New Republic, June 2 Jonathan Chait, who recently dubbed Dubya "the 9/10 president" for his failure to tighten homeland security, now calls Bush a liar and derides his tax plan as "fiscal madness." Bush pitched the tax cut as boon to the middle class, but the bulk of the cut will do them little good. Chait also notes—late, but amusingly—that Bush's feeble promise of "one million new jobs sounds eerily like the Austin Powers character Dr. Evil."… Of late, there's a certain thrill in finding one of Ryan Lizza's "Campaign Journals" in a new TNR. It's akin to the feeling you get when you notice that it's Anthony Lane's turn to write at The New Yorker—you know you're in for a good read. This week, Lizza writes on Howard Dean's Internet-based campaigning. There's more to it than those Meetup.com fund-raisers everyone wrote up last month; staffers run streaming video of Dean's appearances and can marshal a phalanx of supporters to defend him in the blogosphere. Some predicted Dean would fade after the war, but, perhaps thanks to the Internet, "the cult of Dean doesn't seem to be going away."

Economist, May 22 Weighing in on the beauty industry, the Economist is by turns shocked and blasé. Americans spend more on beauty than they do on education, the cover story sputters. "Brazil has more Avon ladies (900,000) than it has men and women in its army and navy"! But then the mag about-faces and critiques beauty industry powerhouses like L'Oreal for failing to jump on the Botox bandwagon: "Traditional beauty companies have yet to grasp the opportunities" in cosmetic surgery.

The Nation, June 2
There is an intelligent piece to be written about The New Yorker's coverage of the Bush administration's War on Terror. But Daniel Lazare's essay on the topic—which runs under the subhead "How a nice magazine talked itself into backing Bush's jihad"—isn't it. In a scattershot analysis, Lazare seems initially fazed by The New Yorker's tendency to speak "with many voices, not all of whom completely agree." (A magazine that publishes diverse political opinions? Heaven forfend!) But Lazare moves on, choosing to pick apart a few pieces that represent the magazine's "overall conservative turn" since the Sept. 11 attacks.

He dismisses Jeffrey Goldberg's Feb. 10 story—about Pentagon and CIA intelligence analysts hunting for an Iraq/al-Qaida link—as administration propaganda, writing that Goldberg "dutifully jotted down" all that Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, et al. told him about the unsettling partnership. Politically, Goldberg may or may not be head cheerleader for the Mighty Hawks, but as IOM remembers it, his piece deftly piled up quotes in which these sources  described how, post-9/11, intelligence analysts lowered "the threshold for what is credible." So as Goldberg nimbly reported the government's case for an Iraq/al-Qaida connection—something that had yet to be done—he also raised questions about the strength of the intel used to make that claim.

The essay also insists that The New Yorker, in failing to "encourage opposition" to the war, stumbled badly. Lazare argues that The New Yorker "helped middle-class opinion to coalesce against US intervention in Vietnam, [and] might well have served a similar function today by clarifying what is at stake in the Middle East." Well, sure. But if The Nation is concerned about persuading "the bourgeoisie" to oppose the war, why delegate that responsibility to The New Yorker? Why not try to persuade the politically undecided itself? 

New York Times Magazine, May 25
Campus conservatives are gaining influence at universities nationwide, and they no longer look like Alex Keaton. Tired of being "pigeonholed as loafer-wearing jerks," these days right-leaning students dress scruffy, use irreverent humor in their publications, and tend to be more culturally inclusive than their forbears, in a libertarian kind of way—they think the government should stay out of the working man's gun closet and the gay man's bedroom. But they still receive funds and PR advice from national conservative foundations. … A profile of Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian Authority's finance minister, details his quest for fiscal accountability—and an end to corruption—within the Palestinian government, which he'd one day like to run. He drafted its first budget, and hopes to get security forces paid by direct deposit, so rival security chiefs can't misuse the cash. … A piece on a white supremacist who is half black yields a fascinating story, but the article's ruminations on "passing" seem simplistic at best.

The New Yorker, May 26
Fox News Chairman and CEO Roger Ailes earns his Media Big Shot badge: a Ken Auletta profile. Auletta portrays Ailes as a competitive sort who just wants to win the cable news wars; his "opinionated and conservative" network, which posted better ratings than CNN during Gulf War II, is doing just that. Ailes rails against the lefty media but seems to truly believe Fox News provides the "fair and balanced" news it promises; Auletta does note that Fox didn't hesitate to break word of George W.'s DUI on the eve of the 2000 election. But the piece also suggests that Ailes lacks certain journalistic chops; when Auletta poses a classic journalism conundrum and asks whether Ailes would have published the Pentagon Papers, his answer borders on incoherent, and Auletta includes the whole darn thing. And the last word goes to Aaron Brown—the CNN anchor Fox hosts once likened to a dentist at Ailes' request. "There's room for conservative talk radio on television," Brown says. "But I don't think anyone ought to pretend it's the New York Times or CNN."

Weekly Standard, May 26 Standard Editor William Kristol, however, seems to think that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.—which owns Fox News and publishes the Weekly Standard and the tabloid New York Post, but no august American dailies— should launch a "first-rate newspaper of record," an alternative New York Times. His editorial argues that the Jayson Blair scandal has revealed the Times to be "irredeemable." A new paper of record would be "fair, balanced, and unafraid [italics IOM's]. Who will found it?" Who indeed? How's about it, Rupes? … Christopher Caldwell's feature on the scandal walks well-trodden ground but concludes with a novel hypothesis: The Times has "magazine envy." Its quest for "expressive" journalism, "front-page stories on trends and passions and tough-to-capture states of mind," fosters fabrication, Caldwell says. An emphasis on expressive journalism may or may not encourage writers to lie, but if a reformed Times includes fewer trend pieces on outmoded hipsterisms—like this weekend's yawn-worthy opus on trucker hats —we at IOM will be very happy.

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, May 26
Three weeks ago, Dubya declared: "We have seen the turning of the tide" in the war on terror. Last week, terrorist attacks ripped apart "soft targets" in Riyadh and Casablanca, and both incidents were linked to al-Qaida. This week, the newsmag covers feature Jayson Blair (Newsweek), FBI director Robert Mueller (U.S. News), and some guy who didn't get a raise (Time). Newsweek also puts little wings—sorry, I mean the words "American Idol"—on its cover, presumably hoping the issue will fly off the stands. Granted, news of the Casablanca bombings came just as the weeklies were closing, and a pair of attacks might seem more cover-worthy than a single hit, but could Terror News Fatigue Syndrome also have played a role?

On Osama, and why he'll play it again: If the covers seem myopic, the pieces inside are anything but. Time's argues that capturing key al-Qaida operatives, though useful, won't put an end to the group's attacks; the agents who remain are too adept at harnessing the existing discontent of local rabble-rousers and directing it toward international targets. And cutting off Bin Laden's funds is a step in the right direction, but now that al-Qaida doesn't have to spend big bucks to run its terror training camps, the network needs less cash. (The Bali bombings cost an easily amassable $35,000.) …Newsweek notes that al-Qaida may be plotting attacks in Texas but has turned its attention to "targets of opportunity" in Arab countries deemed too friendly with the West. … Fareed Zakaria argues that this strategy will backfire: Violence against Arabs "means governments [in the region] gain support to act."