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Hired HelpThe Atlantic examines the trouble with nannies.

By Josh Levin
Updated Friday, Feb. 13, 2004, at 5:55 PM ET
New York Review of Books

New York Review of Books, Feb. 26
Michael Massing builds a convincing case that the U.S. press corps was "far too reliant on sources sympathetic to the administration" in the buildup to war in Iraq. The New York Times, and especially Chalabi chum Judith Miller, get the most damaging broadsides.  Miller's story in September 2002 that Iraq had acquired aluminum tubes to help build nuclear material "would become a key prop in the administration's case for war, and the Times played a crucial part in legitimizing it." Massing also criticizes the papers for ignoring the reports of weapons inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency that there was "no sign whatever of any effort by Iraq to resume its nuclear program." And then there are editors who buried critical stories from enterprising reporters in the dark recesses of the A section. (Also see Jack Shafer's Judith Miller takedown in Slate.)

Atlantic Monthly

Atlantic Monthly, March 2004
Caitlin Flanagan troubles over how the modern working woman—or in her case, the modern domestic goddess—is propped on the shoulders of immigrant nannies, a "cheap, easily exploited army of poor and luckless women." While Flanagan's snarky, breezy prose chisels away at the notion that rich and poor working women are a single oppressed class, her nanny-loving, Donna Reed persona is grating and hypocritical. Maybe she should be a bit less proud that she and her husband have never changed the sheets. … Robert D. Kaplan travels to Mongolia to tail Col. Tom Wilhelm, a "soldier-diplomat" who represents all that's right about the modern American military. The culturally sensitive Wilhelm—he quaffs gazelle blood and does vodka toast after vodka toast—shows the virtues of not "intervening militarily on a grand scale but, rather, by placing a few quietly effective officers in key locations around the globe."

Economist

Economist, Feb. 14
Comcast's bid to take over faltering Disney may augur a return of 1980s corporate culture, the halcyon days when corporate raiders "disciplined poor managers with the boot" rather than the golden parachute. (No word on the potential rebirth of shoulder pads.) Despite warnings that "combining content and distribution in one company" may not make sense in the digital age, the magazine is generally positive about Comcast unleashing "weapons of mouse destruction." Hey, maybe Pixar's Steve Jobs would even unpack his cardboard boxes if Michael Eisner got pushed out. … Though the "circle of sanity" in India and Pakistan may be expanding, the recent diplomatic baby steps in Kashmir don't have Kashmiris feeling that optimistic. Plans for an upcoming "composite dialogue" don't include any representatives from Kashmir, and it's widely believed that Pakistan wouldn't mind continuing the fighting, just because it "keeps half of India's army tied up."

New Republic

New Republic, Feb. 23
Franklin Foer says the group hardest hit by Howard Dean’s fall from grace may be the wonks who gravitated toward his winning glow. Countless policy nerds use the cloak of anonymity to snipe at their bandwagon-jumping colleagues for "contributing to a [campaign] that could have helped their careers but hurt the party." The most devastating consequence of this chilly infighting: a rapid decline of the Brookings Institution's "genteel mores." ... Oliver Burkeman reports from London, where the tabloids are stuffed with anti-immigrant rhetoric, including rumors that migrants from Eastern Europe kill and barbecue the swans in the city's parks. All this yellow journalism has contributed to the rise of the far-right British National Party and the false perception that asylum seekers are on-the-dole fakers.

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, Feb. 15
Details in Sara Corbett's cover story on wounded soldiers returning from Iraq illuminate how military policy can derail recovery—many won't ask for antidepressants because it could cost them a future promotion. Overall, though, too much of the piece has a gauzy, TV newsmagazine feel. … Darcy Frey's article on the struggles of the former high-school teammates of New York Knicks star Stephon Marbury hangs on a false premise: that most everyone assumes basketball will deliver "young players—predominantly poor and African-American—to a better life." Well, maybe before 1994's Hoop Dreams—or Frey's own 1994 book The Last Shot. … "Domains" offers a peek inside the townhouse of blowhard Inside the Actors Studio host James Lipton. His current read: "a biography of the poet Rimbaud." His choice for a last meal: a cheeseburger—"I have very plebeian tastes."

Weekly Standard

Weekly Standard, Feb. 16
Gerard Baker says Lord Hutton's report on the David Kelly affair, which implicated the BBC for erroneously reporting that Downing Street had "sexed up" Iraq's WMD capabilities, shows that the Beeb has "let the foul winds of British tabloid journalism waft through its stuffy halls." Along with a newfound penchant for sensationalism, Baker indicts the BBC for liberal bias that marks a "new low point in the history of the self-loathing British prestige-media's capacity to side with the nation's enemies." … Max Boot makes the unconvincing argument that America's conflicts in the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Kosovo all bear the hallmarks of the pre-emptive "Bush doctrine." Boot says it's a mistake to think of pre-emption as an "Iraq-size occupation" and expands the definition to "include military strikes, coalition occupations, and political/diplomatic action." Even "expanding capitalism and democracy," he writes, "are 'pre-emptive' in the broadest sense."

The New Yorker

The New Yorker, Feb. 16 and 23
Larissa MacFarquhar's profile of Michael Moore tilts negative, airing grievances of former colleagues who say he's a fake populist. The piece scores more points, though, with criticism of Moore's use of satire as cruel defense mechanism, as when he tells book-tour audiences that an antagonist, ex-congressman and talk show host Joe Scarborough, may be responsible for the murder of an aide—then says he's just joking. Instructive piece of childhood background: Moore wrote a play where a resurrected Christ is "nailed up again by a group of characters who were obviously modeled on certain local people." … David Grann reports on the Aryan Brotherhood, a brutal gang less interested in fomenting race wars than running America's prisons mafia-style. Grann's transfixing narrative seems primed for a movie adaptation: Charismatic leaders rack up kills while under maximum security until a fearless but mild-mannered DA rounds everybody up, setting the table for 23 possible death-penalty convictions.

Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report

Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, Feb. 16
Bush vs. Bush: Time follows December's "Love Him or Hate Him" cover with a presidential stare-down, the faces separated by the widening "credibility gap." Among the president's problems: the role of the Pentagon's creepy-sounding Office of Special Plans, soon to be investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Bush's budget-balancing efforts fall under scrutiny, too, especially proposed cuts that seem disingenuous because Congress will likely ignore them, like the one earmarked for the Centers for Disease Control. … Newsweek reports that intel on Saddam's mobile weapons labs should have been red-flagged because one informant had a "fabricator notice" in his file because he'd been "coached by [the] Iraqi National Congress." … U.S. News fronts John Kerry, whose support of environmental causes stands out in his legislative record. But rather than put his name on bills, Kerry "carved out a niche as a kind of Senate prosecutor" with investigations into drug trafficking and money laundering.

The Gospel of Gibson: Newsweek previews Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and says the anti-Semitism charges leveled against the film have merit. While Roman prefect Pontius Pilate is shown as conflicted and sympathetic, the Jewish high priest Caiaphas is unabashedly evil, as seen in a fictitious scene where Pilate laments, "If I don't condemn him, Caiaphas will start a rebellion; if I do, his followers will." … Passion star James Caviezel, whose blood-soaked face graces Newsweek's cover, says he signed on to the film after Gibson interviewed him for a nonexistent surfing movie, then started "talking about what Christ really went through." Caviezel suffered to play Jesus: During the shoot, he had "continual hypothermia," got a 14-inch scar from incompetent Roman soldiers who lashed him too realistically, and was struck by lightning.

The Super Bowl of hyperbole: U.S. News goes long on the impact of Janet Jackson's breast, with one concerned mother worrying that "When someone touches my daughter inappropriately, I don't want her to say, 'It must be OK; I saw it on the Super Bowl.' " … Time, though, wins the award for purple prose with its piece on the "Super Bowl of Hypocrisy." Why hypocrisy? Because the big game also features "messages from crude talking animals entreating [fans] to buy intoxicants." At halftime, Justin and Janet "spelled out the subtext" of a "culture obsessed by, and terrified of, a human organ that gives sustenance to babies." Indeed, "By the end of Jackson and Timberlake's song, that culture was naked."

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Josh Levin is a Slate associate editor. You can e-mail him at .
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