Radar, Summer 2003 In a meandering interview, Matt Drudge modestly deems himself “an independent voice who’s willing to take on networks and presidents,” and his interrogator Camille Paglia coos, “It’s so true.” When Drudge admits that he thinks his boat-rocking decision to link to anti-war papers in the U.K. was “pretty clever,” Paglia nods along with glazed eyes: “It’s refreshing to hear someone being rude and raucous. It’s great.” (Of course, journalists have been known to steer interviews with praise, so perhaps Paglia had a canny strategy. If so, it’s not readily apparent.) Noted: Drudge loaths the title blogger and still thinks Sidney Blumenthal is “a liar.”… The magazine scampily insinuates that right-wing radio star and ex-liberal Michael Savage was more than chummy with poet Allen Ginsberg, printing a dopey letter and alluding to “the reported existence of a picture of Savage and Ginsberg swimming naked together,” but offering little in the way of proof.
New Republic, June 23 For Democrats in the House, Michael Crowley writes, the attempt to get anything done is just “so much Kabuki theater.” Republicans on the House Rules Committee routinely block Democratic amendments, and Republican Party leadership strategically “hoard[s] legislative information” so Democrats have no time to craft a defense. Of course, the Democrats treated the Republicans to similar partisan dismissals when they held the reins, so there’s something sour in woeful cries like “We’re basically getting bitch-slapped around by these guys because they control everything.” Crowley suggests that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi may have to turn to Gingrichian scandal-mongering to win back the majority. … It’s a mistake to assume anti-sodomy laws are merely symbolic. The statutes have legal ramifications and a piece shows how they have been used against gays in custody disputes and workplace discrimination battles.
Economist, June 12 The magazine advises Ford—and the American motor industry at large—to pull into the breakdown lane and switch on the warning lights. Detroit has made its money off SUVs and the like for the past several years, so the incipient consumer shift away from gas-guzzlers bodes ill. And Ford, struggling mightily to recover from mismanagement in the ‘90s, may yet go bust.
The New Yorker, June 16 and 23 Rabble-rousers hold forth this week. Philip Gourevitch calls for an investigation into the administration’s possible abuse of WMD intelligence, “if Congress can muster the courage and the clarity to command it.” And James Surowiecki—wading sure-footedly into the fen of FCC policy analysis—argues that increasingly centralized control over programming and distribution leaves little “room for newcomers.” Last week’s decision was a step in the wrong direction. … Misty memoirs of adolescence from David Sedaris and Jonathan Franzen are so-so. Sedaris—who issues economical hilarity as reliably as a metronome—remembers mocking an overheard snippet (“My home, well, one of my homes …”) with his mother and describes his family’s longing for a beach house. Franzen’s piece on high-school pranks seems indulgent in comparison. … Also, it’s the debut fiction issue, if you like that sort of thing. The debut poem—which has a rollicking rhythm not often found in verse about men’s clothing stores—is fun to read out loud.
New York Times Magazine, June 15 Why run a cover story on “The State of George Pataki”? New York’s Republican governor alienated Republicans by wooing lefties during his campaign, then alienated Democrats and Republicans by backing draconian budget cuts. Will he run for president? Probably not. Will he get re-elected? Probably not—he “has no natural base” in New York. … Muslim female comic Shazia Mirza—who performs in a “traditional Muslim headdress,” is a teetotaling, nonsmoking virgin, and got famous with jokes about suicide bombs—is, no surprise, a bundle of contradictions and a somewhat un-pin-downable profile subject. She long kept her comedy career a secret from her conservative family, and her roommates, who know little about Mirza other than her wee-hours working schedule, assume she’s a stripper. … Also, NIMBY types in Cape Cod oppose a proposed offshore wind farm there, but the digital rendering that accompanies the piece actually makes the putative eyesore look kind of cool.
Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, June 16
After snippets of Hillary Clinton’s new memoir appeared in Associated Press reports last week, Time’s managing editor, Jim Kelly, said the magazine might scuttle plans to make an excerpt of the senator’s book its cover story. But Time goes ahead with the piece (which the site makes you pay for), and—from the tale of Bill and Hillary’s first date to the revelation that Gingrich initially called the Lewinsky scandal “ludicrous” and promised “it’s not going anywhere”—it’s sufficiently juicy. (And very carefully worded.) Clinton also includes this odd statement, which seems to undercut her husband’s accomplishments: “While Bill talked about social change, I embodied it.”
Seth Mnookin’s Newsweek piece on the Raines resignation includes water cooler speculation about his successor. Apparently, as New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. was boarding an elevator, he spotted Bill Keller, whom he’d “passed over when he tapped Raines for the Times’s top job. ‘I want to talk with you,’ Sulzberger said, according to people who witnessed the exchange. ‘Some time soon.’ “
Newsweek and U.S. News both go with health covers this week. Newsweek whips up a package on men’s health; one of the pieces inside suggests that male depression is underreported because men are less likely than women to seek clinical help, often turning to alcohol, drugs, or violence instead. U.S. News fronts a curvy blue-lit torso and promises to reveal “The truth about weight loss.” The piece inside reports that dieters must be trained to set realistic goals but neglects to mention that weight-loss cover stories (though they often sell like SnackWell’s) rarely deliver any real news.
Weekly Standard, June 16 Writers covering the spam wars inevitably pepper their pieces with goofy-racy spam subject lines. Christopher Caldwell dreams up “GET LOLITA OUT OF DEBT BY ADDING THREE INCHES TO YOUR MORTGAGE!” Even if such lines elicit an internal chuckle, they still make me feel as though I’m weeding my inbox. Caldwell describes the growing spam problem (also chronicled this week in Time) and endorses Sen. Charles Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) call for a federal no-spam list that would allow consumers “to opt out of the unsolicited commercial e-mail cesspool altogether.”… Thomas Powers argues that the Department of Justice inspector general’s report on Sept. 11 detainees has been “interpreted—wrongly—to suggest a pervasive failure of the government” to protect civil liberties. Sure, Powers concedes, the FBI should have moved more quickly to clear the 762 noncitizens detained. But he argues that the understaffed agency may have been doing a “defensible” job under the circumstances.
