The American Spectator

September 2009

The Obama Watch

• The War on Watchdogs

  Inspectors general fight for independence, while Obama brings the "Chicago Way" to Washington.

  Robert Stacy McCain

Freedom Watch

• What's Your Metric?

  How do you measure freedom?

  Daniel Oliver

The Continuing Crisis

• The Continuing Crisis

  R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

Features

• Emptying Reservoirs in the Middle of a Drought

  California's privileged species lord it over the endangered farmer.

  Max Schulz

• From Citizens to "Stakeholders": The New American Constitution

  Or just call it the New Obama Constitution.

  Angelo M. Codevilla

• A Long Shot: One-Term Obama

  Americans love to create president-heroes -- only to turn on them once they acquire too much power.

  James Srodes

The Congressional Spectator

• Blue Dogs Turn Red

  Democrats from conservative districts face a series of uncomfortable votes.

  W. James Antle, III

The Pursuit of Knowledge

• Dealing With Iran

  There's a reason why paranoids have enemies: they create them.

  Roger Scruton

Eminentoes

• Three Little Piggies

  … go against the market in trucking with the government.

  Abu M. Friedman

Capitol Ideas

• Can We Do Without Relativity?

  The author introduces his new book, Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary?

  Tom Bethell

The Public Policy

• Taking Health Savings Into Account

  HSAs are already solving our health policy problems.

  Peter Ferrara

Presswatch

• Now They Tell Us

  James Taranto

The Nation's Pulse

• News of the Weak

  Last May venerable Newsweek gave itself a journalistic Botox job. Is it any prettier?

  William Murchison

Politics

• Toxic Nancy

  John H. Fund

High Spirits

• Kazakh Hospitality

  From the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, a report on the triennial interfaith conference known as the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions.

  Jonathan Aitken

Ben Stein's Diary

• Plugging Away

  A reminder of the summer just past. From our September issue.

  Ben Stein

Conservative Tastes

• Rotten Apples

  The unreality has settled in and there seems to be no way back.

  James Bowman

Books in Review

• Brief Thoughts From Think Tanks

  A sampling of new offerings.

  Tom Bethell

• Blown Away

  Signature in the Cell is a defining work in the discussion of life's origins.

  Dan Peterson

• He Did It His Way

  Martin and Annelise Anderson's indispensable book, Reagan's Secret War, chronicles Ronald Reagan's methodical pursuit of a victorious but unrancorous end to the Cold War.

  Conrad Black

The Slaughterhouse

• A Failure of Reason

  Is Richard Posner too big to fail?

  Jeremy Lott

Last Call

• To the Santa Barbara Station

  Fifty years ago today Soviet bully Nikita Khrushchev arrived in the U.S. for a ten-day stay.

  Wlady Pleszczynski