Magazine

Although these issues matter, close elections often hinge on a much less sexy factor: which party does a better job of getting out the vote. After all, when the polls open, policies don’t vote. People do. So if you want a sense of who will win, pay less attention to pundits and more to what […]

Though Stewart is one of the best-trained soldiers in the U.S. military, the unit he commands–the National Guard’s 3rd Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team–has not yet been certified by the Defense Department as ready for duty. Neither have any of the other 26 teams strategically stationed across the country, ostensibly ready to deploy […]

The relationship ended. “He’s a wonderful guy, but when reality set in I realized that our goals and ambitions were too different. He had a lifestyle on completely the opposite end of the spectrum of anything I’ve ever had.” Did you read about the Pen-tagon civil servant who used her government credit card for $12,000-worth […]

NIMH is supposed to be the federal government’s pre-eminent medical research institution, investigating the cause and better treatment of serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, which are expensive, debilitating diseases. But the birds are partial evidence the Institute has run afoul of its basic mission. The 14 research awards to study pigeons, […]

Bruce Reed, the former Clinton adviser who’s now president of the Democratic Leadership Council, drew the ire of Major League Baseball by penning a recent op-ed in USA Today, which questioned the league’s purported financial difficulty and included this line: “If George W. Bush wants to become Teddy Roosevelt, baseball is the trust to start […]

Six days later, the Hatchers got their trucks down with the help of a local, his Hummer, and a winch, in a dangerous five-hour operation. Dozens of people watched. The brothers each escaped the debacle with $300 in fines from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The fragile alpine tundra they drove over, however, […]

Long inveighing against the “extremist” views of what he has dubbed the “we hate marriage” left, Horn spoke the language of the religious right and was a strident proponent of traditional marriage as the cornerstone of a moral society and the best strategy for lifting single mothers and their children out of poverty. For five […]

Among those most furious was President George W. Bush. “I was stunned and not happy,” the president told reporters at a press conference. “I could barely get my coffee down.” Within days, Bush’s anger cascaded down through the federal bureaucracy. Attorney General John Ashcroft blasted “professional incompetence” for the “disturbing failure.” INS commissioner James Ziglar […]

You might as well buy this book now, because it’s already required reading at the Bush White House and the Democratic National Committee. Or at least it should be. Everything you need to know about Election 2002 is in Earl and Merle Black’s new book, The Rise of Southern Republicans. Forget issues. Forget national polling […]

Democrats are more dispirited today than they have been in years. It’s not just that President Bush’s approval ratings continue to defy gravity, or that he’s been largely successful in enacting a conservative agenda. Nor is it simply that Democrats seem to lack a fighting spirit and an effective message. It’s not even the distinct […]