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Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias is a senior editor at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a former Prospect staff writer, and the author of Heads in the Sand: How the Republicans Screw Up Foreign Policy and Foreign Policy Screws Up the Democrats.

Recent Articles

Friends of Spam

Matthew YglesiasDec 15, 2003

It's no secret that much of the Democratic establishment fears Howard Dean. For months, rumors have abounded that party insiders will mount some kind of last-ditch effort to deny him the nomination he seems ever closer to securing. One natural focus of such speculation has been the 715 "superdelegates," party mandarins appointed to the Democratic National Convention outside the primary and caucus system. Blocking insurgencies, after all, is what they were put on this earth to do.

Super Hype

Matthew YglesiasDec 15, 2003

It's no secret that much of the Democratic establishment fears Howard Dean. For months, rumors have abounded that party insiders will mount some kind of last-ditch effort to deny him the nomination he seems ever closer to securing. One natural focus of such speculation has been the 715 "superdelegates," party mandarins appointed to the Democratic National Convention outside the primary and caucus system. Blocking insurgencies, after all, is what they were put on this earth to do.

Press One for Better Service

Matthew YglesiasDec 15, 2003

Something was wrong on my credit-card bill, so I placed a call to the issuing bank's customer-service line. The computerized voice told me to press "1" for customer-service inquiries on existing accounts, then to press "3" for credit cards. Following that, I entered my account number, and then my personal-identification number. After listening to an automated message that seemed designed to guess what my question was and encourage me to hang up the phone, I was put on hold.

The Research Wars

Matthew YglesiasNov 20, 2003

Walking to my hotel through Amsterdam's deserted early morning streets, I felt a sharp poke in my back and heard an accented voice behind me. "Do you know what this is? It's a knife. Now, you are going to give me your money or else I will stab you, and kick you, and kill you, and throw you into the river."

"That's a canal, not a river," I replied, before a second poke persuaded me to hand over the cash.

In 1985, James Q. Wilson wrote, "There aren't any liberals left ... . They've all been mugged by now." Wilson had a point. Thoughts of humanitarian treatment for the perpetrators of violent crime flew out the window. If sending muggers to prison for life could make the streets safer, so be it.

Partisan Paradox

Matthew YglesiasNov 19, 2003

Maybe conservatives are right and liberals really have been driven mad by their hatred of George W. Bush. How else to explain the fact that many progressives have greeted the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts' decision on same-sex marriages not as a triumph but as a source of despair? Liberals seem to fear that the decision will play into Bush's hands, allowing him to tar Democrats next year as supporters of gay marriage, which remains a relatively unpopular cause. The fact that the decision was the right one and that discrimination against homosexuals is abhorrent has, for many liberals, apparently become secondary to considerations of partisan politics.

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