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The Atlantic | October 2004 GEORGE W. Bush is not the President he wanted to be. In 2000 he campaigned, famously, as “a uniter, not a divider,” and by all indications he was perfectly sincere. As the governor of Texas he prided himself on finding common ground with the state’s Democrats. But in the White…
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The Wall Street Journal | December 27, 2004 President Reagan, ever the optimist, loved a story about a boy who yelps with delight at a pile of dung, digging into it eagerly with both hands. “With all this manure,” says the boy, “there must be a pony in here somewhere!” Nearly two months after the…
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The Atlantic Monthly | November 2004 SUPPOSE I told you that I knew of an education reform guaranteed to raise the achievement levels of American students; that this reform would cost next to nothing and would require no political body’s approval; and that it could be implemented overnight by anybody of a mind to undertake…
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The Public Interest, Fall 2004 JOHN Sperling, a man who has been called the Howard Hughes of biotechnology, has $3 billion and a dream: to retard aging and extend human longevity. According to a recent article in Wired magazine, he intends to found an endowment generating at least $150 million a year for biotech research. “I am…
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The New York Times Magazine | March 7, 2004 IN ENDORSING the passage of a constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage to the union of men and women, President Bush established himself as the country’s most prominent advocate of same-sex marriage. To be more precise, he established himself as the most prominent advocate of the best…
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The Atlantic Monthly | December 2003 IN JANUARY of this year the late Michael Kelly, who was a Washington Post columnist as well as the editor-at-large of this magazine, decried in the Post the fact that antiwar marches in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco were sponsored by an organization, called International ANSWER, that is “a front group…
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The Atlantic Monthly | October 2003 THAT genetic engineering may be the most environmentally beneficial technology to have emerged in decades, or possibly centuries, is not immediately obvious. Certainly, at least, it is not obvious to the many U.S. and foreign environmental groups that regard biotechnology as a bête noire. Nor is it necessarily obvious…
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National Journal | October 18, 2003 LAST week, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida pulled out of the Democratic presidential race. It was sad but inevitable. Graham is a good man and a fine public servant, but he can never be president. Only four candidates have a shot next year. They are President Bush, retired Gen.…
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The Atlantic Monthly | July/August 2003 THE Au family, immigrants from Hong Kong, arrived at Washington’s Reagan National Airport on a sticky night late last July. I will never forget the sight of them: parents bustling after the long flight, children—three girls and a boy, ranging in age from eight to thirteen—heaped sleepily atop sixteen…
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National Journal | July 26, 2003 “I WAS A LIGHTWEIGHT trading on a famous name, they said.” That was George W. Bush, then still governor of Texas, writing in his 1999 book, A Charge to Keep. He might have been pleased to know that “they,” the purveyors of conventional wisdom, had said the same of…