The press section at the U.S. Supreme Court is a long, narrow side gallery separated from the rest of the room by sequoia-sized columns, heavy swags of drawn curtain and elaborate grillwork. Most of the time journalists have their pick of seats, but when the gallery fills up, the view of the courtroom for all […]
Drake Bennett
Drake Bennett is a former American Prospect writing fellow and is currently a freelance writer in Cambridge, MA. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Business Week, and the Boston Review.
Posted inFeatures
Freedom to Fail
As any advocate for the poor will tell you, measuring the success of welfare reform depends on how one defines success. If it’s simply a matter of cutting the welfare rolls, the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program has been the social policy equivalent of winning the space race. Between 1995 and 2001, the […]
Posted inArticle
Equal Opportunists
You’d think Microsoft would have had enough by now, but the software leviathan is back in court, and brazen ingrate that it is, it’s taking on the Bush administration. At least, by proxy. In a rare fissure between George W. Bush and big business, Microsoft has banded together with 64 fellow Fortune 500 companies, from […]
Posted inArticle
Gulfing Buddies
Perhaps the most flattering thing former Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) ever said about the United Nations was buried in a supposedly conciliatory address to the organization three years ago: “Most Americans do not regard the United Nations as an end in and of itself — they see it as just one part of America’s diplomatic […]
Posted inArticle
Campaign Pin
Yesterday, in the ballroom of the National Press Club, Nancy Tate had her first smackdown. She was pleasantly surprised. Tate, who is the executive director of the League of Women Voters and has the unobtrusive demeanor of a court stenographer, shared a stage with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) CEO Linda McMahon, U.S. Rep. Bob Ney […]
Posted inArticle
Class Dismissed
It’s official. John Edwards (D-N.C.), the telegenic senator with the tobacco-road twang, is running for president, and doctors and HMO executives and chambers of commerce across the country are undoubtedly not lining up to offer their support. (After all, Edwards made his fortune as a trial lawyer, bagging eye-popping sums in personal-injury and medical-malpractice lawsuits.) […]
Posted inFeatures
Put a Face on Your Fears
They had to wage a campaign in equal parts deceitful and dynamic to get there, but when Congress convenes in January, Republicans will control the Senate. The Democrats’ capacity to impede the Bush agenda has been whittled down to the occasional filibuster. Their ability to inquire about the administration’s most glaring lunacies is gone. Not […]
Posted inFeatures
The Fly-by-Night 107th
As the 107th Congress limps into the midterm elections without having passed most of its routine spending bills, it’s safe to say that the legislative branch hasn’t been a model of efficiency. But, then again, there are worse things than gridlock. The GOP had big plans in 2000 for its House-Senate-White House axis. Those designs […]
Posted inArticle
The Usual Suspects
It’s safe to say anyone who showed up in a salacious frame of mind at last Friday’s “We’d Rather Wear Nothing Than Wear Gap” rally went home disappointed. On the corner across from the Georgetown Gap, the gang of so-called “Gaptivists” took a page out of the old PETA playbook, evoking the “I’d Rather Wear […]
Posted inArticle
Ballot Botch
Melodrama may be the dramatic genre of choice in political campaigning, but there’s nothing like a good farce to get some attention. Take for instance Washington, D.C.’s Democratic mayoral primary. On the night of Sept. 5, at a forum at the University of the District of Columbia, five of the six candidates sat behind a […]