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

Not Great, Not Washed

By Julia TurnerUpdated Friday, June 27, 2003, at 7:25 PM ET

New Republic, July 7
Should Fareed Zakaria ever read "The Ungreat, Washed," Robert Kagan's review of his new book, The Future of Freedom, he might rue the day he decided to include the phrase "catering to the great unwashed" as a description of what democracy does. Kagan repeats it in merciless quotation marks throughout the review, banging it like a gong to emphasize his basic point: Fareed Zakaria is an arrogant snob. In his effort to debunk Zakaria's case that democracy is not good for development, Kagan also presents Zakaria as a loosey-goosey scholar, arguing that the countries he defines as "illiberal democracies" range widely, from Argentina to Belarus, and noting that Zakaria blames Indonesia's nascent democracy for fiscal woes that began under Suharto. Kagan concludes that it's "worse than arrogant" to tell the developing world tyranny is its best hope "when no scholarship backs this idea." … An editorial revisits the Texas Democrats who fled the state in an effort to prevent GOP gerrymandering, and the government agencies that may have helped Republicans track them down, noting that since independent counsel law expired, there's no one to investigate this scandal. The piece argues that "some other institution" should take up the slack.

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Economist, June 26
The magazine also takes a crack at Zakaria, noting that his book "wrings its hands about illiberal democracy." The piece contends that "economic liberty"—opening economies to trade and foreign capital—is the most critical factor in raising a country's standard of living. It also argues that economic liberty can flourish under diverse governments, but notes that liberal democracy is on the rise worldwide and is compatible with development, despite Zakaria's concerns.

New York Times Magazine New York Times Magazine, June 29
A year after the Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional to sentence mentally retarded people to death, the cover story explores the surprising ruling's effects. Between 5 percent and 10 percent of death row inmates may qualify as mentally retarded, so courts have seen a string of appeals. Advocates of mainstreaming find themselves agreeing with Antonin Scalia, who argued in the dissent that declaring "blanket incapacity" would create a "second-class citizenship." And because a diagnosis of mental retardation is "fungible," the ruling adds "a new element of arbitrariness to a system that is already arbitrary in so many ways." … The magazine also profiles a man who believes that reading The Fountainhead can improve your bridge game: Adam Wildavsky is one of several Objectivist bridge champions who subscribe to Ayn Rand's philosophy of "staunch individualism." The piece notes the irony of individualists dominating a pairs game, but never explains why it happens.

The New Yorker, June 30
A profile argues that Gen. Tommy Franks played good cop to Donald Rumsfeld's bad one as the two men revamped the U.S. military during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Though disgruntled Army types, angry that Rumsfeld seemed to favor air power and special ops over ground troops and artillery, perceived Army boy Franks as an ally, the piece contends that Franks backed Rumsfeld's ideas from the outset.

Mother Jones, July-August 2003
Many U.S. corporations—including Halliburton—routinely circumvent restrictions intended to prevent trade with Iran, North Korea, and other regimes accused of sponsoring terrorism, an investigative report notes; these companies use foreign subsidiaries to skirt the laws. Previous administrations cracked down on this practice, but under Bush it has continued unchecked. … An essay thoughtfully considers David Brooks' recent Weekly Standard piece, which provocatively redefined a few political nicknames, counting pro-war idealists like Paul Wolfowitz among the world's progressives and multilateralist war skeptics like John Kerry among its conservatives. George Packer agrees that the "difference between idealists and realists is more significant for the moment than the ideological difference between left and right," and he argues that idealists on the left, rather than dismissing Bush, should urge him to follow through on his promises about Iraqi democracy. … As Israel's economy tanks, Gershom Gorenberg tries to learn how much the government spends to maintain and defend settlements.

Newsweek and Time Newsweek and Time, June 30
Which sells better, sex or God?
Newsweek tackles the former subject this week, with a groundbreaking scoop on married couples who don't have sex. The cover story speculates that American marriages are increasingly sexless, citing as evidence the opinion of Dr. Phil and high sales figures for Avlimil, a new drug said to stimulate female desire. Trend pieces like this often include a caveat sentence, admitting that no one can verify whether the trend actually exists. Newsweek offers this doozy—"It's difficult to say exactly how many of the 113 million married Americans are too exhausted or grumpy to get it on."—and then marches unabashedly forward with its anecdotal fluff.

Time ponders the latter, wondering on its cover, "Should Christians Convert Muslims?" ("Uh, no" seems like one good answer, though IOM was not contacted for comment.) The piece inside doesn't really address the provocative question, instead focusing on the methodology of modern missionaries and noting that the number headed to Islamic countries has almost doubled since 1982. Some evangelicals overtly proselytize, but other missionaries worry that their gung-ho peers will incite a backlash that interferes with the humanitarian work done by many Christians abroad.

On the campaign trail:
Time's Joe Klein anoints Dean as one of three top-tier candidates (Kerry and Gephardt are the other two) and argues that he appeals not just to peaceniks, but to a newly enthusiastic Democratic constituency that is "young, middle class, white and wired." Newsweek profiles the lively Teresa Heinz Kerry and wonders whether her no-bull demeanor will be an asset or a liability. (Journalists who write about her seem utterly charmed, so perhaps the question is moot.)

On the WMD trail:
Newsweek notes that the Iraqi WMD scientists captured since the war consistently argue that Iraq "destroyed all banned munitions years ago" and documents found in a raid last week appear to be "destruction documents"—orders to destroy chemical and bioweapons in the late '90s.

Weekly Standard, June 30
Stephen F. Hayes rebuts the New Republic's bajillion-page takedown of the Bush administration's selective case for war. Hayes points out that TNR was similarly choosy about which intelligence analyses to include. (TNR presented reports of an Iraq/al-Qaida meeting in Prague as total bunk when there's still debate about whether it took place.) The White House may have been wrong about WMD, Hayes writes, but after considering numerous analyses, "choosing a mistaken intelligence read or relying on bad intelligence … is not the same as lying." But Hayes fails to address one of TNR's most damning accusations: When Bob Graham asked the CIA Director George Tenet to declassify a report that illustrated the inconclusive nature of the evidence so it could be made available to Congress, the White House ordered Tenet not to comply. Did the administration deliberately keep members of Congress from obtaining an accurate sense of the available intelligence? IOM would be interested to hear Hayes address this point.