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 HabeasPursuit of Habeas
 What Bush learned from the Sheriff of Nottingham.
By Jack Hitt

Will the Next Prez Give the Power Back?Will the Next Prez Give the Power Back?
 By David Cole
 

The Librarians Who Shushed the Patriot ActThe Librarians Who Shushed the Patriot Act
By Amy Goodman and David Goodman

PLUS:  The sorry six: W’s worst judges

timeline

Bush's Greatest Hits Bush’s Greatest Hits
By Nick Baumann and Dave Gilson
 

economy

How to Burn the Speculators How to Burn the Speculators
And why filling your tank halfway could help lower gas prices
By James K. Galbraith

Party Favors: Land Handouts for Drillers Party Favors: Land Handouts for Drillers
By Keith Kloor

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
By James Ridgeway

No Contractor Left BehindNo Contractor Left Behind
By Josh Harkinson
 

10 Ways to Satisfy Your President 10 Ways to Satisfy Your President
By Stephanie Mencimer

PLUS:  Why your meds are so sickeningly expensive

foreign policy

Mission Creep Mission Creep
Our map of the new world order
By Michael Mechanic
Map by Karen Minot

When the Military Gets Combat FatigueWhen the Military Gets Combat Fatigue
By Bruce Falconer
 

Relief DisasterRelief Disaster
By Joshua Kurlantzick

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
By Chris Mooney

The Chinavore's Dilemma The Chinavore’s Dilemma
By Joshua Kurlantzick

Tuna's Mercury Surprise Tuna’s Mercury Surprise
By Stephanie Mencimer
 

legacy

Control, Delete, Escape Control, Delete, Escape
What was gwb@wh.gov really up to? We’ll never know.
By Daniel Schulman

Why Did the Press Let the President Lie? Why Did the Press Let the President Lie?
By David Corn

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

______

Exposure Exposure
No hang-ups: the inner lives of phone-sex operators
By Phillip Toledano
 
______

As a public service, Mother Jones, which is a nonprofit magazine, will release the full contents of this issue online over the next several weeks. If you’d like your Mother Jones sooner—and you want to support independent investigative journalism—please subscribe now.

______
DEPARTMENTS

Editors’ Note
Masthead
Contributors
Backtalk

OUTFRONT
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

SURVEY COURSE
By Kiera Butler and Leigh Ferrara
Our 15th annual student activism roundup

WITNESS
Do You Believe in Magic?
By Catherine Price
Jesus is magic: Gospel illusionists conjure true believers.

THE AUDACITY OF HYPE?
Has Barack Obama earned a place in the progressive hall of fame?

PRACTICAL VALUES
Immune to Reason
By Arthur Allen
Vaccine deniers are putting your kids at risk.

MEDIA JONES
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

P.S.
Men far from Mars
Photographs by Ruaridh Stewart
______

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