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

Southern Boss

By Julia TurnerUpdated Friday, May 9, 2003, at 6:12 PM ET

New Republic, May 19
Ryan Lizza deftly assesses the Democratic presidential contenders and their performances during last weekend's campaign-a-thon in South Carolina. Most commentators declared Joe Lieberman the debate's unexpected winner, but Lizza also points out less-noted surprises. John Kerry, it turns out, was less wooden at Southern meet-and-greets than everyone expected, while John Edwards belied his rep for charisma with the following performance: "Edwards introduces himself to prospective voters in an exaggerated sing-song: 'How … are … you? ... Nice … to … see … you.' When he looks folks in the eye, his tanned face and penetrating blue eyes have such intensity that, as often as not, people can't help but look away." … Meanwhile, Peter Beinart tries to wrestle a new point out of the Bill Bennett gambling debacle. He argues that Bennett's liberal detractors, by holding up private foibles even as evidence of his hypocrisy, have become Bennett-like snoops themselves.

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Economist, May 8
Speaking of Bennett, should he ever have a hankering to gamble again, the Economist points out that Atlantic City is old news. Thanks to industry-friendly legislation in Britain, the country may soon "dominate the global betting industry."

New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine, May 11
You'd think this week's cover story on Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist would focus on the troubles he's encountered during his first 100 days at the helm. The piece dutifully notes that Frist was first hailed as the GOP's savior then harangued for his inability to enact the president's agenda. But it never explains why he brokered the tax cut compromise without consulting Bush and retreads ground covered in earlier profiles. … Peter Maass seeks out Iraq's two leading Shiite clerics, Moqtadah al-Sadr (who wants clerical government) and the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sestani (who would keep religion and politics apart). Al-Sadr says, "We are looking for a unified Islamic nation, so our aim is different than [America's]." Al-Sestani, asked whether he "had had or wanted contact with" Americans, answered, "No." … William Safire, jonesing for some new slang to write about, discovers "jones," the verb, then endearingly learns that the term, which originally referred to drug cravings, first appeared in the Times 33 years ago.

The New Yorker The New Yorker, May 12
Nicholas Lemann portrays the prickly Karl Rove as the ultimate connoisseur of the interest group. Analyzing the differences between Democrats and Republicans, the president's chief political adviser offers a telling quote when asked about swing voters in the middle: "There is no middle! ... 'The unattached' would be a better way of putting it." Rove talks a good game about Madison and the importance of balancing competing factions in a democracy, but as Lemann has it, Rove spends the better part of his time seeking out the unattached and hitching them to the GOP's wagon. … A math lesson drawn from Bush's tax cut appears in the "Talk of the Town": If—as the president has said—a $550 billion tax cut will produce a million new jobs, each one will cost the feds $550,000 in lost revenues. "It would be far cheaper for the federal government to give private firms subsidies to hire more people."

Weekly Standard, May 12
Mr. Shock-and-Awe—that's Reuel Marc Gerecht to you—chimes in with a new pitch: The first days of the war didn't impress the Iraqis, but the decisive Battle of Baghdad did. Now that the Arab world is suitably awed by American power, Gerecht writes, we should take care to establish liberal democracy ASAP. And doing so won't be as hard as everyone says: "The region has been one of the most intellectually absorptive places on earth." But any tolerance of Palestinian terror as the peace process moves forward will undercut America's new stature. … A Scrapbook item totes up booted New York Times reporter Jayson Blair's batting average when it comes to corrections. He's had 725 bylines, and the paper has run 50 corrections, leaving him with a "6.9 percent discovered-error rate." But Adam Clymer's DER is 9.0, and R.W. "Johnny" Apple Jr.'s is 14.1. Nice prank! (Although the Standard made no distinction between errors of fact and spelling.) Maureen Dowd, the magazine honorably laments, has logged only one correction in her nine-year tenure.

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, May 12
Time's Matrix cover promises a first look at the movie and the video game. The piece inside—like most other Matrix previews—includes breathless descriptions of a few action scenes (Cars! Motorcycles! Guns!), allusions to the movie's philosophical influences (The Bible! The Buddha! The Odyssey?), and carefully demarcated spoiler info. It also reveals that Princeton professor Cornel West has a cameo. (Slate assessed The Matrix last week.) … U.S. News leads with a photo essay on life in the U.S. military. Considering the nonstop coverage of GIs in action over the past few months, the shots aren't particularly fresh.

On men who do "women's work": Newsweek's cover blares news that "30% of working women earn more than their husbands," and the piece inside describes the varied dynamics in families where men earn less or stay at home. Younger couples who consciously chose this division of labor seem thrilled; older couples who adjusted after the husband was laid off report resentment and scuffles over domestic duties. … Time notes that—with the job crunch upon us—more men are seeking work in fields like nursing and child care that are typically dominated by women. Even today, somewhat surprisingly, 93 percent of all registered nurses and 98 percent of child-care workers are female. … (Newsweek also adds that the Italian city of Naples is short on pizzaioli—men certified to make Neapolitan-style pizza. The city may ease the rigorous certification process to address the shortage; perhaps they'll have to let women take on what they still consider to be "men's work.")

On civil liberties, and which ones have gone out the window: Both Time and U.S. News offer brief roundups of recent Justice Department moves, lauded by some for enhancing national security and panned by others for limiting domestic freedoms. Interestingly, the two lists are quite different. Time highlights diminished rights for aliens, restricted access to lawyers, branding citizens "enemy combatants," and the use of secret testimony in court. U.S. News examines several cases in which suspects are held as material witnesses without being formally charged. The range suggests that media turning from the war to this impending battle have much to catch up on.