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Judging MargaretA profile of the woman who brought gay marriage to Massachusetts.

By Josh Levin
Updated Friday, May 21, 2004, at 6:20 PM ET
Legal Affairs

Legal Affairs, May/June 2004
The cover story argues that the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's landmark decision on gay marriage came to pass because of the substantial political skill of Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, whose childhood in apartheid-era South Africa convinced her that restraining gay marriage was comparable to banning interracial unions. Marshall, who earned her powerful position by getting in good with both the state's Republican governors and Democratic legislature, likely used her sweet-talking talents to win over conservative Justice Judith Cowin, who cast the deciding vote in the 4-3 decision. … In another piece, a writer gamely takes on Louisiana's notoriously difficult retail floristry exam. One of her fellow test-takers fails the corsage and wedding-bouquet portions of the exam by one point due to "improper wiring," "improper focal point," and "poor harmony." The author does far worse, earning zeroes on all four of her bouquets.

New Republic

New Republic, May 31
Since the 1960s, there have been only two African-American U.S. senators and one black governor. That's why Barack Obama's victory in Illinois' Democratic Senate primary was so surprising. The piece speculates that his African heritage and pedigree as the head of the Harvard Law Review mean Obama appeals to white voters because he doesn't fit stereotypes about black candidates. There is no discussion, though, of whether his success has something to do with the electoral makeup of Illinois, where African-American Carol Moseley Braun won a Senate seat 1992. … TRB says Abu Ghraib has distracted from the policy of "extraordinary rendition," in which the United States hands over terror suspects to regimes like Jordan and Egypt that are more "culturally equipped" to interrogate Muslim suspects. These techniques likely include torture—the U.S. State Department has condemned Jordan for beating prisoners on the soles of the feet and suspending them with ropes.

Economist

Economist, May 22
New Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will likely continue the country's economic reforms. Singh, whose removal of excessive regulations in the 1990s sent the term "Hindu rate of growth" to oblivion, will continue to push for privatization and the removal of inefficient subsidies. Some wishful thinking: The magazine argues that Singh, a Sikh, could make headway in the rivalry between India and Pakistan because his religion "draws on both Islam and Hinduism." … The citizens of the Czech Republic can't agree on a catchy, one-word name for their country. The Germans call the country "Tschechien," but that's confusingly close to the word for Chechnya. "Czechia" doesn't have a soft enough "ch" sound. Former President Vaclav Havel says "Cesko" makes his "flesh creep," while others say it's too similar to the grocery store Tesco.

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, May 23
Susan Sontag writes that the Abu Ghraib photographs most resemble pictures of lynchings—trophy shots in which the offenders shamelessly place themselves in the center of the action. The piece is most notable for including uncropped versions of a few of the now canonical images. The full photo of the hooded, wire-strewn prisoner who was forced to stand on a small box also includes an oblivious-looking man standing off to the side, looking at his hands rather than the abuse in front of him. … Another story describes John Kerry's attempts to woo veteran voters. Rather than simply pointing to the heft of his military record, Kerry is talking up bread and butter vet issues, like turning veterans' health care into a permanent entitlement like Medicare or Social Security.

Atlantic Monthly

Atlantic, June 2004
The cover story's criticisms of Tony Blair—he's not much of an intellectual, he's too much of a moralist, he misled his country on the case for war—sound like the boilerplate arguments against the prime minister's Iraq war partner, George W. Bush. After convincing readers that Blair is "in office but not in power," reviled by most Brits and his own party, the story switches tacks, arguing that he'll likely hold onto office after the next election because of voter apathy. … Another piece digs into the secret lives of opposition researchers. Along with an examination of how Al Gore was labeled a liar by Republican National Committee operatives in 2000, there's choice advice from master researchers (learn to infiltrate the AP) and—the coup de grâce—legendary Dem bomb-thrower Chris Lehane's timeline of how to turn a single oppo nugget into a weeklong news story.

Weekly Standard

Weekly Standard, May 24
The cover story says Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-Palestinian terrorist suspected of beheading American Nicholas Berg, could be "challenging bin Laden for the leadership of global Sunni terrorism." Whereas Bin Laden sees himself as a "unifying figure" in the Muslim world, Zarqawi isn't opposed to murdering Shiites. The piece, though, may exaggerate the differences between them: While Zarqawi may be less focused on the "far enemy" than Bin Laden, he did help mastermind the March 11 train bombing in Madrid. … The U.S. military's stellar training units, the troops in charge of preparing American soldiers by simulating the behavior of opposing forces, may now be sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. The piece laments that this is yet another example of how the Army's inadequate troop strength means the architects of war must sell out "the future to pay for past and present failings."

New Yorker

New Yorker, May 24
Seymour Hersh's latest piece on Abu Ghraib alleges that frustration over the lack of helpful intel on the Iraqi insurgency led Donald Rumsfeld to bring a secret "special-access program" for interrogating al-Qaida operatives to Iraq. Hersh's sources point the finger at Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, for losing control of the secret program by expanding it to include military intelligence officers and reserve soldiers, rather than just heavily trained special operatives. … A long, fun story tracks the men who track the giant squid, the legendary sea creature that has never been captured alive. The author tags along with a New Zealander who has collected 117 giant squid corpses, weighing up to 400 pounds, and was perhaps the closest to corralling the beast—he collected a cluster of giant squid "paralarva" in 2001, but they all died on the way back to shore.

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

Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, and Time, May 24
Prison breaks: An excellent Newsweek report says that, in an effort to prevent another domestic terror attack, President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and Attorney General Ashcroft "signed off on a secret system of detention and interrogation that opened the door" to the interrogation methods used at Abu Ghraib. While the techniques originally were intended solely for al-Qaida and Taliban suspects, they were transported to Iraq because Rumsfeld was pleased with the intelligence wrought from Guantanamo. The piece also notes that Guantanamo's original military police commander handed out the Quran to prisoners and made special dining schedules for Ramadan; he was replaced in October 2002 when Rumsfeld put all of Gitmo under the control of military intelligence. … U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi's plan to hand over Iraq to an interim government of technocrats may not come off, according to U.S. News. It's more likely that managerial types will be consigned to service ministries while political heavyweights get the meatier foreign and defense work.

Pumping up the candidates: Time's catchall cover story on Iraq and the campaign notes that President Bush's approval ratings are falling most notably among "females, independents, Westerners and voters ages 18 to 24." The article also claims that Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee asked to see the Army report on Abu Ghraib this January but were told that it didn't exist. … Both Time and Newsweek note that John Kerry's close friend George Butler is helming a 90-minute film about the candidate based loosely on Douglas Brinkley's book Tour of Duty. Butler, the director of the classic bodybuilding documentary Pumping Iron that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star, has more than 6,000 Kerry photos in his personal collection that reveal he "once wore tight jeans, had a monstrous unibrow and always had his arms around his little girls."

Heavenly collaboration: Newsweek's cover story reveals that Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, the authors of the best-selling Left Behind books, are planning both a sequel and a prequel to their evangelical Christian series, which has sold 62 million books. For each book, LaHaye writes a 70- to 100-page biblical commentary that the modest Jenkins ("The literary-type writers, I admire them. I wish I was smart enough to write a book that's hard to read, you know?") turns into a story. An interesting stat: 71 percent of the books are bought in the South and Midwest while only 6 percent are bought in the Northeast.

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