By all accounts, we are entering a month of great national deliberation. In the main arena, the most serious foreign-policy debate since Vietnam is unfolding, with senior members of the president’s own party among those articulating the most serious qualms. It’s almost what the Constitution’s framers had in mind: a great debate, conducted through congressional […]
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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The Politics of Going to War
President Bush is marking the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks by drumming up support for his next war. Yet except for the fact that both enemies are radical Arabs rooted in different parts of the Middle East, the two conflicts have little in common. Indeed, the administration has lately abandoned its efforts to link […]
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The Republican Con Game
With the economy softening and corporate scandals continuing to unfold, November’s elections should spell good news for the opposition party. But Democrats are making only marginal headway. One reason is that Republicans have gotten so good at stealing the atmospherics of Democratic themes (though rarely the substance). Master Republican strategist Karl Rove, the chief White […]
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Retirement at Risk
Marking the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, America finds itself in an interwar funk. We go about our business as in peacetime, even as we seem to be drifting, inexorably, toward a new and more perilous Mideast conflict. While a few foreign-policy barons are in fierce debate, most Americans would rather not think […]
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Phone Home
Our long-distance telephone service stopped functioning last week. For The American Prospect, it was a pretty big inconvenience. For several hours, we pooled cellphones. My first call was to our bookkeeper. Were we current on our bills? We were. My second call was to Qwest, the offending long-distance company. Its lines were jammed. A company […]
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Comment: Democracy and Dread
Marking the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, America finds itself in an interwar funk. We go about our business as in peacetime, even as we seem to be drifting, inexorably, toward a new and more perilous Mideast conflict. While a few foreign-policy barons are in fierce debate, most Americans would rather not think […]
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Cheap Homes? Don’t Hold Your Breath
Is housing the next economic bubble? As the stock market has swooned, many investors are moving their assets into something tangible and useful: bigger and costlier homes. And as prices keep rising, many people outside the investor class find they are paying more money to buy less house. The shift by traumatized investors into real […]
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Comment: Useless Airways
The latest corporation to file for bankruptcy is not another fraudulent telecom, but US Airways. The airlines were among the sectors hardest hit by September 11. And with its concentration in the Northeast, US Airways was among the hardest hit of all. But it would be a mistake to blame the airlines’ woes on the […]
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At Economic Summit, It’s All for Show
Bad timing is only one of several problems afflicting George W. Bush’s Waco Economic Summit. The economy is just not cooperating with his upbeat message. A second major industry, airlines, is now joining the telecommunications collapse as evidence that the economy faces more than a crisis of investor confidence. The Federal Reserve has been keeping […]
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Double Standard on Bankruptcy
With all the corporate and accounting scandals, you may have noticed that Congress is also working on bankruptcy reform legislation. A bill nearly passed last week and will probably be approved when Congress returns in September. However, this is precisely the wrong kind of reform. It is a measure long sought by the banking industry […]
