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The Alaskan Surprise
The Economist and Time look north to Sarah Palin's home state.
Kara Hadge
posted Sept. 5, 2008
Blog at Your Own Risk
The Nation on how the military restricts soldiers' Internet activities.
Kara Hadge
posted Sept. 2, 2008
Magicians for Christ
Mother Jones on proselytizing with illusions.
Noreen Malone
posted Aug. 29, 2008
Joe the Turncoat
New York on how Joe Lieberman came to align himself with Republicans.
Noreen Malone
posted Aug. 26, 2008
Obamarama
The press rolls out the red carpet for the DNC.
Kara Hadge
posted Aug. 22, 2008
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other magazines: Summaries of what's in Time, Newsweek, etc.

Loose Lips Sank the Dems' Ship

By Julia Turner
Updated Friday, Feb. 14, 2003, at 1:01 PM ET

New Republic, Feb. 24
The cover story examines the notion that Dems got creamed in 2002 because political consultants have the party in their thrall. … Ryan Lizza argues that John Kerry's anointment as the Democratic front-runner (at least by the handful of people who are paying attention) will hurt Joseph Lieberman but help almost everyone else. … Gregg Easterbrook tackles Bush's hydrogen-powered car proposal and gives the best assessment yet of the obstacles to such a shift. … And the back page wonders what feminist legal theorist Catherine MacKinnon would make of BMX XXX, the video game that has men across the nation playing thong-clad vixens on stunt bikes. (One secretly hopes to hear how MacKinnon would defend the game. Might she argue that the boys, because they play women who must strip as they lose, come to empathize with these objects of digital porn?) But the piece concludes instead that BMX XXX would not meet with MacKinnon's approval.

Economist, Feb. 15
The cover story analyzes how the growing chasm between the United States and anti-war countries in Europe is weakening traditional trans-Atlantic alliances, and the magazine thinks "awful leadership" by France's Chirac is to blame. … The mag offers the following slightly skeptical description of the Bin Laden tape: "Though the tape repeatedly condemned the infidel nature of the Iraqi regime, it was cited by Colin Powell, America's secretary of state, as evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq." … And a story assesses Iran's nuclear ambitions, which may be on the rise. Even though the country claims it wants to develop a nuclear program for energy purposes, "America and others are perplexed as to why Iran wants to burden itself with the problems of maintaining a complex nuclear-energy programme when it is so rich in oil and gas—and is discovering new gas deposits all the time."

New York Times Magazine, Feb. 16
In the engrossing cover story, Harriet McBryde Johnson, who has a muscle-wasting disease, eloquently articulates her confusion about how to interact with Peter Singer, a Princeton University philosopher who "argues that parents should be able to kill disabled infants" and who makes "the assumption that I am one of the people who might rightly have been killed at birth." Johnson wonders if she grants Singer legitimacy by debating him. She wonders if telling him that she eats only soft foods will bolster his argument that life with a disability is not worth living. And she wonders how it is that she likes him, despite his beliefs. … A piece describes the newest West Bank settlers: radical Israeli teenagers who establish ramshackle hilltop outposts. … And Tonya Myles, whose drug-treatment program Bush lauded during the State of the Union, recalls thanking Bush for the shout-out after the speech. Later, she thought, "Oh, my God, does he know what a shout-out is?"

Nation, Feb. 17, and Atlantic Monthly, March 2003
April is the cruelest month; February, apparently, is the one in which our magazines assess our former presidents. Good thing it's short, at least for Bill Clinton's sake.

The Nation's cover story posits that if the Democratic Party ever wants another invite to the swinging sock hop that is this nation's political scene, it'll have to get over Bill first. A Clinton administration vet describes the mood at current Democratic slumber parties: "There's this kind of wistful longing. Then it suddenly gives way to exasperation—why can't we get over him?" So long as Bill is actively involved in the party, the piece argues—raising money, coaching presidential hopefuls, and the like—the Dems may never "revive an aggressive reform spirit and the big progressive ideas that Clintonism effectively dismantled with its small, symbolic answers to big problems." Which, The Nation coyly suggests, would be one way for Democrats to revitalize the party.

The Atlantic, meanwhile, runs two pieces on the future of our 42^nd president, one by a guy who likes Clinton and one by a guy who doesn't. … The guy who does (James Fallows) explores the models of earlier post-presidents and concludes that Clinton is most likely to follow Jefferson, who spent his golden age coaching younger pols, and Carter, who has made his contributions outside the political sphere. He also notes that Clinton will have to conquer the "promiscuity" of his political interests and pick a few core issues if he wants to make his influence felt. … The guy who doesn't (P.J. O'Rourke) laments that we'll have to keep watching Clinton thrust himself into the limelight as he misguidedly tries to bring hope to the world. In fact, O'Rourke writes, "Bill Clinton gives hope to every one of us potato-nosed oafs from nowhere with our shiftless relatives and marriages that are like being sewn up in a sack full of cats."

Teen Vogue, February-March 2003
Teen Vogue, which launched last week, follows Elle's ElleGIRL and Cosmo's CosmoGirl! into the battle for the hearts and dollars of the YM set. Vogue, the haughtiest of the women's mags, generally depicts lifestyles, clothes, and bodies that few have. At first glance, Teen Vogue bears no trace of that standoffish attitude. At 7 by 9 inches, the magazine is just plain cute. (And slim, nothing like mother Vogue's brick-thick September issues, which notoriously strain beach-bound shoulders each year.) But the intimate book size belies the magazine's uneven tone, which swerves from approachable to intimidating in a matter of pages. On the approachable end: relatively affordable clothes. On the intimidating end: a Manhattan teen, posing in her mother's Vivienne Westwood castoffs, shows off her Moroccan-themed bedroom, which must have been done by a decorator. Stranger yet, some articles seem to be written about teens, rather than to them. A piece on the dangers of tanning: "In the interest of keeping up with the Britneys and the J.Los, girls have incorporated indoor tanning into their regular beauty routine, especially before big events, like spring break, or prom." It's like Anna Wintour as Margaret Mead.

The New Yorker, Feb. 17 and 24
A Nicholas Lemann piece ponders how, exactly, a successful U.S. invasion of Iraq would bring about "wholesale change for the better in the political, cultural, and economic climate of the Arab Middle East." (Max Boot and Charles Krauthammer, among others, have argued for war on the grounds that Americans must foment such change.) A Pentagon official explains: "We're not talking about having American ambassadors go around saying, 'Look at this nice government that's just been created in Iraq,' … like a traveling salesman." Instead, he argues, the example of a democratic regime (alongside the ass-whupping that befalls nations where terrorists reside) might cause neighboring countries to rethink their priorities. … A piece on the major players in the Augusta controversy includes the following tidbit: a possible protest at this year's Masters by "columns of women marching in green burkas—symbolically equating the green-blazered men of Augusta with the Taliban."

Weekly Standard, Feb. 17
The cover story uses the dispute about the first lady's tea party for poets (the précis: Laura Bush invited bards from both ends of the political spectrum, and when some 3,600 poets composed anti-war poems to be delivered to her over cucumber sandwiches, she postponed the event indefinitely) as an excuse to examine anti-war poets. "In our poets against the war," the essay argues, after quoting much bad verse, "you can perceive Vietnam envy, gleeful adolescent ill-manners, and straightforward political partisanship." … A piece tags anti-war Ted Kennedy as an appeaser and argues that he's more like his father, who supported Neville Chamberlain, than JFK, the staunch "Cold Warrior." But not all anti-war Kennedys are loathsome; when it comes to Vietnam, the story does praise Bobby's "critique of that one ill-thought-out venture."

Newsweek, Feb. 17
The cover story tackles Powell's week-old U.N. presentation and offers a few newish tidbits: Powell's aides had a tough time figuring out how to transport his vial of fake anthrax on an airplane from D.C. to New York; and the German intel reports about al-Qaida operative Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the putative link between Saddam and Bin Laden, suggest he has closer ties to Iran than Iraq. A side note, the following sentence (about Powell and French diplomat Dominique deVillepin) gratuitously disparages fitful versifiers: "The retired general spent the morning excoriating the inspections process in Iraq, while the career French diplomat (and published poet) shuffled impatiently in his chair." … Now that the Bush administration has made its desire to invade Iraq so public, columnist Fareed Zakaria argues, the United States must follow through, or it will lose credibility worldwide. … Also love-struck Parisians are posting public valentines on 170 scrolling LED displays throughout the city.

Time, Feb. 17
A "special report" commemorates the 50^th anniversary of Watson and Crick's discovery of the structure of DNA. The piece inside rehashes the tale of how two unknown scientists discerned the double helix, includes a sidebar on slighted fellow researcher Rosalind Franklin, and gives Time an opportunity to put naked people on the cover. Prominent scientists also explain how genetics will affect our futures: Watson predicts that humans will eventually combat obesity and control their appetites with a pill. "Food without fat—it's like sex without babies, and you know how great a revolution that triggered." … Charles Krauthammer takes up the notion (also forwarded by Max Boot in the Weekly Standard) that the United States should have pressed for democratic reform in the Middle East after World War II, and observes that the upcoming war signals a shift to more comprehensive engagement of the region.

U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 17
The cover story wonders how the United States could become less dependent on foreign oil. After surveying a number of alternative fuels and noting that the oil industry may not loathe Bush's new commitment to hydrogen-powered cars, since much hydrogen could be extracted from gasoline, the story suggests that the most effective way to wean Americans off oil would be to impose stiffer taxes. With Dems and the GOP opposed, though, that's no likelier now than it was before 9/11. … A piece about six things that could go wrong if the United States invades Iraq—these include Saddam employing chemical weapons, putting civilians in harm's way, or torching oil fields—quotes a U.S. official involved in the military planning: "On some days, I get up thinking this will be relatively quick and we will be left with a pretty good situation afterwards. … On other days, I wake up and think, 'Holy sh--.' "