Contents | September/October 2008

Exit Strategy

Our wide-ranging guide to the nation’s most urgent, yet fixable, problems

Illustration by Steve Brodner


FEATURES

executive power



Pursuit of Habeas
Pursuit of Habeas

What Bush learned from the Sheriff of Nottingham.



Will the Next Prez Give the Power Back?
Will the Next Prez Give the Power Back?




The Librarians Who Shushed the Patriot Act
The Librarians Who Shushed the Patriot Act




PLUS: 

The sorry six: W’s worst judges

timeline



Bush's Greatest Hits

Bush’s Greatest Hits



economy



How to Burn the Speculators

How to Burn the Speculators


And why filling your tank halfway could help lower gas prices



Party Favors: Land Handouts for Drillers

Party Favors: Land Handouts for Drillers




PLUS: 

Take the Fed public, and Wall Street’s Wild West days will be numbered.

domestic priorities


Medicare's Poison Pill

Medicare’s Poison Pill


What Bush’s signature health care initiative did to my drug budget



No Contractor Left Behind
No Contractor Left Behind




10 Ways to Satisfy Your President

10 Ways to Satisfy Your President




PLUS: 

Why your meds are so sickeningly expensive

foreign policy


Mission Creep

Mission Creep


Our map of the new world order



When the Military Gets Combat Fatigue
When the Military Gets Combat Fatigue




Relief Disaster
Relief Disaster




PLUS: 

What the Pentagon learned from Genghis Khan

science & health


A Return to Reason

A Return to Reason


And an end to faith-based science


The Chinavore's Dilemma

The Chinavore’s Dilemma




Tuna's Mercury Surprise

Tuna’s Mercury Surprise



legacy


Control, Delete, Escape

Control, Delete, Escape


What was gwb@wh.gov really up to? We’ll never know.


Why Did the Press Let the President Lie?

Why Did the Press Let the President Lie?



how to fix it



Joseph Stiglitz, Valerie Plame Wilson, Philippe Sands, The Wire’s David Simon, and other experts on what the next president can do to clean house—pronto

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Exposure

Exposure


No hang-ups: the inner lives of phone-sex operators


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DEPARTMENTS

Editors’ Note
Masthead
Contributors
Backtalk



Meet the Grand Obama Party; did the Three Gorges Dam cause China’s big quake?; McCain’s gay wedding woes; a catch-22 for Iraq detainees; how killing scars soldiers; the trouble with airline wires; Congressman Turner’s family values




Our 15th annual student activism roundup


Do You Believe in Magic?

Jesus is magic: Gospel illusionists conjure true believers.


Has Barack Obama earned a place in the progressive hall of fame?


Immune to Reason

Vaccine deniers are putting your kids at risk.



Dave Gilson on why 9/11 conspiracy theorists can’t handle the truth; Bill Maher roasts religion; plus more book(Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America, Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Burmese Daze), film(Up the Yangtze, Heckler), and music(Chemical Chords, The Rhumb Line, Here With Me, Cold Fact) reviews



Men far from Mars

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Cover illustration by Tim O’Brien
** “As for you my fine friend, you’re a victim of disorganized thinking…You’re confusing courage with wisdom.” —The Wizard to the Cowardly Lion