The Case for Engagement
Scott Ritter : If US officials stopped their saber-rattling over Iran's nuclear ambitions and began to negotiate directly, they would have an eye-opening experience.
John Nichols declares winners in the off-year presidential primary, Negar Azimi looks at civil society at risk in Iran, K. Leander Williams considers the music of Todd Snider.
Articles
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What's Left of Reform
Negar Azimi : As Iran and the United States trade insults and America presses for Iranians to rise up, educators, students and women's rights groups may pay the greatest cost.
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The Gutting of the Civil Service
Dan Zegart : The Bush Administration has so politicized government agencies that an entire culture of civil service professionals is being replaced by conservative political operatives loyal only to the White House.
Letters
Editorials & Comment
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Bring Democracy Home
Katrina vanden Heuvel : To repair our broken voting system, declare Election Day a holiday, establish national election standards and require reliable voting machines and a paper trail.
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The 'Off-Year Primary'
John Nichols : As presidential hopefuls from both parties press their advantage on the platform of the 2006 midterm election, the winners are...
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War Criminals, Beware
Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith : Human rights advocates are pressing German courts to prosecute Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales and other Bush Administration officials for war crimes. They just might succeed.
Reviews
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book
In God's Country
Eyal Press : The secular left should think twice before casting religious people as its foes. After all, alienating potential allies and confining ourselves to a small sect of like-minded believers is what fundamentalism is all about.
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music
Down by Law
K. Leander Williams : Todd Snider has a songwriter's flair for the absurd--and he's morphed from a barroom wiseacre to a keen observer of life at the workaday fringes of Bush's America.
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film
The Tracks of My Tears
Stuart Klawans : Penelope Cruz shines in Pedro Almodóvar's Volver; James Longley's Iraq in Fragments is a repository of small truths.
Columns
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DEADLINE POET
An Explanation of Karl Rove's Confidence About the Midterm Elections
Calvin Trillin : Hint: It starts with the M-word.
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BEAT THE DEVIL
The Message of Campaign 2006
Alexander Cockburn : As things stand in organized politics today, a purely formal protest against what the GOP has done to America is the most we can hope for.
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SUBJECT TO DEBATE
HRC: Can't Get No Respect
Katha Pollitt : If people keep making sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton, I may just have to vote for her. That means you, Elizabeth Edwards!
Web
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Bush Crony to Head UN's Food Program
Ian Williams : John Bolton's surprise announcement that a former Washington Times editor will head the UN's World Food Program bodes ill for the idea that competence is more important than political loyalty.
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Democracy Worked for SD Abortion Vote
Liza Featherstone : The electoral process worked for pro-choice advocates in South Dakota, overturning an abortion ban with a grassroots appeal to keep the government out of citizens' personal lives.
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TruthDig
Bush's Rough Justice
Robert Scheer : Bush insisted that Saddam Hussein's trial be held in Iraq so that an international tribunal would never expose America's history of support for the tyrant.
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Lost in Connecticut
Bruce Shapiro : Joe Lieberman won an idiosyncratic victory. He holds his seat despite his relentless support for Iraq, rather than because of it.
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The Return of Daniel Ortega
Mark Engler : Despite Daniel Ortega's many flaws, the return of the Sandinistas to power creates the possibility that his challenge to the "savage capitalism" of the previous regime can genuinely benefit Nicaragua's poor.
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Missing on Affirmative Action
Lazy and deceptive rhetoric hides realities in the debate.
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Gambling Ban a Bust
History will prove folding on online gaming to be a bad bet.
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Southpaw
NBA: The Political Season
Dave Zirin : Take time out to acknowledge the return of the NBA--and the beginning of a political season of sorts for NBA players with a social conscience.
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Rally Round(about)
What are we here for? Absolutely everything!
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Questionable Verdict
Richard Falk : Even the most naive American voter cannot be expected to see the morally, legally and politically questionable death sentence given to Saddam Hussein a milestone in the Bush Administration's illegal war in Iraq. As the milestones pile up, so do the bodies.
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Rumsfeld: 'My Half-Assed Job Here Is Done'
Announcing his resignation, Bush's Defense Secretary said that he is satisfied with what he has accomplished.
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Que Pasa en Oaxaca?
Michael McCaughan : A virtual state of siege prevails in Oaxaca, where military police have occupied the central square, clearing barricades and detaining scores of activists.
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Memo to Kerry: Criticize, Don't Apologize
Ian Williams : John Kerry should stop being nice about the Deserter in Chief. He should be reminding voters that the President who has sent more than 3,000 US soldiers and allies and untold thousands of Iraqis to their deaths deserted his post during the Vietnam War.
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The Baker Report, Leaked!
Evan Eisenberg : Stay the course? Cut and run? Cut the crap? What will former Secretary of State James A. Baker III propose after the midterm elections, when the bipartisan Iraq Study Group reveals new scenarios to end the Iraq debacle?
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Emerging Writers
The T-Shirt Wars
Ali Winston : Demonstrators wearing a controversial T-shirt tested the limits of free expression on the Staten Island Ferry.
Cover by Gene Case & Stephen Kling/Avenging Angels with apologies
to Norman Rockwell
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