December 2006 issue PDF
To download the December 2006 issue in PDF format, click here.
Restraining the Judges
The Most Democratic Branch: How the Courts Serve America by Jeffrey Rosen (Oxford University Press, 256 pages, $25.00) Worried about stem-cell research? Concerned about education, affirmative action, gay marriage, environmental quality, and the criminal-justice system? Do you find campaign fund-raising objectionable? Want to change the way congressional district lines are…
The Good in Good Politics
The Moral Center by David Callahan (Harcourt, 260 pages, $24.00) Ever since the 2004 exit polls, progressives have been puzzling over how to reclaim so-called values voters. Or, to put the problem another way, how can Democrats satisfy Americans’ interests (the economy, stupid, and bring those troops home alive) while also appealing to…
Heroes, Weren’t They?
The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff (Knopf, 518 pages, $30.00) On February 6, 1956, Peter Kihss of The New York Times was covering the enrollment of the first black student, Autherine Lucy, at the University of Alabama. Mobs of racist…
In But Not of Israel
Five days into Israel’s war with Hezbollah, I visited the Umm El-Fahm Gallery in the town whose name it bore. Umm El-Fahm, the largest Muslim community in Israel, with a population of 43,000, anchors the largely Arab Triangle area on the coastal plain just south of Haifa. Outside the gallery, Israeli planes were bombing Lebanon…
Uncivil Libertarians
Ira Glasser is a fighter. He’s been defending freedom of speech, the right to privacy, and the right to due process for more than 30 years through his work with the American Civil Liberties Union, including 23 years as the head of the organization. Of late, he sounds just as combative when he talks about…
Permission to Stand Down
Sometime between now and March 15, 2007, everything you know about the Iraq debate will change. It won’t be because of any dramatic shift in the fortunes of a disastrous war: If current trends continue, the five coming months offer the escalation of the Iraqi civil war, the 3,000th American service death, and more disgraceful…
Gut Instincts
In politics, we tend to think in terms of issues and policies. And as the dust begins to settle on the midterm elections, pollsters and pundits have begun to settle on the meaning of the elections: “Voters were angry about Iraq,” or “Voters were disgusted by corruption in Washington,” or the economy finally mattered. Just…
The Populist Persuasion
Nearly four decades after it happened, the assassination of Robert Kennedy still presents us with the greatest might-have-been of the past half-century of American politics. In the months before his murder, campaigning across the country in 1968’s tumultuous presidential primaries, Kennedy did something that no Democrat after him has been able to do: He won…
It Wasn’t Just Iraq
Just about everyone understands the importance of Iraq to the Democrats’ success in the 2006 midterm elections. Far fewer, we suspect, understand that the Democrats owe a good chunk of their 2006 success to an issue that has historically been one of their strongest: the economy. Throughout the campaign, polls regularly indicated that the economy…
Gettysburg, Again
The revolution is over. After 12 years of GOP control of both chambers of Congress and a majority of American governors’ offices, the Republican era has finally imploded. And while it was accelerated by self-inflicted wounds from bribery and a child-predation scandal, the Republican demise was chiefly caused by a congenital self-denial about the growing…
Times Out of Joint
Last summer, I made the mistake of asking a Los Angeles Times reporter how he felt about life in a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tribune Company. He made a sour face and said he was worried about his pension. Dinner was ruined for a while. Reporters are used to holding their breath at the…
While Thousands Die
This August, the United Nations Security Council authorized a major force — more than 22,000 strong — to deploy to Darfur. Under the Security Council’s mandate, the U.N. troops would take over Darfur’s defense from the undersized and ill-equipped African Union force, which has been unable to prevent attacks on civilian enclaves. Eventually, the United…
Strategic Two-Fers
Just a few years ago, liberals were cowering before Karl Rove’s plans to permanently marginalize the Democratic Party and construct an enduring Republican majority. With Rove’s reputation at an apex and the hapless Democrats still reeling from their unexpected defeat in the 2002 midterms, his vision appeared eerily achievable. Reporting on Rove’s efforts in The…
Vicca With a W
When I talk to myself, I sound like an old Jew. This is not because I am all too quickly actually becoming an old Jew, mind you. It’s that the voice I use to argue with and amuse myself is my grandparents’ — all of them Russian Jews who came to America about 100 years…
Lessons for Democrats
The most important lesson to be learned by Democrats from recent events in both the real and political worlds is that economic growth alone is not enough. Expansion of gross domestic product is a good thing, but 4 percent annual growth does not guarantee that Americans will see significant improvement in their own economic positions;…
The Reverse K Street Project
In novels, films, or real life, there’s really only one Washington story: Newcomer comes to town, full of idealism and ready to change the country, but soon encounters the permanent government that defines what you can’t do and whom you have to deal with if you want to try. The permanent government might be octogenarian…
The People, Yes
As our cover package of articles suggests, the Democrats triumphed in 2006 not just because of Iraq and Republican blunders running the gamut from Katrina to macaca, but because Democrats at last ran as economic populists. Although the economy was not considered Topic A by the pundit class, nearly every Democrat who picked up a…
