The hallmark of the Bush foreign policy has been a naive radicalism married to an operational incompetence. A small clique with a preconceived blueprint took advantage of a national emergency and a callow president, blowing a containable threat into war while dismissing more ominous menaces. These people are out to remake the world, with little […]
Robert Kuttner
Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at Brandeis University’s Heller School. His latest book is Notes for Next Time: Surviving Tyranny, Redeeming America. Follow Bob at his site, robertkuttner.com, and on Twitter.
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Blood Count
Out of the blue, a dear friend finds herself in the hospital. The diagnosis: leukemia. She has a fighting chance of beating it, but she’s pretty sick and word goes out: She needs blood donors. I’m O-positive. So is she. It’s been a while since I’ve done this, I’m ashamed to say, and I don’t […]
Posted inSpecial Report
A Foreign-Policy Emergency
The hallmark of the Bush foreign policy has been a naive radicalism married to an operational incompetence. A small clique with a preconceived blueprint took advantage of a national emergency and a callow president, blowing a containable threat into war while dismissing more ominous menaces. These people are out to remake the world, with little […]
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Failed State
Trends and fads often start in California, and that thought should terrify anyone who cares about a functioning democracy. Tuesday’s recall election is history’s ironic revenge on a well-intentioned set of reforms championed by the Golden State’s great progressive governor, Hiram Johnson. Johnson’s Progressives, beginning in 1911, enacted the populist measures beloved by that generation […]
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Disloyal Subjects
Has the Bush presidency reached a tipping point? His popularity ratings have dipped below 50 percent. His policies are under fire on the Iraq War, the economy and the budget mess. Even more interestingly, President Bush is facing an escalating revolt from within his own party. A little-noted indicator is that Republican senators and House […]
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Inside Out
Dick Grasso is gone as chief of the New York Stock Exchange, but the system of super-enrichment for insiders lives on. The NYSE’s new chief, former Citicorp co-chair John S. Reed, has little experience in stock trading and even less as a reformer. But in this sorry mess, he passes for a clean broom. The […]
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Laissez Contraire
What should we think of a developing country that protected its young industries with high tariffs, stole technologies from established nations, used government aid to develop manufacturing and farming, limited foreign ownership of land, devalued its money in defiance of international wishes, imposed currency controls, and even allowed secessionist provinces to default on foreign debt? […]
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Opposable Bum
With Labor Day 2003, the race to November 2004 is on. Seemingly, President Bush will be seriously on the defensive on the issues, but with a big advantage on the politics. However, voters are likely to be energized in 2004 as they have rarely been in recent years. And voter mobilization will ultimately determine whether […]
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General Interest
Wesley Clark has told associates that he will decide in the next few weeks whether to declare for president. If he does, it would transform the race. Call me star-struck, but he’d instantly be among the top-tier. Clark, in case you’ve been on sabbatical in New Zealand, is all over the talk shows. He’s the […]
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Electrical Storm
Everyone seems obsessed about which weak link in the power chain caused last week’s spectacular blackout. But that exercise is a little like wondering where it was a nail or a piece of glass that finally caused a bald tire to blow. In this case, the bald tire is the electrical grid. And the grid […]
