- By Anonymous - Slate Magazine

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

By AnonymousPosted Saturday, July 6, 1996, at 3:30 AM ET

Time and Newsweek, July 8
(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.

The New Yorker, July 8
(posted Monday, July 1)

The New Yorker also writes about the Supreme Court this week, but legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin has only kind words for liberal Supreme Court litigator Laurence Tribe. Toobin contends that Tribe has become, in effect, the "tenth justice." In the recent Colorado gay-rights case--as in nearly a dozen other cases--the court relied on Tribe's reasoning to establish a critical constitutional precedent. Elsewhere in the issue, New York's finest magazine praises New York's finest newspaper. The opening editorial congratulates the New York Times for its century of Ochs/Sulzberger ownership: The Times has thrived, writes Harold Evans, because it has clung fiercely to its integrity, its decency, its professionalism, and its recognition that "a newspaper is not simply ... a commercial enterprise but a public trust."

The Nation, July 15 & 22
(posted Monday, July 1)

The Nation fires a good old-fashioned left-wing broadside against globalization--and the corporate/political/media elite that propagandizes it. The seven-article special issue--guest-edited by lefty doomsayers John Cavanagh and Jerry (Jeremiah?) Mander--contends that globalization has massively increased economic inequality and environmental degradation; propagated a sterile, Disneyfied "monoculture"; shattered social welfare systems in Europe and North America; re-established colonialism ("with trade rules instead of gunboats"); and given supragovernmental power to transnational corporations. These evils continue, contributors argue, because the world's rich and powerful benefit from them.

Weekly Standard, July 8 and 15
(posted Monday, July 1)

After two weeks of pummeling Bob Dole, the Standard returns to its favorite target: the Clintons. Its "Gala Clinton-Bashing Issue!" overflows with glee and bile. David Brooks flogs Hillary Clinton's narcissism; Noemie Emery scoffs at her supposed resemblance to Eleanor Roosevelt; John Podhoretz whacks Clintonites for their hypocritical ethics; and Fred Barnes analyzes what it will take for Filegate to become a serious scandal (more zealous press coverage, criticism by Democrats, and an administration turncoat). Speaking of turncoats, the Standard reviews Up From Conservatism, the new book by left-wing media darling Michael Lind, who is loathed by the neo-cons for his very public abandonment of their cause. David Brooks pans the book and brands Lind an egotist and a conspiracist.

New Republic, July 15 & 22
(posted Friday, June 28)

The New Republic finds its Olympics angle this week. "Welcome to the Olympic Village" (like earlier pieces in Time, Sports Illustrated, and the New York Times Magazine, to name but a few), reports that Atlanta is a city of contradictions--black and white, rich and poor, etc.--and while it may not live up to its motto, "the city too busy to hate," it has learned the value of racial accommodation. TNR also launches a new column, "The Hard Questions." Political thinkers Michael Sandel, Ronald Steel, Michael Walzer, and Jean Bethke Elshtain "will try to shed light on the thorny places where abstract political theory meets the realities of public policy." First thorny place: the GOP abortion plank. Michael Sandel's kickoff essay offers a familiar, but clear, explanation of the "instability" in Bob Dole's abortion position: If Dole believes abortion is murder, then he shouldn't tolerate pro-choice Republicans.

Economist, July 6
(posted Friday, July 5)

In the cover story and opening editorial, the magazine's free-marketeers are as cheery as you'd expect about Boris Yeltsin's victory. While noting that Yeltsin faces "a daunting pile of tasks," the magazine writes that his "success means that hopes for reform are still alive." (And so is Yeltsin himself, at least for the moment. The Economist frets, however, that "no one--and certainly no one reassuring--can be considered Mr. Yeltsin's heir-apparent.") This magazine also asks two questions that giddy American investors have been trying desperately to ignore: Is the stock market going to crash? And, if it does, would it wreck the economy? The answers are maybe (because stocks seem overvalued), and probably (because a crash would obliterate business investment).