The American Prospect articles from November 2006

The American Prospect archives from November 2006

Pyongyang boomerang.
November 1, 2006... REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT DURING THE PAST SIX years has been a study in dissipation. No, I'm not referring to the Mark Foley scandal. I mean the dissipation of American power and influence in the world--the latest consequence of which is North...

Reviewer reviewed.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... I WAS FLATTERED THAT Peter Steinfels ["Be Not Afraid; September 2006] grouped me with Kevin Phillips and James Rudin in his essay about new books on the religious right. The author and I obviously disagree about a great deal, but it would be...

Food for thought.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2006... THE CONTROVERSIES about abortion rights, and stem cell research could be clarified. When most people think about conception or pregnancy they picture, in their mind's eye, a baby (not a blastocyst or embryo). This leads some people to confuse a...

We're screwed!(Up Front)
November 1, 2006... PRINT MAY NOT BE DEAD, BUT IT SURE IS SLOW. THIS issue was sent to the printer on October 17. It'll hit newsstands on November 3. It'll remain there until early December. And in the middle of that publication cycle, a pivotal election will...

Death wish.(Up Front)(Iraqi casualties )(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Breaking news: People are dying in Iraq. Of course, just how many has been the subject of some debate. Researchers at Johns Hopkins released a massive, rigorous cluster sample survey of Iraqi casualties in October, which found, between 2003 and...

A history of violence.(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... To be sure, at the same press conference, Bush was careful to "applaud" the Iraqis for their courage in the face of this daunting carnage, even if he didn't quite couch it in terms that accepted U.S. responsibility for any of it: "I am amazed...

The gambler.(Up Front)
November 1, 2006... Meanwhile, the president's expressed thoughts on North Korea's nuclear test were perhaps more alarming than anything else, if only because he appears to be basing his actions on a very confused poker metaphor. Multilateral negotiations (i.e.,...

The question: what's the all-time best Washington sex scandal?(Up Front)
November 1, 2006... "Chuck Robb and Tai Collins. Larry King's interview with Collins is a classic. 'And then the sexual occurrence was in New York?' was an actual question." --Chuck Todd, The Hotline "Wilbur Mills, Ways and Means Committee chairman and...

Hannitized.(General Motors appoints Sean Hannity)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... As part of its new "You're a Great American," ad campaign, General Motors has picked Alan Colmes-abuser Sean Hannity as its spokesman. Who better to kick off a new sales initiative meant to expand the appeal of a diminishing brand than the guy...

Open secret.(David Kuo releases new book)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... David Kuo, former No. 2 in the president's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, recently released a book revealing how the administration has played religious conservatives for suckers. "National Christian leaders," Kuo complains,...

Neutrality.(Joe Lockhart)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... It wasn't long ago that Joe Lockhart was Bill Clinton's affable, preternaturally composed press secretary. And it really wasn't long ago that he was one of the grown-ups brought in to right the then-floundering Kerry campaign. Since that...

Bob Woodward's next three books.(Commander in Chief: John McCain's Ascendance)(The Plan: McCain's War on Poverty)(Meltdown: Inside the Collapse of the McCain Administration)(Brief article)
November 1, 2006... Commander in Chief: John McCain's Ascendance. An in-depth portrait, as only legendary investigative journalist Bob Woodward can render it, of how war hero and maverick senator John McCain beat the ambitious Hillary Clinton to the White...

Human failings.(human rights)
November 1, 2006... THE CROWNING DISGRACE OF THIS COUNTRY'S FIVE year experiment with one-party Republican rule was surely the passage of a bill on September 29 that sanctioned abusive treatment of prisoners in the "war on terror," banned habeas corpus claims for...

Where the boys are.
November 1, 2006... REMEMBER TITLE IX, THE FEDERAL LEGISLATION that guarantees equality by sex in education? It was passed in 1972, on the heels of racial integration, and with a rather similar rationale: Separate was not deemed to be equal either in law or in...

Sour mashed: Tennessee's Bill Frist is leaving the Senate. Left and right are happy.
November 1, 2006... IT TOOK ABOUT THREE YEARS OF helping to turn Afghanistan into a failed state before Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the Republican from Tennessee, experienced his first moment of clarity. "A political solution is how it's all going to be...

Who glossed China? Nicholas Lardy is widely respected. Naturally, he's almost always wrong.
November 1, 2006... AFTER THE ECONOMIST NICHOLAS Lardy visited China in the mid-1980s, he came away distinctly skeptical. While Chinese leaders were gearing up for a huge export drive, Lardy predicted "a marked slowing in Chinas trade expansion in the years ahead"...

War in Iraq 2003-??: the Pentagon had no intention of staying in Iraq forever. But the White House won't answer a simple yes-or-no question about permanent bases, and the situation keeps getting worse. So Pentagon brass are planning--and building--for the (very) long haul.
November 1, 2006... Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, is an odd place to discover the possible fate of Iraq. But the fort, a 90-year-old Army base in the midst of suburbia, plays host to the Army's communications command, which has quite a lot invested in that country's...

We answer to the name of liberals.(STATEMENT)(Democratic party of the united states)
November 1, 2006... As right-wing politicians and pundits call us stooges for Osama bin Laden, Tony Judt charges, in a widely discussed and heatedly debated essay in the London Review of Books, that American liberals--without distinction--have "acquiesced in...

What lies beneath: some oil companies boast about their commitment to fighting global warming. But as the Arctic heats up, these same companies are racing to drill in newly melted waters. The rush to exploit the melting ice cap is on.(Cover story)
November 1, 2006... Joern Skov Nielsen surely qualifies as one of the more obscure government ministers in the world. Head of Greenland's Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum, he operates out of an office in Nuuk, capital of Greenland, a semiautonomous region of...

The road to good jobs.
November 1, 2006... America needs more good jobs at good wages. The combination of deregulation, global low-wage competition, and the attack on unions has reduced the supply of reliable jobs with decent wages, benefits, and career prospects. This shift comes at a...

Getting serious about good jobs: we need to link training, job structuring, and economic development.
November 1, 2006... HOW TO GENERATE MORE GOOD jobs for Americans? Conventionally, policy-makers and economists give great weight to two strategies--education and economic development. Presumably, a better educated workforce will command higher pay. And economic...

No justice, no growth: how Los Angeles is making big-time developers create decent jobs.
November 1, 2006... ON THE MORNING OF JUNE 22, 1995, to the total astonishment of the people working and walking on Hollywood Boulevard--the sales clerks of a hundred shlock emporiums, the stoners, the runaways, and the crowds of ever-bewildered tourists who had...

Outsourcing: bigger than you thought: the outsourcing wave is about to hit the service sector. To keep good service jobs, we need to prepare the workforce and understand the jobs.
November 1, 2006... THE GREAT CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL philosopher Edmund Burke, who probably would not have been a reader of The American Prospect, once observed, "You can never plan the future by the past." But when it comes to preparing the American workforce for...

Bodymore, Murdaland: is The Wire a cop show? Well, yes. But having widened its gaze to City Hall and beyond, it's become a seminar on the fate of the American city.
November 1, 2006... "It's Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you." --The police commissioner to his commanders on The Wire THE BALTIMORE POLICE DEPARTMENT'S 2005 annual report is crammed with statistics that tell a story. Violent crime is down...

The new open society.(Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge)(The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... INFOTOPIA: HOW MANY MINDS PRODUCE KNOWLEDGE BY CASS SUNSTEIN Oxford University Press, 288 pages, $25.00 THE WEALTH OF NETWORKS: HOW SOCIAL PRODUCTION TRANSFORMS MARKETS AND FREEDOM BY YOCHAI BENKLER Yale University Press, 520 pages, $40.00...

What it will take.(Building Red America: The New Conservative Coalition and the Drive for Permanent Power)(The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care, and Retirement, And How You Can Fight Back)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... BUILDING RED AMERICA: THE NEW CONSERVATIVE COALITION AND THE DRIVE FOR PERMANENT POWER BY THOMAS B. EDSALL Basic Books, 320 pages, $26.00 THE GREAT RISK SHIFT: THE ASSAULT ON AMERICAN JOBS, FAMILIES, HEALTH CARE, AND RETIREMENT, AND HOW YOU...

How capitalism works now.(The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences by Louis Uchitelle)(All Together Now: Common Sense for a Fair Economy)(America Back on Track)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... THE DISPOSABLE AMERICAN: LAYOFFS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES BY LOUIS UCHITELLE Alfred A. Knopf, 283 pages, $25.95 ALL TOGETHER NOW: COMMON SENSE FOR A FAIR ECONOMY BY JARED BERNSTEIN Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 154 pages, $12.00 AMERICA...

A republic, if we can build it.(Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches)(L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers And the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... POLARIZED AMERICA: THE DANCE OF IDEOLOGY AND UNEQUAL RICHES BY NOLAN MCCARTY, KEITH T. POOLE, AND HOWARD ROSENTHAL MIT Press, 240 pages, $35,00 L.A. STORY: IMMIGRANT WORKERS AND THE FUTURE OF THE U.S. LABOR MOVEMENT BY RUTH MILKMAN Russell...

The imperial klutz.(Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq)(Book review)
November 1, 2006... OVERTHROW: AMERICA'S CENTURY OF REGIME CHANGE FROM HAWAII TO IRAQ BY STEPHEN KINZER Times Books, 384 pages, $27.50 A FAMILIARITY WITH THE HISTORY that Stephen Kinzer recounts in his well-written and compelling new book Overthrow would go a...

Map quest.(OFF TOPIC)
November 1, 2006... I WAS INTRIGUED TO READ IN EARLY OCTOBER ABOUT the sale at auction, for nearly $4 million, of a map. It wasn't, naturally, just any map: It was the first atlas of the world ever printed, from 1477, based on the cartographic calculations of...