The American Prospect articles from October 2007

The American Prospect archives from October 2007

Iraq Trap 2.(PROSPECTS)
October 1, 2007... AMERICANS ONLY WANT TRAGEDIES WITH HAPPY endings, the novelist and critic William Dean Howells once said, and that strain in our culture seems to be at work once again in the debate about Iraq. Many of the war's original supporters now concede...

Avoid the hangover.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LIKE GETTING DRUNK or voting for Ralph Nader, impeaching George Bush ["First Gonzales, Then Bush," September 2007] may seem like fun at the time--but what a headache in the morning. Here are three reasons why...

High crimes.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... HAROLD MEYERSON thinks ["The Trouble With Impeachment," September 2007] the Democrats can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Without spines they can't even get offthe ground. In defense of the Bill of Rights, impeaching Bush and Cheney would...

Pro-choice, he protests.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... I APPRECIATE TERENCE Samuel's essay ["Young, Black, and Post-Civil Rights," September 2007] regarding the changing landscape for black politicians. I do wish, however, to correct the article's description of me as "anti-abortion." I...

In motion.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
October 1, 2007... ONE CAN QUIBBLE WITH Cass Sunstein s trope ["The Myth of the Balanced Court," September 2007] of a motionless and centrist John Paul Stevens appearing to move to the left while in fact the Supreme Court moved to his right. On affirmative...

From the executive editor.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Editorial)
October 1, 2007... In the second week of Bill Clinton's presidency, Paul Starr--then on leave from both his job as a Princeton sociology professor and his calling as the Prospect's co-editor so that he could serve as a White House senior health-policy...

E pluribus ulcer.(Up Front)(primaries)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] EVEN BEFORE THIS YEAR'S SCHEDULING MADNESS, it wasn't as if the presidential primary process was a thing of beauty. By ancient tradition, it begins in Iowa, an all-white, aging, economically populist, socially...

Gore endorsing?(Up Front)(Al Gore on presidential candidates)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... In an interview with the unofficial Harvard alumni magazine 01238, Al Gore recently indicated he would likely endorse a candidate for president. He also confirmed that the vice president is in fact part of the executive branch and complimented...

Dumb as hell.(Up Front)(Richard Nixon on Fred Thompson)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Newly uncovered tapes of Richard Nixon reveal that in 1973 he had none too positive a view of Fred Thompson, now the newest entrant in the Republican presidential sweepstakes. The thenpresident was disappointed that Thompson had been named...

All dressed up.(Up Front)(Ted Nugent)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... Ted Nugent, conservative rock star, gun enthusiast, TV personality, and friend of eminent Republicans from Texas Gov. Rick Perry to President Bush, recently did his bit for bipartisanship at one of his concerts. Between numbers, he paused to...

Econocracy.(Up Front)(leaders with economics education)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... According to Bryan Caplan's recent book, The Myth of the Rational Voter, most people are irrational when they vote. Why are they irrational? Because they don't think like libertarian economists, Caplan concludes. A new study, however, shows...

The question: what should Alberto Gonzales' next job be?(Up Front)(Brief article)
October 1, 2007... "Travel agent. You may think there are no flights to Cairo available, but he'll find one for you."--Kermit Roosevelt, law professor, UPenn [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Director of Career and Placement Services, Regent University Law...

Parody.(George W. Bush's "Fantastic Freedom Institute")
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "[Bush] will be running what he called "a fantastic Freedom Institute" promoting democracy around the world. But he added, "I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.'"--The New...

New politics gets newer.(THE OUT YEARS)(political reform)
October 1, 2007... WHO WOULD HAVE PREDICTED THAT THE DEFINING difference in the Democratic presidential cam paign would involve not Iraq but reform of the political process, particularly the role of lobbyists? At the candidates' joint appearance at the YearlyKos...

No country for mothers.(COMMENT)(maternal mortality)
October 1, 2007... GOOD NEWS! IF YOU ARE AN ORDINARY MORTAL LIVING in the United States, your chances of staying alive are better than ever. According to new government numbers, the rate of Americans dying in 2004 (the most recent year to be calculated) hit a...

The Hillarycare mythology: did Hillary doom health reform in 1993? It's time to get the facts straight about the Clinton plan and why compromise failed. Here's the real story.(Hillary Clinton)
October 1, 2007... FIVE DAYS AFTER HIS INAUGURATION IN 1993, BILL Clinton named his wife to chair a newly established President's Task Force on National Health Care Reform. From that moment, the public had the impression that Hillary Clinton and the task force...

The bubble economy: the financial meltdown is the logical consequence of deregulation. Will we reverse field in time to prevent another 1929?(Great Depression)
October 1, 2007... We have all been here before. --Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS STILL STRUGGLING TO contain what is already the most severe credit contraction since the Great Depression. Yet in all of the press coverage,...

The fence to nowhere: more than ever, we need to craft an accord on migrant workers.(IMMIGRATION ISSUES)
October 1, 2007... EARLIER THIS YEAR AS THE IRAQ CRISIS DEEPENED with no end in sight, an administration in disgrace sought to score some kind of legislative victory elsewhere. Immigration reform was a good candidate since a coalition of both the economic right,...

After failure: with immigration reform dead, Democrats court Hispanics and Republicans go (more) nativist.(IMMIGRATION ISSUES)
October 1, 2007... NEWT GINGRICH ISN'T ONE TO MINCE WORDS--particularly in the post-September 11 era, which so suits his penchant for whipping up hysteria. So it wasn't exactly a shock when the papers reported that he had worked up an audience by telling them how...

City on a hill: New Haven creates its own pro-immigrant policy.(Connecticut)
October 1, 2007... WITH IMMIGRATION REFORM JETTISONED from the national agenda, the mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, is resurrecting the debate in his own backyard. Rejecting the morally charged rhetoric that conservatives have used to east opprobrium on...

Leo the Linchpin: Steelworker President Leo Gerard looks like an old-time union leader, but he's put together a labor-environmentalist alliance that bridges some growing Democratic fissures.
October 1, 2007... LEO GERARD IS CENTRAL CASTING'S IDEA OF A LABOR leader: tough and big. Really big--6 feet 2 inches tall and barrel-chested. He's just the kind of guy you'd expect to be the president of the United Steelworkers. So what's he doing palling around...

God's precinct walkers: when students at conservative Christian Patrick Henry College entered the real world of Republican campaigns in a swing state, they found that God's plan did not always include victory.(Virginia)
October 1, 2007... DEREK ARCHER'S TALL FRAME WAS SQUEEZED into the backseat with another freshman, his online Bible out on his lap. The pastor's son with the freshly combed blonde hair was heading down to Virginia Beach to campaign for Jerry Kilgore, the 2005...

Schools as scapegoats: our increasing inequality and our competitiveness problems are huge--but they can't be laid at the door of our education system.
October 1, 2007... EDUCATION IS THE ANSWER. BUT, WHAT'S THE question? Simple: What's the cure for any adverse economic condition? Is your pay stagnant or declining? Quick, get more education. Are workers failing to share in economic growth? Too bad, they...

Medifraud Amok: heard about the company that resold the drugs that came back in the mail? That's apparently just a normal day in the life of our under-regulated drug industry.
October 1, 2007... "WE'RE HEARING THOSE PHRASES AGAIN," declared Law and Order district attorney, former Republican senator, and presidential candidate Fred Thompson in a July 26 ABC podcast. National health care, universal health care, socialized medicine. We're...

First ladies in two modes: Democratic candidates have partners who can be more liberal than they. Republican candidates, ideally, are still married to June Cleaver.(TRENDS)
October 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WITH PHRASES LIKE "COMmanding daddy of a candidate" and "shoulders you could land a 747 on," descriptions of the frontrunners for the 2008 Republican nomination have tended toward the cartoonishly masculine. And...

Arts and minds: the State Department wants to fund artists to create works for overseas museums--so long as the art promotes U.S. foreign policy.(THE ARTS)
October 1, 2007... THE UNITED STATES GOVERNment wants to enlist members of the art community to help win "hearts and minds." This fall, the American Association of Museums will award almost $700,000--half of it from the State Department--to American grant...

The imperial fallacy.(Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance - And Why They Fall; Among Empires: American Ascendancy and Its Predecessors)(Book review)
October 1, 2007... DAY OF EMPIRE: HOW HYPERPOWERS RISE TO GLOBAL DOMINANCE--AND WHY THEY FALL BY AMYCHUA, Doubleday, 432 pages, $27.95 AMONG EMPIRES: AMERICAN ASCENDANCY AND ITS PREDECESSORS BY CHARLES S. MAIER, Harvard University Press, 373 pages, $27.95 ...

Moral hazard is for suckers.(THE LAST WORD)
October 1, 2007... LAST SUMMER, WHILE SITTING ON A BEACH, I OVERheard a father tussle with his young son about whether the child was old enough to take out a small sailboat. The father finally relented. "Go ahead, but I'm not gonna save you," he said, picking up...