New Republic, Jan. 1 and 8 The cover story debunks the cult of Colin Powell. His Vietnam-era doctrine, which holds that America should intervene in foreign affairs only when its vital interests are at stake, will destabilize geopolitics because a changing world has learned to look to Washington for guidance. Powell would not have intervened in the Persian Gulf or Bosnia. He was chosen as secretary of state for domestic political reasons, but his isolationism will hurt America’s international reputation.… A piece doubts the wisdom that the relatively large contingent of Senate women will help George W. Bush quell partisan bickering. The media has been saying that female empathy and compassion can civilize Congress, but most of the women are just as nasty and brutish as the men.… An article argues that the Democrats will have a hard time recapturing the House in 2002. Republican Sunbelt states will gain seats in reapportionment, Republican legislatures are in charge of redistricting in many key states, and Bush’s narrow victory means that few weak Republicans rode to victory on his coattails. Economist, Dec. 23 The “young and old” special issue. … The editorial claims the breach between aging pensioners and a few young workers will dominate the next century much as the battle between workers and capital dominated the last. The age divide is primarily a problem of success, because no wars or disasters have killed off large demographic swaths. … An article describes the entertainment robot phenomenon catching on in Japan. Sony has sold more than 45,000 Aibos, home robots that look like lion cubs and can be programmed to move in certain ways and make certain noises (though they cannot yet perform useful tasks). Honda is also at work on home robots, and some experts predict they will overtake personal computers in popularity in the next 30 years.
Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 25, 2000, and Jan. 1, 2001
Time anoints George W. Bush “Person of the Year” for remaking and uniting the Republican Party (runners-up are David Boies, J.K. Rowling, and Celera Genomics president Craig Venter). The accompanying stories are loaded with backhanded compliments for the president-elect. He “knows what he doesn’t know,” his Crawford, Texas, ranch “wasn’t handed down,” and he’s triumphed against “rock-bottom expectations” before. Molly Ivins is brought in to declare, “George W. Bush is not stupid, and he is not mean.” A piece on Bush’s hiring practices notes that the switchboard operator at Bush’s transition headquarters answered the phone and said, “Bush-Quayle.” Another story concludes that “while the office has at last been won, the honor remains to be earned.”
Newsweek’s cover story says Bush’s post-election battle with Al Gore was easy compared with the coming challenges: “The question isn’t merely how President Bush will govern, but whether he’ll be able to govern at all.” The same piece wonders whether the second Bush administration will see the second Bush recession. Interesting historical tidbits: Bush will be the first president with an M.B.A., and the three previous presidents who lost the popular vote were all “front men for rising industrial interests” who promised to put an end to partisan warfare. (None succeeded.) … Another piece predicts that the next chief justice of the United States will be a new appointee rather than a current justice. Candidates include University of Utah law professor Michael McConnell, Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, Bush’s White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, and federal appeals judge Richard Posner. (For a Slate “Assessment” of Posner, click here.)
U.S. News’ cover package ticks off the now standard list of obstacles Bush will face: a divided electorate, doctrinaire Republicans in Congress, a sputtering economy, and an understudy with a fragile heart. Bush operatives are already protesting that the delayed transition will prevent them from proposing their mandatory budget plan to Congress by early February. Instead, Bush will hand a 50-page “vision statement” to legislators and let them do the rest. An accompanying piece begs Cheney to diet and exercise. Another warns Americans not to bid goodbye to Votomatic machines just yet. Despite all the current noise about electoral reform, there’s no way that Congress will provide the $6 billion to $9 billion that the nation’s 180,000 precincts would need to upgrade their lousiest equipment.
The New Yorker, Dec. 25, 2000, and Jan. 1, 2001
The special issue features stories by Junot Diaz, Richard Ford, and Amy Tan; also seven writers talk about their influences. Julian Barnes mocks critics who reduce his literary influences to recipes (“two cups Flaubert, a grinding of Wharton, a tablespoon of Ford Madox Ford, one egg and a pinch of ‘Monty Python’ baking powder”), and George Saunders describes his third-grade crush on the cute nun at St. Damian School who would inspire his later writing. … A “Talk of the Town” details novelist Michael Ondaatje’s stint as writer-in-residence at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Ondaatje watches quadruple bypasses and leads weekly literature seminars for hospital staffers. The piece’s punch line comes from the mouth of a neuroscience Ph.D. student and seminar attendee who’s a bit embarrassed by whole thing: “Sometimes I think we’re trying to prove that we’re not just a bunch of dumb docs.”
