When George Meets John
A viewer's guide to this fall's version of "asymmetric warfare"— the presidential debates.
July/August 2004
In This Issue
James Fallows, "When George Meets John"; Joshua Green, "Dumb and Dumber"; Mark Bowden, "Pompadour With a Monkey Wrench"; Joshua Micah Marshall, "Kerry Faces the World"; Robert D. Kaplan, "Five Days in Fallujah"; Benjamin Wittes, "Enemy Americans"; William F. Buckley, Jr., "Aweigh"; P. J. O'Rourke, "I Agree With Me"; fiction by Robert Olen Butler; and much more.
Features
Dumb and Dumber
Why are campaign commercials so bad?
Pompadour With a Monkey Wrench
Al Sharpton's goal has never been the presidency; he wants to become the leader of Black America. Problem is, that job no longer exists.
Kerry Faces the World
What would a John Kerry foreign policy look like? In some ways a lot like one the current President's father could endorse
Five Days in Fallujah
Our correspondent accompanied the first unit of Marines to assault Fallujah after the murder and mutilation last April of four American civilians.
Enemy Americans
Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi are American citizens. The Bush Administration has claimed the right to imprison them indefinitely without charge or trial, on the grounds that they are "enemy combatants" in the war on terror. Does a new kind of war require new kinds of laws?
Aweigh
A master and commander decides, after a lifetime on the water, that he will no longer go down to the sea
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Lessons of Abu Ghraib
One shocking thing about the photographs is that for some people they weren't shocking
Plan of Attack
The United States is not just facing an insurgency in Iraq—it's facing "netwar," the newest kind
The Pragmatist
The UN's Lakhdar Brahimi understands that neither peace nor justice may be possible in Iraq
Olympic Elite
The world's most athletic nations
I Agree With Me
When was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?
Saddam’s Fate
Since his capture, last December, Saddam Hussein has been held by the U.S. military. He is no doubt wondering about his eventual fate, and so are others.
Primary Sources
A report card on Iraq; why gambling is good for business; the Muslim passion for Mel Gibson; winners and losers in the modern marriage pool
Books
New & Noteworthy
Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom, by Rhys Isaac; Hatchet Jobs, by Dale Peck; The North American Prairie, by Stephen R. Jones and Ruth Carol Cushman; The Crow Indians, by Robert H. Lowie; War Under Heaven, by Gregory Evans Dowd; Europe's Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?, by David Fromkin; The First World War, by Hew Strachan; Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy, by David Stevenson; The Killing Ground, by Tim Travers
The Kids Are All Right
Teens aren't as warped as some of the books about them
The Old Man
Even for educated readers, Leon Trotsky survives as part kitsch and part caricature. But the reissue of a majestic biography reveals him as he always was—a prophetic moralist
Odd Couple
Susan Sontag and Pauline Kael: a curious combination
Laff Tracks
Four Souls, by Louise Erdrich.
The Terrors
One of the foremost scholars of Soviet history assesses an ambitious new biography of Stalin
Pursuits
Wonders Never Cease
Updating Philon of Byzantium's famous list
Eric Risberg / AP Organize Your Life!
The modern condition is to be overwhelmed by everything. Now comes David Allen, who can teach even you how to stop stewing and start doing
One Swell Party
Cole Porter's real secret was not the gay life a new film biography will highlight. It was how he made his songs
The One in White
"Captain," I say, "you've got about two hundred Mexican soldiers waiting for you in the plaza."
Also in this issue
Other articles in this issue
Colbert-ology
What you know if you've seen the show live...
Poetry
Denial
[with audio]
