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HOME / other magazines: Summaries of what's in Time, Newsweek, etc.

By AnonymousPosted Tuesday, Oct. 8, 1996, at 3:30 AM ET

Newsweek, Oct. 14, and Time, Oct. 14
(posted Monday, Oct. 7)

Both magazines hold the presses for coverage of the presidential debate, but only Newsweek gives it the cover. The 10-page Newsweek package asks, "Is It Over?," and concludes that it probably is. Clinton won the debate by not losing it: "[Bob Dole] had to dramatically turn the presidential race upside down. He didn't." A Newsweek poll and focus group concur that Dole is dead. (Newsweek's other political coverage is not so timely: It runs a column about Gore's and Kemp's pet ideas that The New Yorker reported several weeks ago.)
Time agrees that Dole didn't win the big victory he needed: "Getting the laugh lines isn't the same thing as defining yourself." Time's cover story is on swing voters--actually, on one particular swing voter: Lori Lucas, a 35-year-old working mother from a Missouri suburb. Following conventional wisdom, Time claims that Midwestern moms like Lucas have replaced blue-collar men as the critical constituency in presidential campaigns. After following Lucas around for a few days, the magazine concludes that she is too busy to care about politics--bad news for democracy, but not for the president. Lucas voted Perot in '92, but she is leaning toward Clinton this year.
The magazines offer ditto accounts of the Israeli-Palestinian summit: It failed, and the Israelis did not negotiate in good faith. Time features a sidebar interview with Benjamin Netanyahu--he reveals nothing.
Also in Time, an article deplores attempts by several Democratic candidates to out GOP opponents. And a story reviews logging battles in Alaska, California, and Maine. Also in Newsweek, more Internet hype, including an excerpt from Dave Barry's new book about cyberspace and a column about the ongoing encryption flap.

Weekly Standard, Oct. 14
(posted Monday, Oct. 7)

The Standard's cover story mocks political focus groups. Even more pernicious than polls (which at least rely on large-scale random sampling), focus groups give the "veneer of pseudo-science" to the complaints of a few irritable cranks. The article argues that focus groups also dumb down political rhetoric (if such a thing is possible). The Standard's editors reject the conventional wisdom that the 104th Congress was a failure: Citing welfare reform, telecom reform, and the line-item veto, among other accomplishments, the Standard labels it "an impressive ideological--even political--triumph." Charles Krauthammer calls the fighting in Israel a "war," and says that Arafat started it.

U.S. News & World Report, Oct. 14
(posted Monday, Oct. 7)

Newsweek celebrated anti-aging hormone therapy last month. This week, U.S. News presents a darker view of baby boomers' quest for the fountain of youth. The cover story details the perils of cosmetic surgery with gory photographs (a face lift, four days post-op) and gorier anecdotes (death by tummy tuck), but provides no convincing evidence that plastic surgery has become more dangerous. The magazine also reveals "Bob Dole's Secret Plan" for victory: Sit back, relax, and wait for a late October surge. An article on old CEOs is pegged to the Dole campaign. And another demolishes the Clintonian idea that government should subsidize employers to hire welfare moms: Federal aid, it says, stigmatizes recipients more than it helps them.

The New Yorker, Oct. 14; Economist, Oct. 5; and New Republic, Oct. 21
(posted Monday, Oct. 7)

All three magazines lead with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A long New Yorker article charts the tortuous history of Israel's negotiations with the PLO, making it sound like a Realpolitik soap opera: Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin were a "bad marriage" of passion and pragmatism; Yasser Arafat is sometimes a savvy negotiator, sometimes a batty old man; Benjamin Netanyahu is a cold egotist. Its implicit conclusion is that the new Likud government lacks the passion for peace and the personal ties with Palestinians that led Peres and Rabin to the Oslo accords. Also in The New Yorker, a John Updike essay on the meaning of the Titanic, and a story about why former New York Mayor Ed Koch hates current Mayor Rudy Giuliani. (The answer, more or less: Because Giuliani has succeeded.)
The Economist and the New Republic disagree about the cause of the violence in Israel and the remedy for it. The Economist's editorial blames both sides: Israel for halting the peace process, the Palestinians for resorting so quickly to violence. It argues that Israel can't impose peace with force, then encourages Netanyahu "to confound both his friends and his enemies" by immediately negotiating a final settlement. (This settlement, the magazine notes, would be total "separation," not a "cosy peace.") Also in the Economist: The magazine polls leading economists and finds that they favor Clinton's economic plan over Dole's by a 3-to-1 margin.
The New Republic blames the bloodshed on Yasser Arafat, and holds out little hope for a negotiated peace. The opening editorial argues that the rioting served Arafat by uniting fractious Palestinians against Israel. It also takes the usual TNR line that the peace process has failed because the Palestinians won't compromise: Israel conceded land and security; the Palestinians conceded nothing. Also in TNR: a Clinton backlash. One writer explains why he is voting for Dole (because he's a compromiser, but not a waffler); another explains why he is voting for Nader (because he's not Clinton). And a long book review argues that teen-age motherhood is a bad thing.

New York Times Magazine, Oct. 6
(posted Thursday, Oct. 3)

The Supreme Court's new term begins this week, and the magazine uses the occasion to survey "The Rehnquist Years." The cover story concludes that the chief justice is sitting pretty: Rehnquist runs the court efficiently and decisively (unlike his predecessors), and his judicial philosophy of restraining federal power has largely triumphed, especially in death-penalty cases. (The magazine does note, however, that it is Anthony Kennedy, not Rehnquist, who casts the court's deciding vote.) A profile of underdog Victor Morales, Phil Gramm's opponent in the Texas Senate race, finds him charming, sincere, hopelessly naïve, and totally out-gunned. Also, an article on why today's baseball players are better than Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, and the rest of the old-timers.