Other Magazines

The New Rudy?

New York Times Magazine, Aug. 1

The cover story asks whether New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has become kinder and gentler as he gears up for a Senate run. Although the mayor has mostly suppressed his infamous temper, he can’t contain his distaste for Gov. George Pataki and other political enemies. An article quells fears about the Chinese threat. China is focused on its own prosperity, it has never been a nuclear rogue, and its conventional forces are not strong. The most the People’s Republic could do is strong-arm Taiwan. A profile of James Truman, the ironic editorial director of Condé Nast, concludes that he has vulgarized the magazine empire but has done so with panache.

Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 2

John Kennedy Jr., again, on all three covers. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s eulogy gets rave reviews from all three magazines: Newsweek reprints it as its centerpiece. The three newsweeklies feature articles on the doomed trio’s final hours. Carolyn bought a $1,640 black dress at Saks for the wedding. U.S. News says Kennedy took off for the airport in a white Hyundai, wearing a beige T-shirt; Time says it was a BMW and a gray T-shirt. Both agree Kennedy got a banana and a bottle of water before the flight. Time’s theme is the next generation of Kennedys, who are genetically predisposed toward public service. Even William Kennedy Smith co-founded Physicians Against Land Mines. A U.S. News piece derides George. The magazine glossed over politics and culture and was losing readers and revenue. The best that can be said of Kennedy is that he might have proved to be a late bloomer, like George W. Bush.

In other news, U.S. News forecasts a budget deal. Clinton is ready to accede to a surplus “lockbox,” while Republicans are ready to embrace the president’s Medicare drug subsidies and compromise on tax cuts. An item scoffs at an Army proposal to replace some of its uniformed recruiters with professional pitchmen. The civilians would be managed by private firms and trained in telemarketing and sales.

The New Yorker, Aug. 2

The magazine mourns Kennedy with a cover of the Statue of Liberty in a funeral veil. One item notes that while his life was all “glamorous preamble,” he deserves credit for trying to earn his reward though a magazine startup rather than relying on his fame and “phenomenal handsomeness.” An article describes Gen. Wesley Clark’s high-tech command of NATO operations in Kosovo. With 19 member-nations to juggle, Clark was forced to rely on teleconferencing and Internet-based target review to run the air war. A piece asks what makes a physical genius. Neurosurgeons and basketball prodigies must have superior motor and cognitive skills, including the ability to practice obsessively, see patterns, and visualize imaginative ways to improve.

Weekly Standard, Aug. 2

The cover stories salute John Kennedy. Sen. John McCain honors a kind Kennedy and empathizes with his Uncle Ted. An article comparing the mourning of John Kennedy Jr. and that of his father laments the decline of American dignity. President Kennedy was grieved in a dignified manner, but the sentimental shrines for his son emblematize how much the nation has changed. The difference between the idealistic Profiles in Courage and the ironic George testifies to the gulf. A piece marvels at the contrast between George W. Bush and the Gingrichites. As long as Bush remains libertarian on taxes and guns, the party will let him argue that government has a role in social policy.

Economist, July 24

The cover story concludes that technology has probably given birth to a “new economy,” though there is no statistical proof of it. Although America’s productivity growth spurt has been concentrated in the computer industry, anecdotal evidence suggests that technology increases the flexibility of capital in all industries. (Click here for Paul Krugman’s assessment of “new paradigm” economics.) A survey postulates that it is not necessarily bad to be Canadian. Canada has universal health care, low inflation, low interest rates, and strong economic growth. On the downside, Canada’s economy is weaker than the United States’, and Canadians have an inferiority complex about their southern neighbor.

New Republic, Aug. 9

The cover package debates how to divide the surplus. One article argues for public investment in research, infrastructure, and education, based on the premise that the information revolution, not deficit reduction and low interest rates, undergirds our prosperity. Another piece, which embraces the notion that smaller deficits and lower interests rates have midwifed prosperity, proposes shoring up Social Security and Medicare, and saving the surplus. Some minor tax relief, such as an increase in the earned income tax credit, is also appropriate, as is boosting education and infrastructure investment. A final article calls for “monumental tax cuts” to restore faith in individualism, abolish the tax code’s dispiriting progressivity, and pare government down so it can’t do much.