Magazine

The signs are everywhere. In the 2000 election, you received a measly 8 percent of the black vote—a dubious distinction only surpassed in 1964 by the hated Barry Goldwater, who, of course, lost the election. A poll taken shortly after the election noted that some 8 out of 10 African Americans believed that you were […]

But a few years later, author Peter M. Birkeland finds Walter nostalgic for his milk-delivery days. With unreliable labor, Walter is in his shop constantly, missing family events like his niece’s Saturday wedding. With high staff turnover, he finds himself behind the counter, at the receiving end of the wrath of unsatisfied customers. And the […]

Glass Houses: Congressional Ethics and the Politics of Venom is not that book. Which is too bad, because the book’s authorsMartin Tolchin, editor of The Hill, and Susan Tolchin, a professor of public policy at George Mason University, would seem well-suited to the task. The Tolchins are clearly well-acquainted with their subject. They’ve interviewed dozens […]

But the inaugural ceremonies marking Arbenz’s replacement with a U.S.-backed military regime had just ended when plantation workers and college students began trading their plows and textbooks for rifles and fatigues, setting out under cover of night for the hidden reaches of the mountains to prepare for the revolution. In Silence on the Mountain: Stories […]

The issue in this case was the so-called patients’ bill of rights, and Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-G.A.) the Bush surrogate. Days earlier, the president had sweet-talked Norwood into a midnight deal that sharply restricted patients’ right to sue their HMOs. Norwood, who for many years had advocated a much tougher bill, had essentially been suckered, […]

The owners of the Washington Redskins appear to be exploring the frontiers of capitalism in a way that does not seem sporting. They are refinancing $500 million in club debt with a $700-million loan. Why should I object? After all, they are probably seeking lower interest rates, just like thousands of other Americans. True, but […]

Twenty-eight years later, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira have published a new book with the same title arguing, essentially, the same thing. In their version of The Emerging Democratic Majority, the authors argue that since 1992, American politics has been in transition from an old order of Republican dominance–which began with Richard Nixon’s election […]

If you thought that the great romanticizer of small-town America didn’t fit the tortured-creative mold, Laura Claridge’s new biography, Norman Rockwell, will change your mind. Its revelations about the artist’s private life, which scarcely resemble his defining Hallmark-card iconography, clear the way for Rockwell to enter the critics’ pantheon of serious American artists. (Of course, […]

But still the checks came only intermittently. Once again, Baker assumed her husband was to blame. When she took him to court this time, however, she discovered he had been paying, through regular deductions from his paycheck. This time, it wasn’t his fault. It was the fault of the government agency charged with collecting the […]