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Left Out of the Democratic Party

By Jeremy Derfner
Updated Friday, Aug. 18, 2000, at 8:30 PM ET

New Republic

New Republic, Aug. 28 and Sept. 4

A piece argues that the Lieberman pick and a thoroughly New Democrat party platform demonstrate centrist supremacy in the Democratic Party. Liberals like Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy no longer even mention their old orthodoxies: cutting military spending, raising taxes, and defending entitlements. … An article blasts police departments for interfering with convention protesters before the protesting even began. The LAPD took down license plate numbers, arrested organizers for jaywalking, and shined spotlights on the convergence center at all hours of the night until a judge told them to stop. In Philadelphia, officers trapped protesters inside a warehouse without pretense before arresting them and confiscating a few pieces of PVC pipe. … A piece claims that even though Fijian coup leader George Speight is in jail, his racist agenda has become policy without objection from the West. Ethnic Indians have been kicked out of the government, and the Melanesian government is drawing up a new constitution that guarantees its own supremacy.

Economist

Economist, Aug. 19

The cover story reports on the sudden and resounding failure of Internet media companies. The subscription business model does not work, advertising revenue is drying up, and music (surfers refuse to pay), books (too unwieldy), and video (requires broadband) have yet to work on the Web. News, sports, and pornography have caught on, but most media giants are faced with the choice of losing their toehold in the Internet market or losing gobs of cash for the foreseeable future. … A piece laments poverty and violence in the Caucasus. With decent infrastructure and access to oil, the region should be prosperous, but the hodgepodge of countries and breakaway republics is corrupt, war torn, and impoverished. Meanwhile, Russia maintains control over the region by sowing dissention. Half of the Armenian population and a fifth of the Georgian and Azerbaijani populations have emigrated since independence.

Vanity Fair

Vanity Fair, September 2000

The "It" issue. … The cover profile of It Girl Gwyneth Paltrow includes lots of nice pictures and the confession that when she and Brad Pitt split, her heart broke and she was forever changed. … An excerpt of a new Richard Nixon biography accuses him of interfering with peace talks in 1968 to advance his presidential candidacy. Through back channels, he convinced South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that a Nixon administration would back his wobbly government while a Hubert Humphrey administration would not, so Thieu resisted the Lyndon Johnson-organized negotiations that might have 1) ended the war and 2) won the election for Humphrey. … An account of the last days of Joe DiMaggio reveals that in the end he had only one friend, financial adviser Morris Engelberg. He would not see his brother (Red Sox great Dom DiMaggio) or take a call from President Clinton, whom he hated. His last words, spoken to Engelberg, were: "I'll finally get to see Marilyn."

Harper's

Harper's, September 2000

The cover essay attacks the media and political establishments for dismissing the Ralph Nader campaign. Talk show hosts condescend to him and attack him for destroying the two-party system. But Nader's serious critique of politics deserves to be heard, as does his considered answer to the question of why he is running. … A piece laments the failure of the Nation of Islam to hold on to Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, the two leaders who could have stopped its descent into self-parody. The promise of the Nation was its ability to reform truly lost souls. But violence and corruption turned it into little more than a cult.

New York Times Magazine

New York Times Magazine, Aug. 20

Pirates ahoy! The cover story tells the tale of the rise in piracy through the highjacking of the tanker Petro Ranger. There were 285 acts of piracy last year, compared to just 48 in 1989. Efforts to control piracy have been foiled by corrupt governments tied to the piracy syndicates. … A profile of New Mexico governor and drug-legalization advocate Gary Johnson argues that his stunning candor may revive the stalled debate about the war on drugs. Johnson is starting to convince people that spending billions to try and to jail nonviolent offenders is a terrible waste, but the former pothead and current triathlete has alienated the public-health community by eschewing drug-treatment programs as well. He believes users should quit the way he quit, with willpower. … A piece wonders if Austin, Texas, can keep its charm and quality of life as its high-tech economy explodes. Once known for its university, its government workers, and its music scene, Austin is now known for traffic jams, a crumbling school system, and sprawl.

Time and Newsweek

Time and Newsweek, Aug. 21

Time and Newsweek run mirror-image portraits of the Democratic ticket on their covers. … Time gushes over the Lieberman pick. The chemistry Gore and Lieberman display on the stump humanizes Gore. Meanwhile, the Bush camp respects Lieberman too much to whack him. Newsweek withholds enthusiasm for the pairing. The media raves notwithstanding, Gore has gotten no poll-bounce from his VP choice. Unnamed sources in the Gore campaign paint their man as desperate, with his convention speech his last chance to win the election. Newsweek also breaks the news that Gore quietly suggested months ago that Lieberman write an op-ed renouncing his flirtation with Social Security privatization. … Time's Lieberman profile calls his religion the center of his life but wonders if, on issues like abortion, he skirts the rules of Judaism to remain politically viable. Newsweek isolates on his early career as a dark-horse candidate for the Connecticut House and a crusading attorney general. … Newsweek's Gore profile details the shaping of his political personality by his parents. Gore, enthralled by big ideas, practices cautious politics because his father, a senator, continually drilled him on the precariousness of public life. The pressure his parents put on him to succeed makes him feel as if the weight of the world is on his shoulders. This explains his obsession with sweeping issues such as the environment and arms control. Time's profile observes Gore through the women in his life—mother Pauline, who taught him how to play politics, and Tipper, who slowly learned how to play the political wife.

U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report, Aug. 21

Another history lesson from U.S. News. The cover story profiles Thomas Jefferson, the father of the Democratic Party (although they were called Republicans back then). The Founding Fathers thought that America could rise above partisanship, but when Jefferson decided he couldn't work with Federalist John Adams, he and James Madison formed a political party that bought votes and leaked libelous stories to the media, tactics that make voters so cynical about politics today. … A piece contrasts the fortunes of Amazon and Yahoo! While the market has soured on Amazon, Yahoo! is still performing well, but failure is just one negative perception around the corner. The Web advertising from which Yahoo! makes its money cannot sustain the business (less than 1 percent of surfers click on banner ads), so the company is looking to expand into new global and wireless markets. … An article reports on the dangers facing humanitarian aid workers: Eighty-five U.N. aid workers have been killed since 1992. The paradox: As security increases, aid workers become more isolated from the communities they are trying to serve—and less effective.

The Nation

The Nation, Aug. 21 and 28

An article co-written by prominent pollster Celinda Lake argues that class, not political party, is the key to voters' takes on key issues such as globalization and balancing the budget. Other findings: Three-quarters of voters and donors believe politicians usually act not on principle but according to what their contributors want. More than 70 percent of voters consider lobbying legalized bribery. … Competing op-eds, one endorsing Gore and another endorsing Nader, turn on the question of how different Gore and Bush are. The pro-Gore piece stresses that Bush will go after organized labor aggressively. The pro-Nader piece minimizes the danger a Bush Supreme Court could do to Roe vs. Wade. ... A piece likens Gore's economic policy to Herbert Hoover's. The Gore team has used the current prosperity to take Keynesian economics off the table, but the budget-balancing mania could create structural surpluses that would render the economy too sluggish to navigate its way through a recession.

National Review

National Review, Aug. 28

Don't forget the Catholic vote, an article reminds readers. Catholics constituted 29 percent of all voters in the 1996 presidential contest, and many Catholics who traditionally vote Democratic have lost interest in the social justice agenda and could switch allegiances. … An article argues that tax cuts are making a comeback as a political issue. Huge surpluses undermine the rationale for high taxation, and the Republicans have discovered a better tax-cut strategy. Instead of offering one big tax cut, they offer multiple tax cuts, rolling back the estate tax and the marriage penalty. … A piece celebrates the departure of the patrician class from politics. America once needed the highborn in politics because nobody else could do the job well or with virtue. Universal education has changed that. Also, the watchdog media keep nefarious politicians mostly in line.

Weekly Standard

Weekly Standard, Aug. 21

Lieberman isn't as moderate as the media make him out to be, says an article. His position is as left as—or more than—Gore's on gun control, the environment, abortion rights, and tax policy. He derives his centrist reputation from his religiosity and his hawkishness. … A piece criticizes the call for slavery reparations. Fueled by Randall Robinson's book The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, several city councils (including Chicago and Washington, D.C.) have called for compensation, but the idea is illogical, logistically unworkable, and driven by fringe groups. … An article claims that Gore has continued to pursue Clintonian Third Way politics. In fact, his Social Security and tax plans are more conservative than Clinton's, showing that by shutting the left out of politics, the Third Way has allowed the Democratic Party to slip further and further to the right.

The New Yorker

The New Yorker, Aug. 21 and 28

The sports special issue. … A piece explains the difference between "choking" and "panicking." Chokers lose their instinctual grasp of an activity and start thinking about everything, becoming over-cautious; panickers stop thinking entirely. When black students do poorly on standardized tests, they choke because they are aware of stereotypes about their intelligence and try too hard not to fail. When John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed his airplane, he panicked and failed to use his instruments. Had Kennedy choked, he might not have crashed. If black students panicked, they would do better on tests. … An article profiles boxing trainer Teddy Atlas, who worked with a teen-age Mike Tyson and one-time heavyweight champion Michael Moorer. A former juvenile delinquent, he now tries to control men who are utterly uncontrollable with tough love. He split with Tyson (and pulled a gun on him) after the fighter assaulted the trainer's 11-year-old sister-in-law. Moorer left him for a less strict trainer shortly before disappearing from the boxing world entirely. … A piece explores the horse-riding culture of Charlottesville, Va., where insecurities about money and status are channeled through 10-year-old girls.

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Jeremy Derfner is a former Slate editorial assistant.
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