Reason, December 2005 An article examines some of the more outlandish stories reported in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, including rescue helicopters being fired upon, murders at the Superdome, and the rape of babies and young children. Turns out, all were urban legends passed on by shaken survivors and gobbled up by reporters that tarnished New Orleans’ image. “New Orleanians have been kind of cheated, because now everybody thinks that they just turned to animals and that there was complete lawlessness and utter abandon,” says one National Guard official who was there. … The magazine runs an edited transcript of a speech by former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley A. Smith in which he called out John McCain for the senator’s campaign-finance-reform legislation. Smith accuses McCain of using the legislation to silence critics, marginalizing the voice of individuals, and using the Reform Institute—founded after his failed presidential campaign—to further his presidential aspirations.—Z.K.
New York Times Magazine, Jan. 1 A profile of Yulia Tymoshenko shows that a political divorce can be just as messy a marital divorce. Hailed as the “two pillars” of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, Viktor Yushchenko became the country’s president and named Tymoshenko prime minister. In September she was ousted from her position when Yushchenko dissolved the government, but an article suggests her supporters, many of whom view her as a Joan of Arc or Evita Per ó n, should not despair. Pundits predict she’ll even the score in the near future, either by reclaiming her position in the spring parliamentary election, or in 2009 when she stands a shot at ousting her former ally. … An essay comments on the popularity of vaginal plastic surgery. The quest for that Playboy-perfect vagina now “leaves the one part of the female body formerly not available to harsh scrutiny glaringly on display,” sighs the author.— Z.K.
New York Review of Books, Jan. 12 John Gray criticizes Robert Kaplan’s Imperial Grunts and Michael Mandelbaum’s The Case for Goliath, two enthusiastic books about America’s monopoly on superpower and its strategic use of military and economic might. Gray doesn’t believe in an American empire: Unlike the British or the Romans, we are unwilling and unable to commit to running foreign countries. But he also argues that U.S. power is waning as Asia’s increases. “In these circumstances,” he writes, “a revival of realist thinking is overdue. Global security is not served by launching messianic campaigns to export democracy.”… Jamey Gambrell reviews “Russia!”, a massive exhibition spanning 900 years of artworks, currently at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. There is much worth seeing, Gambrell writes, though she is skeptical of the motives behind the exhibition. Is the whole Putin-sponsored affair, she asks, “a big advertising campaign … designed to establish the bona fides of the new Russian patrons of the new Guggenheim global museum?”… Also inside: a poem by Slate’s Meghan O’Rourke.—B.W.
Weekly Standard, Jan. 2 The cover story claims that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, created to curtail “indiscriminant snooping” by the executive branch, impedes counterterrorism efforts. The article questions FISA’s place in the system of checks and balances and asserts that the act horns in on the separation of powers. The conclusion: “[W]e should have a serious debate about abolishing FISA and restoring the president’s inherent constitutional authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes.” A related editorial by William Kristol dismisses as liberal alarmism the uproar over revelations that President Bush may have overstepped the bounds of executive power in the war against terror. … An article details Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit to Iraq and Afghanistan this month and sees it as a sign that the administration’s campaign to shore up support for the war and retreat from its “defensive crouch” will continue.—M.M.
