Magazine

That time was August 1993, when, in the midst of economic malaise created by the phenomenal budget deficits of the Reagan/Bush years (economist Paul Krugman called it “The Age of Diminished Expectations”) Bill Clinton and Al Gore twisted arms and cajoled Democratic allies to pass their Budget Act through Congress and the Senate. The Act […]

A friend who teaches college art history complains bitingly about her students’ ignorance of the Bible. How can aspiring artists understand Renaissance art—Michelangelo’s “David” or Raphael’s Virgin Mary—without knowing the major prophets, saints, and martyrs? Her complaint is not about the students’ lack of religious fervor, but their cultural illiteracy. Schooled in neither church nor […]

Milwaukee resident Mary Rhoden has been on and off welfare for years. Her trouble hasn’t been getting a job. In fact, she’s had quite a few. It’s keeping them that’s the problem. The mother of five fought with her supervisor and was fired as a counselor for a teenage program. She quit as a hotel […]

The Wall Street Journal promptly published a letter from Ellis’ school principal denying that his students had to stand through class. The Bush campaign seized on the letter and used it to bash Gore again as a liar—a charge the press eagerly amplified. But a few days later, Ellis’ father, a Republican, came forward to […]

Next to its exaggeration of Al Gore’s “exaggerations” the rap most unfairly laid by the media on the vice president is that he was part of the corrupt fundraising excesses of the Clinton administration, ranging from the Lincoln bedroom sleepovers to the White House coffee to the solicitations from White House phones to what must […]

Cohen wrote about Gore’s “fractured campaign” and Dionne followed just below about “the agony for Gore” before closing with the uninspired “if Gore pulls the election out.” Kinsley’s column was an ironic look at where the Gore campaign went wrong, “another Gore mistake was his almost frightening willingness to follow the advice of media commentators.” […]

In 1948 few liberals were enthusiastic about Harry Truman. Many intended to vote for Henry Wallace, a hero of the left from the New Deal who had no chance of winning. But on election day, enough of them faced the realistic choice and knew that whatever his defects Truman was better than Dewey. So Truman […]

According to the most recent reports, we know three things about Florida. Bush is ahead by a mere 332 votes; an extraordinary number of people voted for Pat Buchanan in liberal Palm Beach County, no Buchanan stronghold, many of whom complained about their ballots while at the booth; and 19,000 voters had their ballots thrown […]

It’s a solution that apparently made sense to Governor Bush in 1997 when he signed a law saying that a manual recounts “shall be conducted in preference to an electronic recount” when necessary. He understood then that manual recounts should be the final arbiter when a race is excruciatingly close and it’s clear that some […]

One week in August, the game show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” came in second, third, and fourth in the Nielsen ratings—topped only by “Survivor,” in which 16 strangers agreed to spend almost six weeks marooned together for the chance to win $1 million. Rounding out the top five was “Big Brother.” A “Survivor” […]