September 2004

Alan Cullison, "Inside Al-Qaeda's Hard Drive"; Eric Alterman, "The Hollywood Campaign"; Paul Elie, "In Search of a Pope"; James Warren, "More Nixon Tapes"; Tom Carson, "Policy Wank"; Ryan Lizza, "The Natural"; Alexandra Starr, "Dixie Chicks"; P. J. O'Rourke, "Adult-Male-Elephant Diplomacy"; fiction by Christopher Buckley; and much more.

The Atlantic - September 2004

Also in this issue

Letters to the editor

Other articles in this issue

Tips for the Traveling Terrorist

Letters From a Young Martyr

The Message in the Budget

The alternative minimum tax is a nuisance, but the Bush administration is relying on it to balance the budget.

Poetry

Peaceable Kingdom

[with audio]

Features

Inside Al-Qaeda’s Hard Drive

Budget squabbles, baby pictures, office rivalries—and the path to 9/11

The Hollywood Campaign

Want big money to get elected to national office? If you're a Democrat, you need to head for the hills—Beverly Hills.

In Search of a Pope

Media commentators love to speculate about the power politics of the next conclave. They keep forgetting about the most important factor of all

More Nixon Tapes

Fresh talk about the Irish, the Africans, the Ivy League, and Chairman "Mayo." A selection from recently released recordings in the National Archives.

Florence of Arabia

How one woman (plus a disgraced Green Beret, a shameless PR lackey, and the wife of a sheikh) brought the Middle East to the brink of female emancipation. A short story
Interviews: Christopher Buckley, the author of Florence of Arabia, talks about women's lib, exploding camels, and the making of the modern Middle East

Agenda

The Stakes in 2004

The coming presidential election may be the most important in generations

The Natural

Why is Barack Obama generating more excitement among Democrats than John Kerry?

Dixie Chicks

A new kind of Democrat is emerging in the South—and she's no shrinking violet

Ayatollah Democracy

Arrogant, dogmatic, and anti-American, Iraq's Shiite clerics are the last people enlightened Westerners want to see in power. Let's hope they prevail

Adult-Male-Elephant Diplomacy

Colin Powell talks about Iraq, the Cold War, his place in the Administration, and chilling "the ambitions of the evil"
Interviews: Colin Powell and P. J. O'Rourke discuss foreign policy, Volvos, Elvis, and more. The full transcript of an interview from the September 2004 Atlantic

Primary Sources

The U.S. prison system as a terrorist university; why the suburbs make you fat; the "happiness-maximizing" number of sex partners

Books

Wolves, Actors, Jihadis

Vicious, by Jon Coleman; Who the Hell's in It, by Peter Bogdanovich; Imperial Hubris, by Anonymous; Heloise & Abelard, by James Burge

Policy Wank

Bill Clinton's sodden memoir goes into all the wrong detail

Mother of All Mothers

The leadership secrets of Kim Jong Il

Mirror, Mirror

Astonishing memoirs by (and about) deeply repellent people

The Immortal

A new biography reaches the heart of the labyrinth—the intense and wondrous life of Jorge Luis Borges

Pursuits

Witless Protection

Coping with the sixteenth minute

“When Russia Is Ready”

In the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the question of whether protecting U.S. national security warranted a preventive war was fiercely debated. The question was not new. In the September 1954 Atlantic, Thomas K. Finletter, who had recently served as the Secretary of the Air Force, broached it in a very different context.

Principled Pork

"Sustainable farming" is now open to debate and commercial exploitation. But sustainable pork certainly tastes the way pork should


Video

Miami: The Next Big Start-Up City?

How the city became a center for innovation

Video

Video

A Brief History of Romantic Comedies

From The Atlantic's Chris Orr

Video

Video

Life in 'the New Arctic'

A moving portrait of a fading landscape

Video

Video

The Rise of New York City

A fascinating look at Manhattan in the 1940s

Video

'I Thought It Was Really Funny, but No One Else Did'

A day with New Yorker cartoonist Joe Dator

Video

New Yorkers: The Winemaker

Make your own wine ... in New York City

Video

What Is Methane Hydrate?

"Flaming ice" is a vast natural energy source

Video

NASA's Time-Lapse of the Sun

Now with epic dubstep music

Video

A Video Letter From the Editor

Highlights from the May 2013 issue

Video

Shaken Not Tuned: Cocktail Experiments

Can a tuning fork improve a cocktail?

Video

Video

The Rise of Environmentalism

Tracking 50 years, from the Love Canal disaster to Greenpeace

Video

Is He Cheating? A 1950s Guide

'That little blonde secretary from the office?’

Video

New Yorkers: Vintage Vacuum-Tube Amps

Risking electric shock to restore old amplifiers

Video

The DIY Piano-Bicycle

Everybody needs a hobby

Writers

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