Columns

An acquaintance of mine sits on the board of a major company that just agreed to pay its CEO close to $10 million this year, including deferred compensation and stock options. I asked him how he and his board colleagues could possibly justify that kind of money. “No choice,” he said. “That’s what our com-petition […]

Last May, when Henry Paulson was nominated by President Bush to be treasury secretary, the Goldman Sachs chairman declared, “We must take steps to maintain our competitive edge in the world.” Five months later, Paulson warmly embraced a private-sector Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, ostensibly to preserve America’s role as the world’s largest international capital […]

If you start to read the policy proposals of the Democratic presidential candidates and the mainstream Democratic think tanks, you will quickly get the impression that, while Democrats see lots of problems, there’s always just one solution: a tax credit. John Edwards proposes an “American Dream Tax Credit” — up to $1,000 a year for […]

When Robert Kuttner, Robert Reich and Paul Starr first conceived the idea for a liberal magazine that was to become The American Prospect, one of the first people they consulted was Arthur Schlesinger. It was an obvious choice. As a historian, activist and writer on current affairs, Schlesinger had been an intellectual beacon for American […]

Our long national nightmare has just begun. There is now little doubt that the next three years will bring one revelation after another about the magnitude of congressional corruption. Democrats will relish this prospect, and “reform” will be an inevitable theme of the next two election cycles. But some political scandals lead to change, while […]

At first glance, it seemed like good news: In January, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz froze plans for a new settlement in the West Bank, partly in response to U.S. objections. Just a few weeks before, Peretz had given the go-ahead for the establishment of Maskiot, the first new settlement to win Israeli government approval […]

I grew up in an urban world of concrete and asphalt. Nature was a few weeds sprouting from sidewalk cracks in August. Summer camp was for rich kids. So I spent a lot of time dreaming of living in the wilderness, fueled by images from James Fennimore Cooper — the buckskin-clad deerslayer paddling down rivers, […]

When I was in college, during Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” I had a classmate who is the person I always think of when I try to imagine the young George W. Bush. (Although the comparison is terribly unfair to this person, since unlike Bush, he has considerable accomplishment to show for his first 45 […]

Can the public make its will felt through Congress and start the difficult process of bringing closure to the Iraq War? Although the voters spoke last November, the administration has seen no need to listen. But the prospect of another defeat in 2008 may motivate enough Republicans in Congress to break with the administration on […]

Several years ago I had a philosophical conversation with my good friend and Cabinet colleague Bob Rubin over lunch in the White House mess. Cabinet members rarely talk philosophy. There isn’t time. Mostly, they talk about how to put out the next fire. But on this rare occasion, Bob and I found ourselves talking philosophically. […]