobs for Americans who help Americans: human services is the fastest-growing labor market. Here's how to restore middle-class earnings by making every human-service job a good job.(FIXING THE ECONOMY)
May 1, 2008... For three decades, the supply of good jobs has been dwindling. The causes include globalization, deregulation, and weaker worker protections, such as minimum-wage laws and government defense of the right to unionize. Now, after three decades of...

Multiculture club: "kids these days" belong to the most diverse generation America has ever had. No wonder they like music that blends sounds from around the world.(MUSIC)
May 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SAY THE WORDS "PUNK ROCK," AND most people, whether they're fans or not, will conjure up thoughts of The Clash and The Ramones--drums, guitar, and bass, the sound stripped down to rock's basics, sped up and turned up...

Religiously equal?(Book review)
May 1, 2008... LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE: IN DEFENSE OF AMERICA'S TRADITION OF RELIGIOUS EQUALITY BY MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM, Basic Books, 406 pages, $28.95 IF DEMOCRATS WIN THE WHITE HOUSE and Congress next November, one reason will be the party's success in...

Rules of attack.(Book review)
May 1, 2008... STRIKING FIRST: PREEMPTION AND PREVENTION IN INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT BY MICHAEL W. DOYLE, Princeton University Press, 175 pages, $24.95 HEADS IN THE SAND: HOW THE REPUBLICANS SCREW UP FOREIGN POLICY AND FOREIGN POLICY SCREWS UP THE DEMOCRATS...

Business as usury.(THE CLOSER)
May 1, 2008... BEFORE CONGRESS GOES AFTER BANK MISDEEDS ON Wall Street, let's stop the petty theft on Main Street. I mean the predatory mortgages and usurious loans. Had we protected the poor and the weak, the problems of our mighty banks might not be so...

What path to universal coverage? The next administration will expand health coverage. Will they fix what's broken--or just inflate costs?(UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE)
May 1, 2008... AMERICA'S HEALTH-INSURANCE SYSTEM is nearing a breakdown. Not only are nearly one-third of all Americans uninsured at some point every year, according to the Commonwealth Fund, but growing numbers of Americans who are nominally covered are...

The elusive politics of reform: once again, a new administration and Congress will try to bring us universal health insurance. This time, against urgent cost pressures, will they do it right?(UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE)
May 1, 2008... IF HEALTH INSURANCE WERE CHEAP, we could all buy it. If universal health care could get 60 votes in the Senate, we'd all have it. But these two imperatives--the need to control costs and the need to attract the 60 Senate votes required to...

The primacy of prevention: addressing the whole range of behaviors that affect health is the key to a healthier society. That strategy requires a universal system.(UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE)
May 1, 2008... THE CASE FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH-insurance coverage is becoming universally acknowledged. To make a real difference in health outcomes, cost, and system performance, we need to cover the whole person, with a full continuum of appropriate care, and...

What really ails Medicare: the cost crisis of Medicare gets a lot of attention. The program can be fixed only by universalizing the larger health system in which Medicare resides.(UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE)
May 1, 2008... WHEN LYNDON JOHNSON SIGNED the law creating Medicare in 1965, he promised that it would transform the lives of America's senior citizens. "No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine," Johnson proclaimed. "No...

Health reform you shouldn't believe in: what the Massachusetts experiment teaches us about incremental efforts to increase coverage by expanding private insurance.(UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE)
May 1, 2008... FOR ALL THEIR PROMISE OF CHANGE! Democrats are remarkably timid about changing the health-care system. The system now costs twice as much per person as those of other advanced countries and delivers worse average outcomes. It prices tens of...

Why not Connecticut? A model grass-roots organizing campaign mobilizes public opinion for universal coverage--in a state long dominated by private insurers.(UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE)
May 1, 2008... States even with takeovers and significant layoffs in the industry--might be the last state conventional wisdom would expect to break new ground in the fight for universal health care. But it could well happen. Strong advocates and legislative...

Lessons from California: the Schwarzenneger plan was a near miss, but well worth the trauble. The stage is set for the next effort.(UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE)
May 1, 2008... GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER of California titled 2007 "The Year of Health Reform. By early 2008, a comprehensive health-reform plan had been negotiated by a Republican governor and a Democratic assembly speaker. It was supported by a broad...

Borrowing ill health: hospitals are getting more aggressive about sending debt collectors after underinsured consumers.(UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE)
May 1, 2008... AS HEALTH-CARE COSTS CONTINUE to climb, the trend to more cost sharing continues, and the ranks of the uninsured keep swelling, more and more Americans are finding that paying for medical care means going into debt. The latest study by the...