Up Front
The code of omertà has been shattered. Big Jack Abramoff has cracked; the feds will make him tell all. And up on Capitol Hill, on the Republican side of the aisle, it soon will be the season of the rat. The prosecutors will begin with the small fry. The staffers will sing first (the notion…
When the “Flat World” Shakes
End of the Line: The Rise and Coming Fall of the Global Corporation by Barry C. Lynn (Doubleday, 312 pages, $26.00) The End of the Line is about the consequences of the “taking apart” of the modern corporation — the outsourcing of operations to the far corners of the world by companies such as Wal-Mart,…
How the South Rose Again
When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America by Ira Katznelson (W.W. Norton, 238 pages, $25.95) The White House Looks South by William E. Leuchtenburg (Louisiana State University Press, 668 pages, $45.00) White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism by (Kevin M. Kruse Princeton University Press, 325…
The New Nuance
Devastating as it was, the last presidential election did bestow one blessing on progressives — it cleaned out the art house. The post-election period has swept away much of what had become tiresome or belligerent in political films — the breathless hagiographies of lefty figures or tales of the cackling villainy of the right. Gone…
Poverty Is Back!
It was 1988, Ronald Reagan’s final state of the Union. The previous eight years had been good to the Gipper. The word “liberal” had been rendered radioactive, many items on the conservative wish list had been checked off, and Reagan himself had stomped two successive Democratic challengers. So you might think he would have been…
Just What Is the Working Class?
The white working class, referred to as “America’s forgotten majority” in a 2000 book of that title by Ruy Teixeira and Joel Rodgers, has been anything but forgotten since the 2004 election. Disputes within the liberal family have focused obsessively on how Democrats can regain the allegiance of this demographic, considered to be a necessary…
Remapping the Culture Debate
Ted Nordhaus, a self-proclaimed “recovering pollster,” and Michael Shellenberger, a former San Francisco public relations executive, began quietly sending out e-mails in the spring of 2005. Love your work, they’d write people they thought would be like-minded. We should meet. The duo had created a minor stir that fall with the essay “The Death of…
The Next Wall Street Scandal
It would be hard to find a worse resume for chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission than that of Christopher Cox, who was confirmed in the job by the Senate last summer after hearings that The New York Times aptly described as a “love fest.” As a congressman from Orange County, California, since 1988,…
The Book of Liberal Virtues
I have news for you: conservatives are winning the culture wars. OK, that might not come as a shock, but here’s the scary part: They have reason to be winning. The right has done a superb job at exploiting certain weaknesses on the left; liberals, in the meantime, have become gun shy. But we should…
Great Expectations
By 30 minutes and several days, Barack Obama is running late. He is supposed to be at his grandmother’s in Hawaii — his wife and daughters already are there — but the Senate is still voting on some fairly significant legislation. So here he is, stuck in Washington nine days before Christmas. Illinois’ junior senator…
Talk to the Enemy
Throughout December, in a political offensive designed to recapture the initiative over the failing war in Iraq, President Bush portrayed the battle there in stark terms. Iraq, he said, is the central front in a global struggle against “Islamofascism,” against an enemy whose intent is to create a radical, worldwide caliphate comparable to the Nazi…
Fear of Flying
On December 7, Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old man with a history of mental disorder, was killed, in a hail of bullets, by two air marshals at Miami International Airport. After the shooting, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said that Alpizar had run forward in the cabin while the plane was on the runway, yelling…
The Torture Tutor
As the author of official memoranda seeking to justify torture, warrant-free wiretapping, detention without trial, and other expressions of lawless power, John Yoo appears to be enjoying his 15 minutes of infamy. Profiled in the mainstream press, lionized and vilified in the opinion media, Yoo is experiencing a burst of publicity that can only enhance…
“Duke” of Deception
On its face, the corruption scandal involving California Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the former Vietnam War ace fighter pilot who pled guilty in November to accepting $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and others seeking his favors, would not seem to have the elements of a decent spy novel. As the story of a…
Among the Bear-Baiters
I’m writing this while enjoying one of the most satisfying moments of my day, one of the most satisfying moments known to humanity. It’s morning. I prefer to take a sip, even two, from my favorite old oversized coffee cup, with a glazed blue-checker band, before firing up. My lighter has been acting up lately,…
Send Up the Clowns
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress,” Mark Twain once observed. Computations remain to be performed; investigations have not been completed. But with GOP heavyweights jettisoning Jack Abramoff’s contributions faster than you can say “cooperating with prosecutors,” history may prove Twain right. Again.…
The Progressive Generation Gap
Not long ago, i attended a meeting of 20 or so progressive advocates and experts on a major policy issue. I looked around the room and realized that I was, I’m quite sure, the youngest person there. And that’s happened before. But I’m 43 years old. It’s fun to feel like a prodigy, but I’m…
Is Corruption Enough?
The 2006 mid-term election will be among the most fateful in modern history. If the Democrats take back even one house, it will end the period of one-party rule and allow Congress to fully investigate the multiple embarrassments of the Bush administration. These fall into five broad categories: deceptive and illegal use of presidential power,…
