The American Prospect articles from November 2002

The American Prospect archives from November 2002

Kindergarten-plus. (Where we stand: a commentary on public education and other critical issues).
November 4, 2002... How can we explain the achievement gap between poor children and more advantaged children? School critics usually assume that the schools are to blame, and blaming schools is easier than admitting that poverty affects the education of children...

Gore vs. Gephardt. (Comment).(Al Gore, Richard Gephardt)
November 4, 2002... WITH THE MIDTERM elections now less than a month away, the Democrats have been split into two camps on the issue of war and peace. The most dramatic split, surely, is the one between the House of Gephardt and the House of Gore. The rift is more...

Spot the spoiler. (Comments).(lack of Democratic Party opposition to war with Iraq)
November 4, 2002... BEMOANING THE FAILURE OF the Democratic Party to lead has become a newsroom sport. In The New Republic's version, the Dems have squandered their Roosevelt-Truman-Kennan foreign-policy heritage by wimping out on Iraq. In New York Times columnist...

Pictorial. (Comment).(Illustration)
November 4, 2002... Retiring Senator Phil Gramm Will Join Wall Street Investment Bank UBS Warburg... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

This little student went to market. (Correspondence).
November 4, 2002... DAVID L. KIRP AND JEFFREY T. Holman's "This Little Student Went to Market" [Oct. 7, 2002] is filled with misrepresentation and half-truths. Too bad, because Kirp spent much time on the Dickinson campus and on the phone with me discussing the...

Emily's list hissed. (Correspondence).
November 4, 2002... THE GOAL OF A POLITICAL action committee is to support those candidates the PAC deems to be in the best interest of the group, not simply to check off a name based on party affiliation ["Emily's List Hissed," Sept. 23]. That's why PACs are...

Gangway! We're going preemptive! (Devil In The Details).(Brief Article)
November 4, 2002... "PRE-EMPTIVE ACTION HAS a place in U.S. history," proclaimed a recent New York Times op-ed column by conservative journalist Max Boot. As if precedent were all, Boot reviewed a long list of nations into which the United States has barged either...

Perle dictates. (Devil In The Details).(Richard Pearle)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2002... WE DON'T MEAN TO PUSH this imperial thing too far, but the administration really seems to be getting into it. Consider, for instance, the remarks of Pentagon super-hawk and Defense Policy Board Chairman Richard Perle during a recent visit to...

Anthony Mazzocchi, 1926-2002. (Devil In The Details).(Obituary)
November 4, 2002... OUR FRIEND TONY MAZZOCCHI died Oct. 5 at the age of 76. As much as any American, he was the father of the modern movement for worker health and safety. Tony grew up in working-class Brooklyn during the Depression, the son of Neopolitan...

Dick cuts a deal. (Devil In The Details).(Rep. Richard Gephardt)(Brief Article)
November 4, 2002... However much Richard Gephardt may have helped his presidential prospects by negotiating "compromise" language with the White House on its Iraqi war resolution, he sure didn't scoot to the head of the line as our favorite candidate for secretary...

The analogist: Jim Chapin, 1942-2002. (Devil In The Details).
November 4, 2002... "WHAT IF YOU GAUGED THE two sides in the Civil War just by looking at the two generals in command at Antietam?" Jim Chapin asked at some point during the 2000 campaign. "McClellan was more pro-slavery than Lee. If that's all you focused on--not...

The blame game. (On The Contrary).(intelligence community failures)
November 4, 2002... IT'S NAIVE TO EXPECT PARTISAN POLITICIANS TO PLAY fair, I know; still, I'm always surprised by the boldness of their hypocrisies. Take the initial reaction of Bush administration cheerleaders to demands for an independent investigation of...

One cheer for Schroder: how isolated is the new Germany? (Beyond The Beltway).(Gerhard Schroder)
November 4, 2002... FOR ANYONE CRITICAL OF THE Bush administration's foreign policy, there seemed much to cheer about in German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's re-election last month. Schroder, after all, had made opposition to U.S. war plans in Iraq the centerpiece...

Impaired faculties? Why liberal law professors vouch for Michael McConnell. (Gazette).
November 4, 2002... WRITING IN LATE SEPTEMBER, the National Review's Byron York took a telling swipe at Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Contrasting their relatively cozy treatment of conservative University of Utah law professor Michael McConnell,...

Itty-bitty agenda: can tone-deaf Democrats give the public what it wants? (Gazette).
November 4, 2002... SOME SAY THE DEMOCRATS DON'T have the courage of their convictions. Could be. But what I worry about more is that they don't have the courage of the public's convictions. Take the issue of war with Iraq. Polls have consistently shown that the...

The left coast goes lefter: even Gray Davis gets swept along. (Gazette).
November 4, 2002... CALIFORNIA GOV. GRAY DAVIS' signature on legislation that would bring far more power to the state's legendary farmworker union has capped and brought into focus a stunning year of progressive accomplishment in the Golden State. Together, a very...

Mitch Daniels: due diligence? Bush's OMB director and Indiana's own version of Enron. (Gazette).
November 4, 2002... IN HIS 29 YEARS AS A MAINTENANCE worker for the Indianapolis Power and Light Company (IPALCO), James C. Gilmore had never been asked to do anything like it. But in late 2000 and early 2001, according to an affidavit filed with the U.S. District...

Globalism in the dock: Burmese villagers sue Unocal in an L.A. courtroom. (Gazette).
November 4, 2002... RANGOON, THE CAPITAL OF Burma (now officially called Myanmar), is normally one of the most depressing cities in Asia. It usually exudes the desperate air of a decaying totalitarian metropolis: Beggars wander the central market, queuing for...

Standing up against America: an army of mercenaries has enlisted to defend the Bermuda tax loophole. (The Taxonomist).(Brief Article)
November 4, 2002... EVERYBODY'S ANNOYED AT BIG AMERICAN CORPORATIONS that renounce their citizenship and move to Bermuda to avoid taxes. The public heat has forced even most Republican politicians to feign outrage. In recent months, PricewaterhouseCoopers...

Deter and contain: it worked against Joseph Stalin, so why not against Saddam Hussein?
November 4, 2002... THE SIMPLEST QUESTION THAT SUPPORTERS OF going to war with Iraq cannot answer is why would Saddam Hussein be less likely to use his weapons of mass destruction if we attack than if we contain him. This debate, essentially within the Republican...

Neither consent nor dissent: Bush's uncontested war.(George W. Bush's attack on Iraq)
November 4, 2002... AS PRESIDENT BUSH RUSHES HEADLONG INTO WAR with Iraq, there are endless reasons for concern; but the one that is most disturbing has been least remarked on. The president can be faulted for waiting so long to consult Congress, the United...

It's full employment, stupid: even a slight rise in unemployment clobbers the bottom half.
November 4, 2002... NEWLY RELEASED DATA ON INCOME AND POVERTY suggest that the recent economic downturn hit lower-income families disproportionately. The latest Census Bureau report found that poverty began rising and median family income started falling in 200l,...

Talent for deception: a centrist, straight-arrow image masks a right-wing, ethically challenged record.(James Talent)
November 4, 2002... BACK IN 1984, A SINGLE RADIO BROADCAST FOREVER changed the life of James Talent, a young lawyer in Missouri making his first foray into state politics. It was the peak of the Reagan era. God and country were hot topics, and religious...

Show, don't tell: Igby Goes Down proves easier on the eyes than the ears. (Film).
November 4, 2002... THE GREAT GOD OF LAUGHTER, his sides forever split, is not pleased by black comedies, for the simple reason that they tend not to be very funny. The comedy of blackness is usually a kind of local anesthetic, something frozen, producing not...

Showtime Iraq: on network news, war's a spectacle and debate's a bore. (Television).
November 4, 2002... THE PREGAME SHOW IS TICKING toward the opening kick-off. The networks are updating their SHOWDOWN and COUNTDOWN logos, upgrading their drumrolls and trumpet snippets, cueing their cruise missile videos and maps of hitherto obscure regions. The...

The man who gave us Bush.(Book Review)
November 4, 2002... Crashing the Party: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for President By Ralph Nader. Dunne Books, 400 pages, $14.95 Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon By Justin Martin. Perseus Publishing, 288 pages, $26.00 THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF Ralph...

Outward bound. (Comment).(possible Republican control of Congress)
November 18, 2002... THE LAST TIME THE REPUBlicans controlled the House, the Senate and the presidency for a full two-year term was 48 years ago, in the years 1953-54. Dwight Eisenhower was president. Ike, however, was a bipartisan sort of Republican who worked...

The repudiation syndrome. (Comment).(Democrat Party candidates for president)
November 18, 2002... SINCE LYNDON JOHNSON, EVERY Democrat who has run for president has suffered repudiation within his own party after either serving in office or losing the election. Democrats repudiated Johnson because of the Vietnam War, Jimmy Carter because of...

How the Culture War Was Won. (Correspondence).
November 18, 2002... AS A GAY COLLEGE STUDENT, I was encouraged by E.J. Graft's "How the Culture War Was Won" [Oct. 21, 2002]. But while Graft anticipates that the next "50 or so years of court battles" is the ground on which equal marriage rights for gay men and...

Canada's Romance with Market Medicine. (Correspondence).
November 18, 2002... REGARDING ARNOLD RELman's "Canada's Romance with Market Medicine" [Oct. 21], Americans spend $600 per capita per year more than Canadians on administration and billing costs in hospitals and doctors' offices. When nonprofit Blue Cross-type...

This Little Student Went to Market. (Correspondence).
November 18, 2002... CONCERNING DAVID L. KIRP and Jeffrey T. Holman's "This Little Student Went to Market" [Oct. 7], it seems disingenuous for Kirp and Holman, from their Berkeley bully pulpit, to hurl stones at a small college striving to attract enough students...

No Choice but War? (Correspondence).
November 18, 2002... THE CLOSING PARAGRAPH OF Paul Starr's superlative "No Choice but War?" [Oct. 7] states, "A war in Iraq will have fateful consequences." Then, after a laundry list of cogent reasons why a preemptive strike could prove disastrous, he concludes,...

Intolerance: the Bestseller. (Correspondence).
November 18, 2002... GERSHOM GORENBERG'S "Intolerance: The Bestseller" [Sept. 23] provided an excellent summary of the Left Behind series. Since at least 1967, the Israeli government, and the Likud Party in particular, have encouraged the broader movement of...

The threat of phantom weapons. (Devil In The Details).(Brief Article)
November 18, 2002... SO NORTH KOREA HAS THE bomb, but anyone can worry about a real nuclear weapon. It takes a visionary to worry about nonexistent weapons, and George W: Bush is growing more visionary with each passing day. While the news of a very real Korean...

Two years of bad news. (Devil In The Details).(George W. Bush administration)(Brief Article)
November 18, 2002... WITH THE ELECTION UPON us, it's a good time to take a look at how Americans' lives have changed in the two years since George W. Bush stormed into power on the strength of U.S. Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor's...

Ohio devolves. (Devil In The Details).(teaching evolution and creationism in public schools)(Brief Article)
November 18, 2002... WE'VE BEEN HEARING MUCH talk lately about the "great divide" between Europe and the United States but very little about one defining difference: Europe doesn't have a Creationist problem. Back in 1999, though, there was great overseas merriment...

Spotting those crooks early. (Devil In The Details).(awards by CFO Magazine)
November 18, 2002... It's what every law-enforcement agency dreams about: a list, a published tip sheet, of wise guys heading for a fall, complete with a heads-up on what areas to stake out to catch them in the act. We refer, of course, to CFO Magazine and its...

The reality behind reform. (Networks).(campaign finance)
November 18, 2002... IT'S TRUTH TIME FOR THE friends and foes of campaign-finance reform on Capitol Hill. The McCain-Feingold bill, which takes effect Nov. 6, faces numerous legal challenges. And so lawyers representing groups that both love and hate reform have...

Public order in the courts. (Networks).
November 18, 2002... AS THE LEGAL BATTLE OVER MCCAIN-Feingold heated up in Washington, the push for public financing of campaigns inched forward at the state level when, on Oct. 10, North Carolina Gov. Michael Easley signed into law the Judicial Campaign Reform...

The God bullies. (On The Contrary).(sectarian views of Constitutional protection for freedom of religion)
November 18, 2002... SECTARIAN CONSERVATIVES HAVE REASON TO RESENT the First Amendment: It prohibits government officials from posting the Ten Commandments in public places while it protects the Godless Americans March on Washington (scheduled for Nov. 2.) No...

The traditionalist: why the Senate's leading dove is Robert C. Byrd. (Below The Beltway).
November 18, 2002... MANY LIBERALS WERE startled when one of the strongest Senate voices warning against invading Iraq turned out to be 84-year-old Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia, a man slightly to the center-right of his party, a defense hawk and very much a...

Revolt on the ranch: South Dakota Republicans may keep the Senate Democratic. (Gazette).
November 18, 2002... IN EARLY OCTOBER, AS THE IRAQ debate heated up in Washington, U.S. Rep. and Senate hopeful John Thune (R-S.D.) began airing a campaign ad on western South Dakota television stations. The 30-second spot featured images of Saddam Hussein while an...

The fly-by-night 107th: what you might have missed from the departing Congress. (Gazette).
November 18, 2002... AS THE 107TH CONGRESS limps into the midterm elections without having passed most of its routine spending bills, it's safe to say that the legislative branch hasn't been a model of efficiency. But, then again, there are worse things than...

Herrera's winning hand: a new kind of Nevada calls for a new kind of Democrat. (Gazette).
November 18, 2002... "DARIO [HERRERA] IS THE best one-on-one campaigner I've ever seen," says Paul Brown, Las Vegas coordinator of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN), and after a day going door-to-door with Herrera in the city's new 3rd...

Lula's rules: Brazil could undo Bush's trade scheme. (Gazette).(Luz Inacio Lula da Silva)
November 18, 2002... JUST WHEN IT WAS LOOKING AS IF the Bush administration would stamp its economic model on the entire Western Hemisphere, a credible challenge has emerged. South America's largest and most self-reliant economy is very likely to elect a popular...

The tax cheaters lobby: how the banking industry and the right foment tax evasion. (The Taxonomist).
November 18, 2002... THERE ARE SOME SUBJECTS I JUST CAN'T STOP HARPING on. But there's a rationale for my repetition. I hope that someday the mere mention of "Cato Institute" or "Heritage Foundation" or "Bush" will make people immediately think, "Yeah, those are...

The rising Latino tide: in Florida and Texas, as in California, the immigrant influx is creating a Democratic future (if not necessarily a Democratic present).
November 18, 2002... I. I CAN HELP MCBRIDE! "When I go door-to-door, and they open it up, they don't really listen to me," says Patrick Vilar, a fresh-faced young Democrat who is seeking election to the Florida House of Representatives this November in a...

The unbearable costs of empire: Bush's war could help the economy in the short run. The big harm comes later.(Pres George W. Bush)
November 18, 2002... TALK IN WASHINGTON THESE DAYS IS OF ROME AND its imperial responsibilities. But George W. Bush is no Julius Caesar. France under Napoleon may be the better precedent. Like Bush, Napoleon came to power in a coup. Like Bush, he fought off a...

Tinker, banker, neocon, spy: Ahmed Chalabi's long and winding road from (and to?) Baghdad.
November 18, 2002... IF T.E. LAWRENCE ("OF ARABIA") HAD BEEN A 21ST-century neoconservative operative instead of a British imperial spy, he'd be Ahmed Chalabi's best friend. Chalabi, the London-based leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), is front man for the...

Bloody good fun: Red Dragon does the Hannibal Lecter canon proud. (The Critics Film).(Movie Review)
November 18, 2002... DR. HANNIBAL LECTER IS the premier Hollywood monster of our time--even scarier, in his way, than John Travolta. Fish-eyed and slightly phosphorescent, wearing an expression of icy beatitude, he hovers monklike behind his sheet of perforated...

Good company: it's time for the CIA and scholars to work together. Again. (Academe).
November 18, 2002... A DAY DOESN'T GO BY BUT somebody comes into my office and says, `How do I get into, the intelligence system?" remarks Arthur Hulnick, a 28-year Central Intelligence Agency veteran who now teaches international relations at Boston University....

A red-blue stalemate?(Book Review)
November 18, 2002... The Emerging Democratic Majority By John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira. Scribner, 213 pages, $24.00 WITH THE 2002 CAMpaign in its final days, the two parties are engaged in a form of trench warfare. Neither side is expecting a big breakthrough...

WorldCom: a disaster beyond repair (CWA On The Issues: Advertisement).
November 18, 2002... WorldCom's officers built a corporate edifice out of deception, greed and outright fraud--and it should simply be torn down. In the interests of stakeholders and the general public--and most especially the thousands of WorldCom employees...