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Putting the Bull Back Into the GOP

By Bryan CurtisUpdated Friday, May 18, 2001, at 8:30 PM ET

New Republic New Republic, May 28
The cover package offers dueling reviews of The Producers, one glowing, the other a pan. The first hails the production as a "new old-fashioned musical comedy" that, in its dual desire to entertain and offend, hearkens back to Broadway's bawdier days. The second argues that the show's wild success is due precisely to its inoffensiveness. "The only outrageous thing about the show," the author writes, "is how little it outrages." … An article traces the mutation of the neoconservative movement and its leader, Bill Kristol. After the 1996 elections, neocons unveiled their "national-greatness conservatism," a push to return the Republican Party to its activist roots. One problem: When John McCain adopted the mantle, the movement drifted so far to the left—supporting campaign-finance reform and environmental protection, among other things—that Kristol and company were all but banished from the party. Now, while some neocons see political salvation in reforming the GOP from within, one advocates a more radical approach: creating a third party modeled on Teddy's Roosevelt's Bull Moosers.—B.C.

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New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine, May 20
The cover story snuggles up to the porn industry. Last year the skin business generated more revenue in the United States than all three major professional sports combined. After meeting the men and women of the industry and reviewing their product, the author finds that porn doesn't lower our standards of decency but merely affirms them. In fact, "there may be no other product in the entire cultural marketplace that is more explicitly American." … An article profiles William Hague, the Tory leader who is angling to become Britain's next prime minister. The author, Andrew Sullivan, one of Hague's college chums, finds little salacious about him—a chaste private life, a stoic self-confidence, and a face notable only for its oddness ("like a fetus in a suit," quips one observer). Hague's robotic genius propelled him to the top of his party, but until he experiences a truly human moment, he may not go any further.—B.C.

The New Yorker, May 21
A piece delves into a corruption scandal in the Los Angeles Police Department. Faced with indictment, a crooked cop named Rafael Perez accused dozens of other crooked cops of crimes ranging from framing suspects to assault. The avalanche of lawsuits that followed prevented city attorneys from asking the most important question: Is Perez telling the truth? … An article chronicles a golf outing in Morocco. The author proposes that a golfing country is a peaceful country, one that has "embraced the comfortable and decidedly non-revolutionary serenity of middle age." (Slate's David Plotz covered similar territory in a Times Magazine piece, which the author cites.) The bad news for Morocco? The new king prefers jet-skiing.—B.C.

Newsweek and Time, May 21
A piece fishes for details about Timothy McVeigh's stay of execution. The juiciest bits deal with timeliness: An FBI official admits that the bureau knew of the missing documents since April. When aides to the president and attorney general were finally informed of the foul-up, they kept their bosses in the dark for a whole day. … Time's cover story spells out the FBI's flaws. The agency no longer has a consistent mission; its core values of law and order and personal liberty conflict with each other; and the FBI head tends to be a non-agent who can't manage the sprawling bureaucracy.

Newsweek's cover package attempts to explain why people are evil. The evil among us—surprise!—dehumanize their victims, suffered childhood abuse, and display consistent brain abnormalities (though no one's quite sure how their brains became abnormal in the first place). … An article profiles Andrew Marshall, a 79-year-old bureaucrat, who flexes behind-the-scenes muscle at the Pentagon. … Time exposes a forensic scientist's shoddy casework. Thus far, two inmates convicted on her testimony were released after serving more than a decade behind bars.—B.C.

U.S. News & World Report, May 21
The cover story offers alternatives to nursing homes. The author suggests assisted-living apartments, continuing-care communities, and, for a bit more cash, simply staying at home. … A piece reveals how a federal anti-gun program misfired. Richmond, Va.-based Project Exile promised "swift prosecutions and stiff sentences" but delivered a disappointing conviction rate. Nonetheless, the president plans to take the program nationwide. … A study concludes that poet Emily Dickinson was an "emotional mess," her genius the product of bipolar disorder, depression, and other brain maladies.—B.C.

Weekly Standard, May 21
The cover story takes down Amory Lovins—writer, thinker, guru to environmentalists. Twenty years ago, Lovins' writings proved prescient about the benefits of conservation, but his scheme to switch to alternative energy sources—hydrogen and "gasohol," among them—has gone up in smoke. … An editorial defends John Walters, President Bush's choice to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The author, David Tell, admits his bias at the outset. He served as Walters' top aide in the very same office in 1989. … A report finds Republicans dissatisfied with the president's "bipartisan" education strategy. Conservatives have directed their ire toward Sandy Kress, a Texas Democrat who serves as Bush's "point man on education." But they're missing the driving force behind the plan: the president himself. —B.C.