The American Prospect articles from October 2006

The American Prospect archives from October 2006

Thinking about the government.(PROSPECTS)
October 1, 2006... AMERICA MAY GET ITS TWO-PARTY SYSTEM BACK after November. But the competition could turn out to be neoconservative Republicans versus Eisenhower Republicans, with the latter played by Democrats. As the society becomes more unequal and working...

Good point.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... THE COVER YOU CHOSE TO promote Flynt Leverett's wise and thoroughly well-informed article "Illusion and Reality" [September 2006] is a good example of why so many of us European friends of the American Democratic Party begin to lose all hope...

God, that was bad.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... SILLY ME. UNTIL I READ Peter Steinfels [September], I thought that the religious fight was a real problem. I thought it was a social and political force that was fanning the flames of blind patriotism and militarism, encouraging...

C'mon, Walter.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... WALTER BENN MICHAELS' appeal for a greater stress on economic equality, "The Trouble with Diversity," [September] is badly needed but why must it be accompanied by an extended attack on diversity? I see no evidence that the left could have...

Force daylight.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2006... IN HIS "MEMO TO HOUSE Democrats" [September], Robert Reich retreats from his customary sound judgment to offer a piece of doubtful advice. He warns that if the Democrats should take back the House this November, they must avoid whining, harping...

Pick 'em.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... WASHINGTON IS A CITY OF EXOTIC AND PARTICULAR professions. If you live in AU Park or Chevy Chase-D.C. or any of the other better neighborhoods in what is sometimes impolitely called Upper Cancasia, you will very likely find that your neighbors...

A tale of several slogans.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... After the 2004 elections, the Democrats decided to eschew policy wonks and political strategists and take their cues from some professionals with real populist acumen: Berkeley linguists. With George Lakoff's emphasis on framing firmly in mind,...

Race to the bottom.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Nothing like election season for some tasty GOP racial gaffes. First, Senator George Allen of Virginia used the slur "macaca" in reference to an Indian American staffer of his opponent. Then the frontrunner to take Katherine Harris'...

Where's the dystopia?(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... The alternative history is a venerable genre, populated by literary figures from Philip K. Dick to Philip Roth. The Republican National Committee is doing them one better this cycle, with the September launching of the mock Web site, America...

Dancing with delay.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... Retired machine boss Tom DeLay has shifted focus from political spoilage to reality TV, recently sending a mass e-mail to supporters urging them to vote for "a good friend of mine, country music singer and Go? supporter Sara Evans," in the new...

No respect.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... September 5 was primary day in Florida. The Florida GOP sent congratulatory e-mails to Republican winners across the state. But GOP Senate primary victor Katherine Harris, whose campaign against Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson had long ago...

The hillorist.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... A new biography of Karl Rove by Wayne Slater and James Moore claims that when he moved into his West Wing office, he brought in three high-ranking Catholic priests to rid the room of evil spirits. Deal Hudson, a participant in the exorcism,...

The wild kingdom G.W.O.T.(Up Front)(Global War on Terrorism)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... In an infamous recent speech at the American Legion National Convention, Donald Rumsfeld channeled Churchill in likening appeasement to "feeding a crocodile, hoping it would eat you last." Shortly after that, famed crocodile hunter Steve Irwin...

Picture this.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... On September 10, President Bush laid two wreaths in the footprints of the former towers at ground zero. The Washington Post noted the occasion's solemnity and observed that it "left aside the partisan rancor" that Bush & Co. have made their...

Fuzzy math.(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... In August, U.S. forces in Baghdad launched a security crackdown called Operation Forward Together to curb rampant sectarian violence in the capital city. The operation appeared to yield results, with commanders touting a remarkable 52 percent...

Spot the fake 2006 right-wing book title.(QUIZ)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... A. The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9-11 B. Can She Be Stopped?: Hillary Clinton Will Be the Next President of the United States Unless... C. The Nancy Party: Weakness, Appeasement, and the Pelosi...

The question: assuming Democrats take over, what should speaker Pelosi do first?(Up Front)(Nancy Pelosi)(Brief article)
October 1, 2006... "Put John Murtha and Henry Waxman in charge of Iraq policy and accountability. It will be hard to do anything big until we deal with Iraq." --Tom Matzzie, Washington director, MoveOn.org "Restore faith in American democracy through...

Reluctant radicals.(THE OUT YEARS)(Column)
October 1, 2006... IT IS CONVENTIONAL WISDOM THAT THE NEW DEMOCRATIC activists of the "netroots" are strong on political tactics but don't have much to contribute to the war of ideas. Matt Bai, writing in The New York Times Magazine, charged disparagingly that...

Political earthquake.(COMMENT)(Column)
October 1, 2006... IMAGINE STEPPING INTO A POLLING BOOTH AND voting for candidates who, instead of being bought and paid for by corporations, unions, or wealthy donors, are financed by public funds, and accountable to you and other citizens. Sounds utopian,...

Mr. Blackwell's designs: the voting mess in Ohio may be even worse than it was in 2004.(CAMPAIGN '06)(J. Kenneth Blackwell)
October 1, 2006... HUNDREDS OF VOTERS MYSTERIOUSLY "dropped or displaced" from registration rolls when master lists were electronically merged. Absentee ballots invalidated because voters didn't receive a flier telling them not to remove a security stub. Poll...

Anger mismanagement: the House's most erratic member, Curt Weldon, may finally hit a wall.(CAMPAIGN '06)
October 1, 2006... THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES of our era doesn't lack for camp spectacle. There's Indiana's Dan Burton, who shot at melons in his backyard to "prove" that the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered. Tom Tancredo of Colorado once advocated that...

College dropouts: the campaign to reform the Electoral College actually gains ground.(CAMPAIGN '06)
October 1, 2006... SOMEWHERE, SAMUEL J. TILDEN may be smiling. The 1876 Democratic presidential nominee--who won the popular vote but lost the presidency to Rutherford B. Hayes--would surely approve of the movement afoot to entrust the American people with the...

Desperation time: this will be the third consecutive election in which the Republicans wrap themselves in 9-11. Expect the worst.(ELECTION 2006 SPECIAL)
October 1, 2006... ON THE RECENT FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE September 11 attacks, President Bush visited all three sites of the mayhem--the field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the courageous passengers took down United Flight 93; the Pentagon, long since...

Mommy dearest? As South Dakotans prepare to vote on the nation's most draconian abortion law, they're hearing a frightening argument: that the state must "protect" women from abortion by forcing them to bear children. And the argument is spreading.(ELECTION 2006 SPECIAL)
October 1, 2006... NEXT MONTH, SOUTH DAKOTANS WILL VOTE on whether to uphold the most radical abortion ban in the nation. Allowing for abortion only "to prevent the death of a pregnant mother," the ban was enacted last March in the belief that the changing...

The test case race: in Ohio, Sherrod Brown is running for the Senate as Thomas Frank's dream candidate. Can economic populism vanquish culture and terror in a red state?(ELECTION 2006 SPECIAL)
October 1, 2006... THE WORLD HEADQUARTERS OF THE GOODYEAR TIRE AND Rubber Co. is still in Akron, Ohio, but all they make there now are decisions. Except for a few specialty racing tires, Goodyear hasn't made tires in Akron in years. Industry here is dead, dead,...

Whatever it takes: Tennessee's Harold Ford and Pennsylvania's Bob Casey may not be running campaigns to swell liberal breasts. But they're clearly doing what's necessary.(ELECTION 2006 SPECIAL)
October 1, 2006... On a sweltering Saturday morning in August, on the grounds of the old Rutherford County Courthouse just outside Nashville, where a Bible in a glass case is permanently turned to John 3:16, a young politician of considerable urbanity is...

A slight oversight: congressional investigations of the executive branch have been sandbagged by the White House and its allies on Capitol Hill. Can the Democrats revive a lost art?(ELECTION 2006 SPECIAL)
October 1, 2006... WHEN SENATE MAJORITY LEADER LYNDON Johnson became vice president in 1961, he persuaded his protege and successor, Senator Mike Mansfield of Montana, to let Johnson continue running the Senate Democratic caucus. The vice president,...

The way of the hammer: Democrats have been outraged by Tom DeLay's tactics. But if they take back the House, the lesson to learn from him is this: hyper-partisanship can be good for the party of government.(ELECTION 2006 SPECIAL)
October 1, 2006... IT WAS A SUMMER OF ODD POLITICAL VALEDICTORIES. ON the night of August 8, Joe Lieberman bade farewell to his career as a Democratic senator, kicking off of his independent bid by blaming the "politics of partisan polarization" for doing him in....

The spirit of '56: liberal baby boomers cherish the notion that 1968 was the year that America got interesting and weird. Nonsense--1956 had it all, man.(CULTURE)
October 1, 2006... AMERICA TURNS 50 THIS YEAR--the America, that is, that we recognize as ours. It was half a century ago that our new founding fathers made their debut on the national stage: Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Elvis Presley. The latter, per...

How ambitious can we be?(Ethical Realism)(The American Way of Strategy)(Book review)
October 1, 2006... ETHICAL REALISM BY ANATOL LIEVEN AND JOHN HULSMAN Pantheon, 224 pages, $22.00 THE AMERICAN WAY OF STRATEGY BY MICHAEL LIND Oxford University Press, 304 pages, $24.00 ANYONE WHO DOUBTS THAT THE Bush Revolution in foreign policy has...

Do this for Mom.(The Motherhood Manifesto: What America's Moms Want, and What to Do About It)(Leaving Women Behind)(Book review)
October 1, 2006... THE MOTHERHOOD MANIFESTO: WHAT AMERICA'S MOMS WANT--AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT BY JOAN BLADES AND KRISTIN ROWE-FINKBEINER Nation Books, 248 pages, $14.95 LEAVING WOMEN BEHIND BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL, CELESTE COLGAN, AND JOHN C. GOODMAN...

After the fall of the right.(books on religion, ethics, and politics)(Book review)
October 1, 2006... THE PLAN: BIG IDEAS FOR AMERICA BY RAHM EMANUEL AND BRUCE REED Public Affairs, 224 pages, $19.95 WHOSE FREEDOM?: THE BATTLE OVER AMERICA'S MOST IMPORTANT IDEA BY GEORGE LAKOFF Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 277 pages, $23.00 BEING RIGHT IS...

The man in me.(OFF TOPIC)(Column)
October 1, 2006... MY FATHER ISN'T MUCH IN THE FASHION ADVICE section. He's given me precisely two pieces of sartorial guidance over the years: Don't buy things you need to iron, and really don't buy things you need to dry-clean. These were Abel Klein's two...