Our favorite books 2004

Meanwhile, Republicans have, in recent years, become ever more emboldened to pursue a far-right politics. Dionne uses the example of Bush's tax cuts. The Democrats' cave-in set the stage for the whole outrageously shameless Bush program. Then came 9/11 and The Wall Street Journal editorial that laid out the Bush strategy: "Americans of all stars and stripes are uniting behind their President," the Journal wrote, and urged Bush to use the moment to push for a capital gains tax cut, drill in the Arctic, and appoint conservative judges. It was the beginning of a bitter, ugly period leading up to the present moment.

Dionne has many conservative friends. He is a believer in left-right coalitions, and even had high hopes for President Bush's faith-based initiatives. All of this makes his perspective different from that of many Bush opponents. When Dionne debunks the "compassionate conservative" project, his critique is interesting because of his willingness to give the President the benefit of the doubt early on.

While I am far less forgiving of Bible-thumping and flag-waving than Dionne, I was interested in his suggestions for a winning progressive message--one that speaks to moderates and lefties alike.

This is a book about tone and language--the kind of political consultant thinking that, while not deeply philosophical, is nonetheless essential if the goal is to win elections.

A lot of us on the left are more willing to think in those terms these days.

My old boss Erwin Knoll prided himself on not voting at all. Ralph Nader seems to have gone down a road that takes us farther and farther from wresting power from the right.

Dionne suggests that we think about what it might mean to govern the nation in the interests of most of the citizens.

Why not?

Ruth Conniff is Political Editor of The Progressive.

by Anne-Marie Cusac

Here's a must-read for anyone who wonders how America got stuck in a mire of punishments that don't fit their crimes. Michael Tonry's Thinking About Crime: Sense and Sensibility in American Penal Culture exposes our punishment preoccupation as a series of "moral panics." This results in, Tonry notes, unfair, expensive, and destructive policies. As examples, he cites California's three-strikes law and the federal sentencing guidelines that incarcerate cocaine users for much longer terms than users of powdered cocaine.

Moral panics, not hikes in the crime rate, are key to "the highest imprisonment rates in the Western world by a factor of five," argues Tonry. He slings facts at punishment fictions.

For those who argue that extravagant imprisonment reduces crime, Tonry has a rebuttal. "There are good reasons to doubt that recent punishment policies have had much to do with recent drops in crime," he writes. "The strongest is that crime trends for the past forty years have been broadly similar in every Western country, and in every American state, while punishment policies and practices have varied enormously."