Hardball
If anyone had any doubt that the former Texas Rangers official in the White House plays hardball, the newly created President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security erases it. This is the Nolan Ryan approach to political combat: Here comes my high, hard one. Hit it if you can. By shamelessly naming a team of committed…
California’s Progressive Mosaic
Pa Joad: Ain’t you goin’ with us? Casey: I’d like to. There’s somethin’ goin’ on out there in the West, and I’d like to try and learn what it is. –The Grapes of Wrath More than 60 years after John Steinbeck’s Oakies headed west, California retains its…
Comment: Happier Prospects
As we go to press, the prospect of Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords switching parties has cheered despondent Democrats. However, it’s not clear where a party-switch free-for-all would end, since several maverick senators in both parties would be in play. Of course, having Tom Daschle as majority leader, and having the power to orchestrate hearings, could…
Courting Unsafe Speech
It is possible, of course, that computer-simulated images of virtual children having virtual sex may encourage pedophiles to act on their impulses or may assist them in seducing children. There is, however, little or no empirical evidence that these images have such dire effects. Congress criminalized virtual child porn anyway. The Child Pornography Prevention Act…
Power to the People
Fundamentals are being decided here. The power crisis that has blindsided California has also turned the state into ground zero in an unanticipated war between radical capitalism and a democratically controlled economy. One of the great debacles of recent times–a classic saga of greed, ideology, stupidity, and media neglect–the crisis has already spawned the biggest…
Thinking about Thinking
The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, Louis Menand. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 480 pages, $27.00. Not long ago the philosopher Daniel Dennett called Darwinism–the theory of evolution by means of natural selection–“the best idea ever.” It is certainly one of the most consequential. As an explanation of an enormous range of biological…
Sins of Commission
In stacking the nominally bipartisan social security commission with members all committed to some form of privatization, this mandateless president seeks to advance one of his top campaign promises. But he also debases the concept of a presidential commission as it has been used historically. In an increasingly polarized environment, the man who called himself…
Why Bush is Winning
The puzzling question is why George W.’s three big plans are moving forward. The immense tax cut whose benefits will go mostly to the rich, the hugely expensive missile-defense shield of dubious technical possibility, and the aggressive expansion of oil, gas, coal, and nuclear-energy availability coupled with a rollback of environmental regulations–all of these are…
Clash in the States
Many people think of Oregon as a liberal bastion: an “ecotopia” where environmental protection is a priority, the law permits the terminally ill to choose death over protracted suffering, and citizens once voted by initiative for the highest state minimum wage in the country. But in fact, conservatives have quite a foothold in Oregon. Republicans…
Bush Got One Right
The dramas in April over the downed U.S. reconnaissance plane and the sale of arms to Taiwan have revealed a burgeoning American hawkishness toward China. Centrists have joined conservatives in blaming America for being soft on the Communists and weak in supporting democratic Taiwan. But this growing fashion for fulmination is misguided, for two reasons:…
Humble Pie
If we are an arrogant nation, they will resent us. If we’re a humble nation, but strong, they’ll welcome us. –George W. Bush, encapsulating his diplomatic philosophy, October 11, 2000 Bush’s America is certainly not more “humble,” as the president promised. On the contrary, he has managed to give himself an image as an international…
Whitman in the Balance
The Bush presidency has already been a nauseating roller coaster ride for environmentalists. “There was tremendous disappointment once it became clear that George W. Bush would be president,” says a senior attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “That was followed by a real sense of hope when Christie Todd Whitman came in [as EPA…
