At her testimony before the 9-11 commission Thursday, Condoleezza Rice gave the same impression that has, in the past, suited her so well, and made her the subject of an endless series of fawning profiles: that of a highly competent, self-satisfied bureaucrat with an orderly, methodical cast of mind, which she uses to pursue big […]
Garance Franke-Ruta
Garance Franke-Ruta is a former senior editor at the Prospect. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and The Wall Street Journal, among other publications. She was a 2006 recipient of a fellowship at the Joan Shorenstein Center on Press, Politics, and Public Policy at Harvard University.
Posted inArticle
Family Affair
Inside the sleek wooden walls of a Hart Senate Office Building hearing room, where the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States held two days of hearings, GOP commissioners subjected former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke to sharp questioning during a charged and emotional hearing Wednesday. But while Clarke deftly parried charges about potential […]
Posted inArticle
Safety Numbers
On March 18, President Bush declared that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have made “America more secure.” As the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Against the United States undertakes two days of public hearings before Congress, it’s worth taking a look at that statement critically. In particular, an examination of terrorist incidents […]
Posted inFeatures
Kerry’s Women
When the old boy’s club kicked into gear in east Los Angeles in 1998, Mary Beth Cahill, then executive director of Emily’s List, took action. Nine-term Representative Esteban Edward Torres announced he was retiring from his seat in a safe Democratic district just two days before the filing deadline for candidates. The heir apparent to […]
Posted inArticle
Exit Interview
Soon after coming to Burlington, Vt., from Moab, Utah, and depositing himself at former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s headquarters, Mathew Gross was commissioned by Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi to set up a blog for the campaign. The rest is history. Today, every campaign for the presidency has a blog. There’s an O-Blog (official) and […]
Posted inArticle
Win Some
COLUMBIA, S.C. — At 5 p.m. on Tuesday, election day, a staffer from Sen. John Edwards’ campaign rushed into the back office of their headquarters on Gervais Street. Exit polls were showing Wesley Clark, John Kerry, and Edwards running neck and neck in Oklahoma, each with 30 percent of the vote. Should they tell the […]
Posted inArticle
Enemy Lines
President George W. Bush’s decision to back a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages is one of those decisions that may soon be filed under “seemed like a good idea at the time.” And, like his decision last May to land on an aircraft carrier in a flight suit and give a speech in front of […]
Posted inArticle
Closing Arguments
There are rare times in a candidate’s career when his or her carefully manufactured message begins to exceed the bounds of normal political rhetoric and approach something closer to fundamental truth. Over the past three weeks in Iowa, Sen. John Edwards’ (D-N.C.) stump speech did something like that, transforming him from also-ran to contender for […]
Posted inSpecial Report
Aiming High
An undisclosed location, Va. — From the outside, the headquarters of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign is completely unremarkable — so unremarkable that passersby have no way of knowing it’s even there. Through the tinted windows of the Arlington office tower where the headquarters is lodged, people shuffling papers can be glimpsed as through a glass […]
Posted inArticle
Iowa Inventory
DES MOINES, Iowa — Like the first few snowflakes that precede the blizzard, supporters of Howard Dean flew in one by one, the forces gathering for the “Perfect Storm” get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort for the former Vermont governor. One of those snowflakes — John Lovaas, 60, of Reston, Va. — was on my plane from Washington […]
