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

The Terror TaxBlame al-Qaida for the high price of oil.

By Josh LevinUpdated Friday, May 28, 2004, at 5:38 PM ET

Economist, May 29
The magazine senses that in talking up the impact of the June 30 transfer to Iraqi sovereignty, President Bush is falling into the same overstatement trap that caught him with WMD. The changes—an interim government appointed by the United Nations and the replacement of the CPA with an embassy—will at best be a "half-way house," and there's no reason to build expectations too high. … Another piece reports that up to $8 of the $40-per-barrel cost of oil imports from Saudi Arabia is for insurance against a potential terror attack. While a strike against Saudi oil is unlikely, an attack on a major port or processing complex could stifle production for weeks. When there's less reserve capacity than at any time in the last 30 years—less than 3 percent of demand—any decrease in productivity would put a major hurt on the economy.

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New Republic, June 7 and June 14
The magazine's "Saving Iraq" package includes pieces by Gen. Wesley Clark and Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski that stress the importance of an international coalition and the need to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Brzezinski also argues for setting April 2005 as the deadline for eliminating the American military presence in Iraq. … A set of pieces offers differing ideas on how to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. One story argues that the lethal force used against insurgents should be replaced by crowd-control measures like tear gas and water cannons; a massive New Deal-style employment program would also provide Iraqi citizens income and an investment in the future of their country. Another article, though, argues that in the "postmodern world, we tend to deprecate the efficacy of arms." Translation: Kill the bad guys. "The more lethal [American soldiers] are today, the safer Iraqis and Americans will be in the years to come."

New York Review of Books New York Review of Books, June 10
A story laments that President Bush wasted the opportunity after 9/11 to tell Americans it was their patriotic duty to conserve energy. Instead, the administration has focused on PR, renaming detrimental initiatives—"Healthy Forests," "Clean Skies"—so that they sound helpful to the environment. A few encouraging words could have made a big difference: When there was fear of a shortage in California, energy customers decreased their demand by 10 percent. … Another piece on the Bush campaign doesn't report on the president's re-election strategy so much as reiterate conventional wisdom: Karl Rove is a controlling mastermind, the Patriot Act is evil, and Bush sees everything in black and white. The story also trots out the incredibly tired "NASCAR dads"-are-this-year's-"soccer moms" trope and makes the not-so-believable claim that Bush has delayed making immigration proposals in order to keep Pat Buchanan from running for president.

New York, May 31
The cover story on 9/11 widows is less tightly focused—and more thoughtful—than last week's Times Magazine piece on firefighters who have affairs with their colleagues' widows. The well-written piece focuses less on the overreported love-from-the-ashes angle than on how the women have bonded through gallows humor. While the GWs, short for grieving widows, are incredibly tight, they've all mostly kept the women whose husbands survived (the "Alive Wives") at arm's length. … Slate contributor Clive Thompson lays out an incredibly brazen art-forgery scam. A New York dealer bought up midpriced Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, had copies made, and then sold both the originals and the fakes to unsuspecting collectors. The grift went undetected for more than a decade because auction houses aren't required to turn in fakes to the police and duped collectors are often too ashamed to admit they've been had.

New York Times Magazine, May 30
Benoit Denizet-Lewis, who wrote last year's cover story on down-low culture, talks to teenagers about sex. While the story peddles predictable trends (oral sex and intercourse are more common than traditional dating) and annoying catchphrases ("hooking up," "friends with benefits"), the writer does ultimately make a good point. For all the insistence by girls that the casual sexual encounters are empowering, it seems clear that they're only emotionally and physically pleasurable for guys. … Another piece notes that Christopher Walken is the "Teflon actor." Walken can star in bad movie after bad movie, but everybody still loves him for his staccato voice and wacky behavior. Some fun facts: He's thought about having his own cooking show, he eats only at night, he wrote a foreword to a book on cat care, and he does a voice that he calls "Mamma mia what a pizza."

The New Yorker The New Yorker, May 31
A long, fascinating piece by Slate contributor Jeffrey Goldberg explores the consequences of the Israeli government's defense of a small minority of extremist Jewish settlers in Gaza and the West Bank. The leaders of the settlement movement are intractable both in their belief that the Bible gives them ownership of the land and in their virulent hatred of Arabs. While the story argues that settlers don't endorse killing Palestinians to the same degree that Hamas advocates killing Jews, there's common ground between the groups in that "people who believe that God has given them a mission have granted themselves license to commit terrible sins." … A critique of the new World War II Memorial argues that it "exudes a kind of well-meaning hollowness." The design is just too boring and emotionless—plus, those columns representing the 50 states and the U.S. territories have no significance except to create architectural symmetry. (Read Timothy Noah's defense of the memorial in Slate.)

Weekly Standard, May 31
The cover story claims that British conservatives have independently come to the same conclusions as rabble-rousing documentarian Michael Moore: America is ruled by evil special interests and George W. Bush is a scoundrel and an idiot. The "Mooreism" of the Tories is no longer the exception—the pro-Bush, pro-Sharon views of American conservatives leave them virtually alone worldwide. (In another story, Fred Barnes says that Moore fabricated a story in his book Stupid White Men about how Barnes didn't know what The Iliad and The Odyssey are. All this while the magazine's "Scrapbook" laments that Moore gets too much free publicity.) … A piece suggests that a Kerry-McCain ticket would be bad news for Democrats. Voters would forget about Kerry because attention would shift to a Bush vs. McCain grudge match. Grafting the pro-life McCain onto the ticket could also alienate the Democratic base, driving liberals into the arms of Ralph Nader.

Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News & World Report, May 31
Iraqi National Con: Newsweek says Iraqi National Congress headman Ahmad Chalabi, whose house and office in Iraq were raided last week, is a "Machiavellian con man for the ages." Along with peddling bad intelligence via Iraqi defectors, Chalabi may have used his position in the interim government's De-Baathification Commission to blackmail government officials with ties to Saddam. The piece notes that longtime Chalabi defenders Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith weren't given advance warning of the raid—a possible sign that neoconservatives are losing clout in the Bush administration. … Time focuses more on Chalabi's alleged ties to Iran—an anonymous source says alleged leaks to the Iranian government could "lead to the loss of lives." … U.S. News reports that U.S. intelligence is convinced terrorists are planning an attack on New York, Washington, and/or Las Vegas for between the political conventions and the election. The story claims the Bin Laden hunt has been put on hold as the CIA and special ops try to stop a domestic terror attack.

"The greatest day": Time's cover package on the 60^th anniversary of the D-Day invasion notes that the crummy state of the Atlantic alliance these days isn't that different from relations in the so-called golden age: FDR and Churchill hated de Gaulle, and the United States let Britain fight World War II alone for two years. As Churchill said, "You can always rely on America to do the right thing—once it has exhausted the alternatives." … Newsweek says that while President Bush consciously draws parallels to the WWII leaders—he sits at FDR's old desk and has a bust of Churchill in the Oval Office—the comparisons aren't so apt: "Bush eschews complexity; FDR and Churchill embraced it. … Bush is largely incurious about the world; FDR and Churchill wanted to know everything." And while FDR and Churchill were willing to argue, Bush and Blair mostly avoid talking out disagreements to avoid damaging their friendship.

Design principles: The U.S. News cover story on plastic surgery traces the phenomenon back to the 16^th century, when syphilis sufferers had work done on their "telltale" noses. Hospitals like Johns Hopkins are now encouraging staffers to perform cosmetic surgery because those procedures, which require cash up front, subsidize money-losing operations. Patients beware: Any doctor, not just board-certified plastic surgeons, can legally perform cosmetic surgery. … Newsweek profiles Ed Welburn, the first African-American to head a design team at a major car manufacturer. The 53-year-old Welburn, the head designer at General Motors, conjured up both the Escalade and the Hummer H2, and his latest project, the Buick Velite convertible, is drawing raves for its "gleaming, shield-shaped grille." Welburn's own ride: a 1969 Camaro with "17-inch rims and a bumblebee paint job."