(posted Monday, July 1) Happy Independence Day: Both newsmagazines hype the big summer special-effects movie on their covers (though Newsweek's critic David Ansen dismisses it as a $70 million "cheeseball," and Time is only mildly positive).
"We are in a major alien moment," declares Newsweek, using the movie as an excuse to survey the American paranormal landscape. The magazine reports that 40 percent of those polled admitted to believing in the supernatural. Then it proceeds to make fun of most of them, from the UFO-ologists to the psychics to the cryptozoologists (see: Big Foot). Newsweek also douses the most scandalous charge made by former White House FBI agent Gary Aldrich: that Bill Clinton sneaks out of the White House (hidden under a blanket in Bruce Lindsey's car) to tryst in the Marriott Hotel. Aldrich's source, apparently, was fellow Clinton scandalmonger David (The Real Anita Hill) Brock, who himself told Newsweek that the rumor was "wild speculation."Time's Independence Day cover package more ambitiously tries to explain America's paranormal obsession rather than just describing it. It traces the fascination with aliens to fear of technology, and, more importantly, to the end of the Cold War: America has run out of enemies on earth, so we import aliens to replace the Communists and Nazis. Also in the magazine: a harsh profile of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, "One Angry Man." According to Time, Scalia's scathing dissents in recent cases--VMI, Colorado gay rights--reflect his growing "siege mentality," while his "insulting language" has alienated potential allies.