Editor's Cut

Republicans and Race

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

One of the few appeals of compassionate conservatism was the hope that it might mark the end of the Republican's race-baiting Southern strategy. Anyone who still believes that hasn't been listening to the Kings of Republican Comedy.

While riffing on the new Survivor series that will divide the teams by ethnic group, Rush Limbaugh trotted out every hoary racial stereotype he could think of. Hispanics "will do what others won't do"; Asians will "outsmart everyone"; and African-Americans will do poorly in swimming.

At a campaign event, Senator Conrad Burns thought it was amusing to joke about the legal status of "the nice little Guatemalan man" who is roofing his house in Virginia. And speaking of Virginia, George Allen has spent the last couple of weeks trying to dig himself out of a huge pile of macaca--a North African racial slur.

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August 31, 2006

The Battle Over Reconstruction

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

Charles Jackson, media coordinator for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), was anxious last week as today's anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approached. The city had declared that on this day it would seize whatever homes had not yet been cleaned-up or reclaimed in order to resell and/or demolish them – without even notifying the former residents.

"We are trying to get the deadline extended to November," Jackson said. "Why hit people with another act of devastation on the anniversary? How about a little compassion?"

But compassion has been in as short supply as clean water in the Lower 9th Ward over the last year. ACORN had 9,000 member families in New Orleans when Katrina hit, and one year later 7,500 have not yet returned. It looked as though they might not have homes to return to at all.

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August 29, 2006

Whitewash

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

It is staggering. It is horrifying. But, then again, it isn't. It is what we have come to expect of this war and those who have misled our nation into it.

According to the Washington Post, the commanding officer of the battalion involved in the Haditha massacre last November told military investigators "he did not consider the deaths of 24 Iraqis, many of them women and children, unusual and did not initiate an inquiry."

And the New York Times reported last week on the felony assault conviction of David Passaro, a CIA contractor accused of beating an Afghan prisoner for two days with "a flashlight and his fists" until the man pleaded to be shot and then died the following day.

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August 24, 2006

California Dreamin'

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

What will happen to me if I get sick or injured and can't pay my bills?

On the domestic front, that's a key question on voters' minds as the November elections approach. A poll of working women, released on August 8 by the AFL-CIO, indicated that concern about access to quality medical coverage was rated the top issue by 97 percent of respondents, outpolling the income gap between women and men for the first time. MoveOn members, asked to vote on issues that they believe should define a "new positive agenda" ranked healthcare for all persons at the top of the list.

In California, one of the country's largest states and a decisive election-year battleground, the growing momentum behind healthcare reform is pushing two sharply different approaches into public view.

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August 16, 2006

The Dictionary of Republicanisms: One Year Later

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

Almost a year ago, NationBooks published The Dictionary of Republicanisms, a book that set out to deconstruct Republicans' Orwellian attempts to manipulate the language for their political purposes. It contained hundreds of definitions submitted by readers of the nation.com, like death tax, faith-based, and leave no child behind.

But what difference does a year make?

We've seen George W. Bush's poll numbers plummet as the disasters continue to unfold in New Orleans, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We've seen the Abramoff corruption scandal engulf House Republicans, leading to early retirements for Duke Cunningham, Robert Ney, and Tom DeLay. We've seen a parade of books detailing the staggering incompetence of Republican policies--many of them written by Republicans! And yet, they are still at it.

As Hendrik Hertzberg recently pointed out, George W. Bush continues to insult the Democratic Party by calling it the "Democrat" Party, something Joe McCarthy liked to do. Ken Mehlman just went on Meet the Press to tell us the new Republican political slogan for the war in Iraq is no longer "stay the course" but rather "adapting to win." He still wants to categorize the Democratic position as "cut and run." It must have tested well. Perhaps Republican pollster Frank Luntz will tell us in his soon-to-be published book, Words That Work. I'm still waiting for an explanation of "Islamofascism."

Clearly the fight over language continues. Here at the Nation we are working on an update to The Dictionary of Republicanisms. And we are accepting submissions. Click here if you want to send us one. If we receive enough, we will publish them in an expanded edition of the book--or a long article.

To help get you started here are some new terms that need definitions:

Democrat Party
Defeatocrats
Adapting to win
Islamofascism
Joe Lieberman
The al Qaeda candidate
Macaca
French fries
French diplomacy
Birth pangs of a new Middle East

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August 17, 2006

This is What Democracy Looks Like?

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

Scroll down to read a letter of response from Steve Paulus, General Manager of NY1.

"Celebrity is no substitute for an honest and vigorous debate on a matter as fundamentally important as war."

That is what antiwar Senate candidate, Jonathan Tasini, told New York Times columnist Bob Herbert last May in describing his rationale for making a Democratic Party primary run against incumbent-Goliath, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

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August 16, 2006

Making a Difference in Connecticut

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

Primary elections are not usually very exciting. A few political insiders pay close attention, a few party activists go to the polls and the news media give them a day's worth of coverage before moving on to bigger and better stories. But Connecticut's Democratic Party Senate primary was very different. Senator Joe Lieberman's defeat was a national event, with pundits, candidates and voters across the country speculating for weeks on what it means for November and beyond.

Was this election a referendum on the war in Iraq? Is this a shot across the bow of other incumbents who have put insufficient distance between themselves and the Bush administration? Yes, but maybe it was something more than that. By defeating Lieberman, Ned Lamont became just one of a handful of challengers to beat an incumbent in recent US history. That made this primary an unusual opportunity for voters to affect the outcome of both the election and, presumably, the resulting policies.

In our grossly uncompetitive election system in which nearly 60 percent of Senate seats and over 80 percent of House seats are won by landslide margins of 20 percentage points or more, it's not surprising that voters jumped at the chance to make a difference. (And they did: Lieberman was only the fourth incumbent senator since 1980 to lose a party primary.) And when the average margins of victory are 21 percentage points in Senate races and a whopping 40 points in House races, is it not surprising that Connecticut was where media from other states turned their attention.

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August 14, 2006

Time to Rumble

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

According to the Washington Post, British Petroleum was told by employees that the company was not sufficiently monitoring and repairing its Alaskan Prudhoe Bay pipeline in February, 2004.

"If we find [a] pipe that we know is rotten, they have to replace it," said an unidentified employee in a BP report. "My concern, however, is that they are not taking a look at every piece of pipe that they need to be."

The report goes on to say, "Contractors, suppliers and the conservation community were concerned about BP's purported drive to support the highest standards, yet push for reduced costs in its operations."

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August 11, 2006

The Other Lamont

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

The Nation's been going since 1865.

But, if it hadn't been for Hammond Lamont, great-great uncle of Connecticut Democratic senatorial hopeful Ned Lamont, we might be telling a different story.

When Nation Editor Wendell Phillips Garrison was ready to retire in 1906, after "41 years of unrelaxed application" in the weekly's service, he wanted to let The Nation die because he could think of nobody "fit to carry on who would respect it and its traditions." Whereupon Oswald Garrison Villard, then a regular writer for the magazine, who later became its owner and editor in 1918, suggested that he consider Hammond Lamont. (Hammond had done newspaper work in Seattle and Albany, and was managing editor of the Evening Post.) After some reflection, Garrison changed his mind and asked Lamont to become The Nation's third editor. As one report had it, Lamont was no firebrand --one report characterized him as a "noble, kindly, conservative gentleman," But he understood The Nation's role, its traditions and kept the magazine alive {Sadly, he died just three years later, during what had been expected to be a minor operation on his jaw.}

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August 7, 2006

Sticky Situations with Tony Blair

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

Reports are that Rupert Murdoch plans to offer Tony Blair a prominent position in his media empire when Bush's poodle steps down as prime minister or Gordon Brown finally stages a coup. Now that's a Fox and Friends episode I'd like to catch.

Just imagine the possibilities…Murdoch could give Tony his own show.

Given the PM's involvement in the quagmire in Iraq, Fox News should call it: Sticky Situations with Tony Blair. Its focus: public figures who need to wriggle out of a mess of their own making. There would be no shortage of guests.

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August 2, 2006