Crashing the Party: How to Tell the Truth and Still Run for President By Ralph Nader. Dunne Books, 400 pages, $14.95 Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon By Justin Martin. Perseus Publishing, 288 pages, $26.00 The central element of Ralph Nader’s public appeal is, and has always been, honesty. He built his image in the 1960s as […]
Jonathan Chait
Jonathan Chait is a columnist at New York magazine and a former assistant editor at The American Prospect. He has written for The New Republic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Slate, Reason, and other publications.
Posted inArticle
Nader: Influence for Good or Ill?
Dear Bob, In stating that the Prospect invited me to review Nader’s book, you’re too kind. I actually invited myself, and I intended all along to use my review for a broader discussion of Nader. I don’t believe the editors I worked with had any different impression. I didn’t “blame” Nader for the right-wing business […]
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The Contender?
Thanks to virtually simultaneous articles last month by Joshua Green in The Washington Monthly and Jonathan Chait in The New Republic, the notion that Republican Senator John McCain should join the Democrats and run for president in 2004 has been everywhere. Indeed, on Hardball host Chris Matthews recently asked McCain himself about the notion. The […]
Posted inEducation in America
Backfire on Campus
In their efforts to enforce multiculturalism, university administrators have unwittingly created a new breeding ground for conservative rebellion.
Posted inBooks
Dick Morris’s The New Prince
Dick Morris’s The New Prince Machiavelli Updated For The Twenty-First Century 11.01.99 | reviewed by Jonathan Chait Here are some of the chapter headings in Dick Morris’s latest book: Issues over Image, Strategy over Spin, Generosity over Self-Interest, Racism Doesn’t Work. No, really. Dick Morris, inventor of triangulation, who advised President Clinton to alter his […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Clinton’s Bequest
Budget balance may turn out to be an unexpected boon to liberals; so far it has helped deliver full employment and a Social Security rescue, and has left Republicans looking economically self-serving and fiscally inept. Now can liberals build on Clinton’s clean slate?
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Lynne Cheney, Policy Assassin
Her role is simple but important: produce a steady supply of screeds for major media outlets claiming that our culture has been commandeered by the left. But there is often less to Lynne Cheney’s work than meets the eye.
Posted inFeatures
Clinton’s Bequest Reconsidered
Will Bill Clinton’s brand of fiscal prudence save liberalismor kill it? An economist and a journalist discuss the president’s economic policies and the hidden dangers of fiscal conservatism. Barry Bluestone on Fiscal Conservatism’s Hidden Dangers It was wonk heaven. Flush from his victory over George Bush in 1992, President-elect Bill Clinton convened more than 300 […]
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Let Them Eat Rates
Ever since George W. Bush announced that he subscribes to something called “compassionate conservatism,” people have been trying to figure out just what this slogan really means. There are two broad possibilities. The first is that conservatism is inherently compassionate, in which case the adjective simply points out one of conservatism’s lesser-known qualities. (The descriptive […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
The Ideologically Invested
W hen President Clinton announced his economic plan in 1993, Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley had no doubt about what would happen. Clinton’s proposals, he predicted in a column in February 1993, would “cripple” the economy. While the plan was debated, this absolute certainty about its effects pervaded the Journal‘s discussion on both its […]