Remember the 2000 election? With the country enjoying a seemingly endless spell of peace and prosperity, and no apparent daunting challenges facing the next chief executive, the media were finally granted the chance to construct a narrative entirely around personalities. Al Gore, based on a handful of small exaggerations and his association with the occasionally […]
Article
Posted inDispatches
Non-Native Son
The stakes could not have been higher for John Kerry as he appeared before the NAACP’s 95th annual convention in Philadelphia on July 15. In the few months prior, his campaign had been the subject of sharp criticisms from prominent black leaders throughout the country. In May, Donna Brazile chided Kerry for not including enough […]
Posted inSpecial Report
How Much Is Enough?
Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, posed the question of how to define an adequate standard of living. “By necessaries,” he wrote, “I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for support of life, but what ever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest […]
Posted inSpecial Report
Business: Ally or Obstacle?
By now, the stirring images are familiar to television viewers: teary-eyed father recounting beloved child’s battle with life-threatening illness … child enjoying miraculous recovery thanks to world-class health care at Mayo Clinic … grateful dad’s glowing tribute to beneficent employer for picking up tab, supporting family values, and investing in hard-pressed workers like him. The […]
Posted inDispatches
One to Watch
CORNING, N.Y. — Samara Barend, a 26-year-old congressional candidate in New York state, is barreling along in a Buick Rendezvous on a recent Friday when “an even bigger SUV,” as her campaign spokesman-cum-driver, Don Weigel, put it, nearly sideswipes her car. Barend looks shaken, but it’s not the first time she’s had a mishap on […]
Posted inDispatches
A More Perfect Union?
The Iraq war has quietly but fundamentally changed the course of the European Union. If in recent years Britain, France, and Germany — the EU’s three most important states — had created a delicate and unprecedented harmony over Europe’s future, Britain’s decision to join the war destroyed it. This dissension is playing out all over […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Rights Stuff
The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution — and Why We Need It More Than Ever By Cass R. Sunstein • Basic Books • 294 pages • $25.00 Most of the world’s constitutions include three kinds of rights: civil, political, and social. The U.S. Constitution, however, makes no mention of “social rights,” and the […]
Posted inSpecial Report
Bridging the Two Americas
In the past four years, the income of the median family has fallen while the gap between executive pay and that of ordinary workers has continued to widen. Some of this trend is the result of deliberate Bush administration policies: tax cuts tilted toward the top, the defunding of social subsidies, the deregulation of corporate […]
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Film: Costume Psychodramas
Is she or isn’t she? That is the question stalking Meryl Streep’s portrayal of a power-mad senator in The Manchurian Candidate. Is the actress pulling a Hillary or what? In June, Matt Drudge fanned the rumors prior to the film’s release, linking to a blogger who claimed that Paramount Pictures had found Streep’s “brilliantly scary […]
Posted inFeatures
Cheap Trick
Back in 1996, Terry Johnson, the human-resources director for Ada County, Idaho, was excited about his new health-care coverage. He had just helped the county become the first in the United States to offer employees a medical savings account (MSA) as an alternative to traditional indemnity health insurance, and he was eager to try it. […]