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Letters to the Editor
Clearer Than the Truth Duplicity in foreign affairs has sometimes served the national interest. But the case of Iraq is different
by Benjamin Schwarz
BRIEF LIVES: Second Coming Ralph Reed has moved on from doing God's work to doing George W. Bush's
by Joshua Green
The Buffness Deficit What Iraq needs is a homegrown professional police force. What it has is something else
by Tish Durkin
THE LIST: Ten Tax Scofflaws
by Christopher Shea
POST MORTEM: A Meteoric Disappearance Jack Paar (1918-2004)
by Mark Steyn
Primary Sources The kind of body count Americans can tolerate; the aggrieved boyfriend as terrorist; why the "dirty bomb" threat is real; finally—the truth about bullies and their victims
THE NATION IN NUMBERS:
On the Money Trail
by Don Peck
The Case Against Perfection
What's wrong with designer children, bionic athletes, and genetic engineering: a prominent political philosopher investigates the false promise of human mastery
by Michael J. Sandel
The Enthusiasts
Deep in the grass roots, our correspondent tries to understand political fervor
by P. J. O'Rourke
John Ashcroft's Permanent Campaign
In the liberal imagination Attorney General John Ashcroft is an
authoritarian and a religious zealot, bent on sacrificing liberty to achieve the illusion of safety from terror. But those who see Ashcroft as a zealot are missing Ashcroft the canny politician—a man beholden to both his polls and his God
by Jeffrey Rosen
The Softer Side of Ashcroft: An Interview with Jeffrey Rosen
Jeffrey Rosen argues that it is not social conservatism but a quest for popular approval that drives John Ashcroft's public life [Web only]
A More Perfect Union
Advocates and opponents of same-sex marriage agree on one point: something needs to be done about it on a nationwide basis. But why not consider a different approach?
by Jonathan Rauch
Royal Pain
Further adventures of Rick Renard
A short story by Christopher Buckley
House A poem by Billy Collins [audio]
Childhood A poem by Debra Bruce [audio]
The Martha Stewart Trial A cartoon by Edward Sorel
Seesaws A poem by Samuel Hazo [audio]
Lunge With Martha A poem by Jonathan Musgrove [audio]
New & Noteworthy
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited, by Benny Morris; Fidelity, by Michael Redhill; The Making of the Poets, by Ian Gilmour; Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow
reviewed by Benjamin Schwarz
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
Our author finds Jeffrey Masson's "divertingly amateurish" style likely to broaden the audience for the animal-rights movement in a way that Peter Singer and Matthew Scully never could
by B. R. Myers
Domesticated Goddess
"Dying is an art," said Sylvia Plath. But so is living, and she excelled at both—not that her biographers, with one wise and big-hearted exception, have noticed
by Cristina Nehring
Me and My Moguls
The new book by the media columnist Michael Wolff, a portraitist who has mastered the art of the suck-up putdown
by Eric Alterman
Reactionary Prophet
Edmund Burke understood before anyone else that revolutions devour their young—and turn into their opposites
by Christopher Hitchens
REFLECTIONS: True to His Words
The collected articles and columns of Michael Kelly
by Robert Vare
INNOCENT BYSTANDER: Primary Considerations
If the first presidential primary were held in the "most representative" state, which one would that be?
by Cullen Murphy
TRAVELS: The Valley of the King
Beyond a crack in the Afghan mountains lies a lost world, the hunting grounds of King Mohammed Zahir Shah
by Jonathan Ledgard
The Puzzler by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon
Word Court by Barbara Wallraff
Cover art by Marc Yankus.
All material copyright © 2004 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
