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Sam Rosenfeld

Sam Rosenfeld is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Harvard University and a former web editor at the Prospect.

Recent Articles

Learning The Right Lessons

Sam RosenfeldOct 26, 2005

We'd like to thank George Packer for his response to our "Incompetence Dodge" article. We should also take this opportunity to say that there's an invaluable trove of reporting in The Assassins' Gate, and, clearly, on-the-ground experience yields insights that can't be adduced from an office in Washington. That said, the future of liberal foreign policy is an issue in which we all have a stake, and in a democracy we can't say that the only people entitled to an opinion on the Iraq War are those who've covered it in person.

The Incompetence Dodge

The liberal hawks now say the idea of the war wasn't bad, just its execution. This saves face -- and serves a more dangerous function.

Sam RosenfeldOct 23, 2005

Victory, as John F. Kennedy observed, has a thousand fathers, while defeat is an orphan. Abandoning the orphan that is the Iraq War has clearly been a protracted, painful process for the liberal hawks, those intellectuals and pundits so celebrated back in 2003 for their courage in coming forward to smash liberal expectations and support the war. Long criticized by fellow liberals for failing, amid much hand-wringing and navel-gazing, to express clear regret over their original support for the war, these hawks have started to become a bit more vocal about their second thoughts.

Beware of Watchdog

Sam RosenfeldOct 23, 2005

Melanie Sloan is at a loss.

“I would never have thought that the Democrats would be so … I just need more words for ‘spineless.' I don't have enough,” she says. “She turns around and grabs a thesaurus from her desk. “‘Wimpy,'” she reads, “‘irresolute,' ‘chicken,' ‘weak-willed,' ‘timid,' ‘lily-livered' -- I like that one -- ‘without backbone,' ‘gutless.'” At last she's satisfied. “‘Gutless' is good.”

Sloan, 39, is executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a 3-year-old watchdog outfit that Republican congressional flacks commonly describe as a “Democratic front group.” With front groups like these, who needs moles?

The Incompetence Dodge

Sam RosenfeldOct 20, 2005

Victory, as John F. Kennedy observed, has a thousand fathers, while defeat is an orphan. Abandoning the orphan that is the Iraq War has clearly been a protracted, painful process for the liberal hawks, those intellectuals and pundits so celebrated back in 2003 for their courage in coming forward to smash liberal expectations and support the war. Long criticized by fellow liberals for failing, amid much hand-wringing and navel-gazing, to express clear regret over their original support for the war, these hawks have started to become a bit more vocal about their second thoughts.

Lost Continent

Sam RosenfeldOct 06, 2005

In his mammoth new history of Africa since the era of independence, The Fate of Africa: From the Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair, journalist Martin Meredith traces the modern political and economic roots of the continent's current predicament. He spoke to The American Prospect's Sam Rosenfeld from England.

Why the heavy focus on political history in the book?

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