The American Prospect articles from November 2003

The American Prospect archives from November 2003

A foreign-policy emergency.(Prospects)
November 1, 2003... The hallmark of the Bush foreign policy has been a naive radicalism married to an operational incompetence. A small clique with a preconceived blueprint took advantage of a national emergency and a callow president, blowing a containable threat...

Earth to TAP.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... IN "BUSH'S SAUDI CONNECTIONS" [October 2003], Michael Steinberger makes the statement, the likes of which I've often seen and heard in the media, that "unless the Democrats can convince the public that they can be trusted with homeland defense,...

Take it from Ike.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... TAP'S EXCELLENT SECTION on language and politics [September] addresses tactical issues too often neglected by the left. I agree with Geoffrey Nunberg's article "The Liberal Label" that discrediting the liberal label is a semantic, not an...

Don't merge, organize!(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... THE LETTER "UNITE OR Die" [October] incorrectly asserted that most workers who have joined the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) since the union intensified its commitment to organizing in 1996 were added through mergers with other...

Time & data.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... IN "NEW GENERATION, NEW Politics" [October], Anna Greenberg argues that "the percentage of Democrats and Republicans in the electorate changes over time largely because one generation dies out and another enters, not because contemporary events...

Mind your morality.(Correspondence)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2003... THERE'S MUCH TO ADMIRE in David Kusnet's article "Talking American" [September], but he too readily dismisses the "moralism" that he attributes to Joe Lieberman. This is odd, because elsewhere Kusnet, rightly, praises one of the other...

Indoor pollution.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... CONFIRMATION HEARINGS are pending for Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, the nominee to replace Christie Whitman at the troubled Environmental Protection Agency. Leavitt surprised many in mid-August when he accepted the nomination, as he'd been offered...

Ashcroft on the case.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... IT'S NOT EVERY INVESTIGATION that lays its cards on the table at the outset, but the modus operandi of John Ashcroft, public eye, became apparent at the very moment the Justice Department got on the Joseph Wilson retaliatory leak case. As all...

FOXic waste.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... SAY WHAT YOU WILL about its bias and inaccuracies, FOX News is succeeding at its mission. Of course, that mission is to spread bias and inaccuracies that bolster the position of the Bush White House. A new survey from the Program on...

While you were sleeping.(Devil in the Details)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2003... Competing with the recall circus in California and the Valerie Plame leak in Washington, Zalmay Khalilzad's press conference in Kabul, Afghanistan, drew little attention. Speaking to reporters on the second anniversary of the start of Operation...

Brave new words.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... REAL SCANDAL Fake scandal, as in The Wall Street Journal's assertion that "the real intelligence scandal is how an open opponent of the U.S. war on terror such as Mr. Wilson was allowed to become one of that policy's investigators." Obfuscation...

Book 'em.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... LET'S JUST AGREE UP FRONT that there's no augury or metaphor in it, but the fact remains that South Dakota Sen. Tom Daschle spoke at length for the first time about his new book, which is due out in November, at something called the Deadwood...

Head rush.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... THE NEWS THAT RUSH Limbaugh will be spending the month trying to kick his OxyContin habit provides a tempting opportunity to kick a thug while he's down. Rush, after all, told his audience just eight years ago that "we have laws against selling...

Heroes & zeroes.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... SEN. RICHARD LUGAR GOPer tells Bush to get act together in Iraq; says concerns about "the coherence of our policies" are legitimate CHANCELLOR JAMES MOESER Vows UNC will cover full costs of education for poor students; first such...

Vast right-wing conspiracy.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... Liberal Anglicans and Episcopalians will face off this October in London against their more homophobic co-religionists at a global meeting of delegates from the world's 70 million--strong Anglican communion. Leading the countercharge against...

Funny, they don't look Jewish: latest Contender for President Comes from Long Line of Rabbis.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... "Raised a Southern Baptist who later converted to Roman Catholicism, retired Gen. Wesley Clark knew just what to say when he strode into a Brooklyn yeshiva in 1999, ostensibly to discuss his leadership of NATO'S victory in Yugoslavia. 'I feel a...

Off The Wall Street Journal.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... The $87 billion that George W. Bush belatedly requested to bail out the U.S. effort in Iraq has embarrassed many conservatives. But not The Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page makes Ebenezer Scrooge seem bighearted. "Where to Find...

Search for Kerry's roots finds surprising history.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... "For years, U.S. Senator John Forbes Kerry had sought to know the true story of his immigrant grandfather, Frederick A. Kerry.... The story, it turns out, began in a small town in the Czech Republic that once was part of the Austrian Empire....

Rove startled by heritage.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... Presidential adviser Karl Rove told the Austin American-Statesman today that he was stunned by the news that his paternal grandfather was a Hassidic rabbi from Minsk. The family name was Shmulowitz, but his grandfather was known to his...

Buchanan past disputed.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... Tikkun magazine reported today that conservative candidate Pat Buchanan was really a refugee from Romania named Pesach Bucharestazi. Buchanan, according to the publication, was brought to the United States as an infant in 1946 from a...

Arafat faces possible fatwa.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... Yasir Arafat, in a televised interview with Al-Jazeera, disclosed that he was actually born to Egyptian Jews whose surname was Bar-Aravah, or "son of the desert." He denied that he was secretly an agent of the Israeli Mossad and insisted that...

Lieberman discloses secret life.(Devil in the Details)
November 1, 2003... Joe Lieberman dropped out of the presidential race today after The Hartford Courant disclosed that he was leading a secret double life as an elder of a Mormon temple in nearby Springfield. Standing beside his 88-year-old mother, Marcia, who...

Red state army: we all know about "Reagan Democrats." But 20 years later, there may finally be a counterweight. Could "Clark Republicans" decide 2004?(Dispatches)
November 1, 2003... IN THE CONTEXT OF THE DEMOCRATIC primary, retired Gen. Wesley Clark's campaign seems less like Sherman's quick and decisive March to the Sea and more like Grant's shaky, protracted offensive against Vicksburg. Initially some were heralding the...

Not quite the big one: Arnold Schwarzenegger's election is sending out shock waves, but he may find that recent progressive reforms won't be so easy to terminate.(Dispatches)
November 1, 2003... SO, IS IT A WRAP FOR PROGRESSIVE California? According to many political observers, largely but not entirely on the right, the recall of Democrat Gray Davis and the election of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger mark a tectonic shift in...

NOW what? NOW's endorsement of Carol Moseley Braun was a symbolic act. But some feminists wonder: is this the right time for symbolism?(Dispatches)
November 1, 2003... WHEN CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN MADE her formal announcement on Sept. 22 that she was running for president, newspaper stories on the senator-turned-ambassador ran with a paragraph reminding readers that the announcement came on the heels of twin...

Head cases: how else to describe a president and House that would carve up a widely embraced program like Head Start? Thank God for the Senate.(Dispatches)
November 1, 2003... THROUGHOUT AMERICAN HISTORY, the Senate--where small and conservative states have disproportionate weight and where rules allow one senator to block key legislation--has far more often been a force for reaction than for progress. But these are...

Importing government.(Comment)
November 1, 2003... As Congress diddles with a Medicare prescription-drug plan, citizens are busing and clicking their way to Canadian pharmacies, where drugs are affordable. U.S. politicians, refusing to control drug prices, are also flocking to Canada for help...

Gimme shelters.(The taxonomist)
November 1, 2003... If you thought President Bush was done with tax cutting for the rest of his term--as Bush's budget director promised in June--you've got another think coming. Pending in Congress this fall, with Bush's avid backing, is still another round of...

The democrats' military option.(Comment)
November 1, 2003... Count me among the skeptics as to whether a politically untested general can successfully run the gauntlet of a Democratic presidential-primary campaign in America today. The organizational confusion, inconsistent statements and other troubles...

The Clinton formula: forget the left-center divide--it's not 1992 anymore. Defend government. Fight smarter. Smile. Win.
November 1, 2003... When Sylvia Plachy and I walked into Bill Clinton's Harlem office around 2:30 p.m. on Sept. 8, the former president was courteous to me, but he was more interested in telling Sylvia--who, aside from being a world-renowned photographer, is the...

Shock of the old: win or lose, Howard Dean has become town crier for a liberalism that long predates FDR.
November 1, 2003... THE SMALLEST CROWD OF HOWARD DEAN'S SLEEPLESS Summer Tour in late August consisted of about 450 people. They'd gathered at the airport outside Boise, Idaho, on a splash of tarmac surrounded by sparkling, cloudless sky. There, where the...

What Bush could learn from JFK: Kennedy's bold strategy of peace delivered more for America than Bush's simple warmongering.(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)
November 1, 2003... JOHN F. KENNEDY WAS DECORATED FOR HIS MILITARY heroism in the South Pacific in World War II. However, he showed even greater courage as president during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962. At that time, his right-wing critics were...

Safe at home: at the dawn of the Cold War, America's leaders created new institutions that made us safer. Fast forward to the present. Why isn't the Bush administration following their example?(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)
November 1, 2003... President Bush got one thing right: The greatest threat to American security is a rogue state providing a terrorist group with a weapon of mass destruction and the means to deliver it in the United States. Unfortunately, almost everything he...

Regime change: the legacy: since 1953, U.S. presidents have been toppling other governments. Now, the consequences.(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)
November 1, 2003... A very happy group of men convened at the White House on Sept. 4, 1953, to hear a cloak-and-dagger story that would resonate through all of subsequent American history. Two weeks before, the Central Intelligence Agency had overthrown Prime...

Bush's flawed revolution: "if we're an arrogant nation," said George W. Bush, "they'll resent us." He was right.(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)
November 1, 2003... GEORGE W. BUSH HAS LAUNCHED A REVOLUTION IN American foreign policy. In less than three years in office, he has discarded or redefined many of the key principles governing how America engages the world. He has relied on the unilateral exercise...

The Homeland Security muddle: a year later, Tom Ridge's department still lacks a coherent strategy or adequate authority. His critics need to get serious about domestic preparedness.(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)
November 1, 2003... When word leaked that the Department of Defense had funded a scheme to allow investors to use futures-market analysis to predict the likelihood of terrorist acts or international incidents--and to profit if their predictions were correct--the...

Rumsfeld's folly: the radical Bush doctrine for America's military was cooked up long before 9-11. Now, theory has become practice--and it doesn't work.(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)
November 1, 2003... Since coming into office, the Bush administration has radically altered national-security and military doctrines that had successfully safeguarded American interests for more than 50 years. The changes, as the current crisis in Iraq...

A well-regulated militia: the National Guard, not the military, should protect the homeland.(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)
November 1, 2003... Few Americans know that we have two armies and that both are acknowledged by the United States Constitution. One is the military that we know best, the regulars: the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy, joined later in history by the Marines and the...

A durable Middle East peace: Oslo didn't achieve it, nor has the Bush "road map." So what would would satisfy both sides?(Special report: the foreign policy crisis)
November 1, 2003... HAD THEY SURVIVED, THE OSLO ACCORDS WOULD HAVE turned 10 this year. Instead, a disheartening record of on-again, off-again negotiations has been followed by three years of deadly conflict between Israelis and Palestinians Year after year, the...

Through a lens, starkly: for U.S. networks that think documentaries are a snore, it's time to wake up and watch the gripping work of Brits Norma Percy and Brian Lapping.(Media)
November 1, 2003... TO HEAR AMERICAN TELEVISION NETworks talk about documentaries--well, there's a self-canceling sentence. If they did talk about documentaries, they'd say that they're like bomb threats: they clear the room. Those eye-glazing, ad-killing relics...

Soul on ice: the Robert McNamara of Errol Morris' new documentary is clearly a tortured soul. But is he tortured enough?(Film)
November 1, 2003... IN THE FOG OF WAR, A REVELATORY new documentary about his life and times, a disquieted Robert McNamara implores us to understand why he did the things he did as an Air Force lieutenant colonel who helped plan the fire bombing of Japanese cities...

The life of the parties.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... PARTY OF THE PEOPLE: A HISTORY OF THE DEMOCRATS BY JULES WITCOVER * RANDOM HOUSE * 758 PAGES * $35.00 GRAND OLD PARTY: A HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICANS BY LEWIS L. GOULD * RANDOM HOUSE * 588 PAGES * $35.00 FEW INSTITUTIONS OF ANY SORT IN...

It wasn't deficit reduction.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... THE ROARING NINETIES BY JOSEPH E, STIGLITZ * W.W. NORTON AND COMPANY * 379 PAGES * $25.95 LIKE MANY ACADEMIC ECONOMISTS, Joseph E. Stiglitz went into government hoping to tutor as well as to serve. Unlike most, Stiglitz has significant...

End of the line.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... FIRING BACK: AGAINST THE TYRANNY OF THE MARKET BY PIERRE BOURDIEU, TRANSLATED BY LOIC WACQUANT * NEW PRESS * 112 PAGES * $14.95 AT THE TIME OF PIERRE BOURDIEU'S death in January 2002, he stood as the dominant intellectual in France, if not...

Up from Weequahic.(Book Review)
November 1, 2003... NEW JERSEY DREAMING: CAPITAL, CULTURE AND THE CLASS OF '58 BY SHERRY B. ORTNER * DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS * 334 PAGES * $29.95 SOMETIMES THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF a book just leaps out of a publisher's catalog and grabs you by the throat, and such...

A fan gloats.(The Last Word)
November 1, 2003... I would point out for the everlasting record that so-called serious people who discuss serious issues in a serious way for serious paychecks still believe that Rush Limbaugh knows what he's talking about. I also would point out that he lasted...