The American Prospect articles from September 2008

The American Prospect archives from September 2008

Crash: financial and ideological.(PROSPECTS)(Essay)
September 1, 2008... THE NEW PRESIDENT WILL FACE A THREE-PART ECONOMIC crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression. Remedy, in turn, will require drastic revision of the ideological assumptions that have dominated American political discourse, in both...

Check yourself.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ANN FRIEDMAN STATES ["Strength in Numbers," July/August 2008] that the achievement of one Pelosi or one Clinton (almost) is not enough to assure proper political influence for women so long as they are "stuck at the...

Going public.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Letter to the editor)
September 1, 2008... I WANTED TO THANK ELYN Saks for her article about how having schizophrenia has affected her ["A Professor's Story," July/August 2008]. As someone who has schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, I deeply appreciate her coming forward and putting...

From the executive editor.(CORRESPONDENCE)(Editorial)
September 1, 2008... THE ELECTION IS STILL MONTHS AWAY, THE INAUGURATION of the next president another 84 days beyond that, but it's hard not to begin thinking about life after January 20, 2009. The first two years of a new political alignment (which we'll have...

Too awesome for my vote.(Up Front)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AS BARACK OBAMA, BACKLIT BY THE GOLDEN LIGHT of sunset, spoke to 200,000 cheering Germans in Berlin on July 24, the moment certainly looked to be a good one for his campaign. Maybe too good, said CNN correspondent...

Conventional entertainment.(Up Front)(Democratic Convention performers)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Kanye West is known for his glow-in-the-dark concerts and his larger-than-life sunglasses--certainly better than for his political opinions. But West is one of a youngish group of stars who will perform at the Democratic Convention, joining...

Oughta' be in pictures.(Up Front)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... Karl Rove and Howard Wolfson have both found their ways to Fox in recent months, and with any luck, they will become the new versions of Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala, with gloves (and bowtie) off. But what about the other members of the Bush...

The question: which ambassadorship would you like under a McCain administration?(Up Front)(John McCain)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... "The Ottoman Empire. The Turks knew how to keep the Arabs occupied for hundreds of years." --Lane Greene, correspondent, The Economist [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Czechoslovakia. McCain seems to have a soft spot for it." --Ben...

Tories for Obama.(Up Front)(conservatives, Barack Obama)(Brief article)
September 1, 2008... One of the revelations of Barack Obama's overseas journey is that John McCain is not necessarily the favored candidate of conservatives in other lands. In July, London's Daily Telegraph asked the conservative members of the British Parliament...

Preemptive presidential pardons.(PARODY)
September 1, 2008... MONICA GOODLING Offense: Politicized hiring and firing at Department of Justice Presidential statement: I know that some folks are mad still about the hard work Monica did. I also know that Monica asked job-seekers what things about...

Big-picture power.(THE OUT YEARS)(Column)
September 1, 2008... A FEW YEARS AGO, WHEN I WAS INVOLVED IN A project to build broad coalitions of progressive organizations at the state level, there was a fad among these groups to do a "power analysis" of the political conditions in their states and create a...

The generation trap.(COMMENT)
September 1, 2008... MOST YOUNG PROGRESSIVES HAVE HEARD IT AT one point or another: the complaint that our generation is less active and engaged than the baby boomers were. As Phyllis Chesler (author of The Death of Feminism) told USA Today in 2006, "I think that...

It's his party: Barack Obama might be running on a post-partisan platform, but he is more focused on building the Democratic Party than any other candidate in recent history.
September 1, 2008... An unassuming building at 430 South Capitol Street, in a forlorn corner between the Capitol and a highway overpass, is the home address of the Democratic Party. But though mail still gets delivered to the Washington, D.C., address, many of the...

Where do we move when America MovesOn? Victory could pose an existential challenge for the grass-roots groups that arose in opposition to Bush. A MoveOn.org veteran examines the challenge and its opportunities.(George W. Bush)(Essay)
September 1, 2008... If Barack Obama wins the presidency in November, the United States will officially enter a new political era. We'll finally have a president who, like most Americans, opposes the "dumb" decision to invade Iraq, unapologetically insists on...

A liberal shock doctrine: history teaches us that presidents have to move quickly to enact progressive reforms before the window of opportunity closes forever. It's a lesson Barack Obama should take to heart.(Essay)
September 1, 2008... Progressive political change in American history is rarely incremental. With important exceptions, most of the reforms that have advanced our nation's status as a modern, liberalizing social democracy were pushed through during narrow windows...

How the West will be won: by espousing a brand of liberalism that's heavy on personal freedom and light on divisive social issues, Democrats are finally being heard in the Mountain West.(Essay)
September 1, 2008... It's morning on the Fourth of July in conservative Greeley, Colorado, and along 10th Avenue, the town's residents are staking out choice spots from which to watch the parade. A man in a "Got Freedom?" T-shirt claims a piece of sidewalk. A...

Obama vs. the fiscal fear-mongers: the far right has been manipulating the sensible center to conjure up an extreme "entitlement crisis." The next president needs to resist being swayed.(Barack Obama)(Essay)
September 1, 2008... If Barack Obama is elected president, he will inherit not just the most serious financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. He will face an obstructionist orthodoxy about government spending that will make recovery even more...

How the dems lost on education: republicans have exploited the Democratic Party's failure to own the education-reform issue--and students have paid the price.(Essay)
September 1, 2008... For Connecticut's attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, filing a lawsuit against the No Child Left Behind Act must have seemed like an obvious winner. More and more attorney generals around the country were using splashy litigation to boost...

The invisible woman: after a summer of blockbuster comic-book flicks and record ticket sales to women, why have we yet to see a superheroine movie?(Culture & Books)(Critical essay)
September 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WHEN I WAS A KID, VISITING my cousin meant I got to do two things: sleep on the top bunk and page through his epic comic-card collection. I may have learned about dating from Archie Comics' Betty and Veronica, but...

The right in the rearview mirror.(books on the political right)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... FLYING HIGH: REMEMBERING BARRY GOLDWATER BY WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR., Basic Books, 208 pages, $25.95 NIXONLAND: THE RISE OF A PRESIDENT AND THE FRACTURING OF AMERICA BY RICK PERLSTEIN, Scribner, 881 pages, $37.50 THE AGE OF REAGAN: A...

The corrupter of youth.(Richard Rorty: The Making of an American Philosopher)(Book review)
September 1, 2008... RICHARD RORTY: THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER BY NElL GROSS, University of Chicago Press, 367 pages, $32.50 BY THE LAST YEARS OF THE 20TH century, Richard Rorty was probably the best-known university-based philosopher in the United...

The real economic choice.(THE LAST WORD)
September 1, 2008... UNDERNEATH THE RHETORIC AND 10-POINT ECONOMIC plans advanced by John McCain and Barack Obamalie two fundamentally different philosophies. It's not, as John McCain puts it, a choice between a tax-raiser and a tax-cutter. Nor is it simply a...