Editor’s note: In the current issue of The American Prospect, staff writer Nicholas Confessore explains just why opposition to John Ashcroft, now George W. Bush’s attorney general, was so ineffective. National Review editor Rich Lowry attacked Confessore’s article a few days after it was posted on the web. Here, Confessore responds. I’m never sure whether […]
Nicholas Confessore
Nicholas Confessore is a reporter for The New York Times. Previously he was an American Prospect senior correspondent and an editor of The Washington Monthly.
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Florida’s Silver Lining:
Within a day or two, the U.S. Supreme Court may reverse last Friday’s decision by the Florida Supreme Court and thereby effectively end Al Gore’s chances of becoming president in January. It would be deeply hypocritical — and wrong, moreover — were Democrats to question the legitimacy of the Supreme Court’s decision, however objectionable it […]
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Boycotts Will Be Boycotts
Flip the political calendar back to 1997: Led by the Southern Baptist Convention, social conservatives targeted the Walt Disney Corporation with a nationwide boycott in response to, among other sins, condoning “Gay Day” at Walt Disney World, having relatively gay-friendly corporate policies, and producing the sitcom Ellen. Now, back to the present: Gay civil rights […]
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The Vindication of the IRS
Back in April of 1998, several employees of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) came before the Senate oversight committee to testify about a litany of supposed fraud and abuse at the agency. IRS officials, they charged, had pursued vendettas against outside individuals and corporations and fudged audits to help former co-workers who had moved to […]
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Crazy for Bush?
There are basically two kinds of New Hampshire voters. The first kind–not very different from those in the rest of the country–is represented by Frank Claik, a local dignitary from Littleton, who recently shook hands with George W. Bush. Claik is a former Democrat who switched parties out of disgust with Bill Clinton; he now […]
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Fun With Numbers:
Snnnnnck. Out come the long knives, the jabbering classes urging Al Gore — now that the Supreme Court and a Florida circuit court have given him no love — to put country above self. Congressional Democrats leak that time is running out. “Last gasp for Gore,” The Boston Globe informs us; “Aura of Pessimism Pervades […]
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A Conversation with David Bosco
David L. Bosco [“The Next Test In Kosovo,” TAP Vol. 11 Issue 1] worked in Bosnia from 1996 to 1998 as a political analyst and journalist. He is now a second- year student at Harvard Law School and co- director of the Harvard Seminar on Ethics and International Affairs. Nicholas Confessore [“Rwanda, Kosovo, and Limits […]
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Finite Jest
The frenzy surrounding Dave Eggers and his debut memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, reached a certain kind of climax in late April. Eggers had already been beatified by critics, his book lovingly reviewed as a major breakthrough, and the journal he currently edits, McSweeney‘s, enshrined as a must-read, when The New York Times‘s […]
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And You Thought Tim Russert Was Tough
Back in September, subscribers to Red Herring magazine’s e-mail bulletin “The Red Eye” received a missive they probably weren’t expecting. “Tony Perkins here with a special invitation,” began the message. “As most Red Herring readers know, I’ve stuck my neck out early in the next presidential campaign by personally backing my friend Governor George W. […]
