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The author describes how "The New York Review of Books" has become increasingly politicized since the election of President George W. Bush. In the wake of the Vietnam War, the "Review" became a formidable--and, in some sense, unique--journalistic institution. Many of its readers reside in academia, but the paper has a devoted following in the upper reaches of media, politics and philanthropy, which gives it an influence vastly out of proportion to its circulation of 130,000. The publication has always been erudite and authoritative--and because of its analytical rigor and seriousness, frequently essential--but it hasn't always been lively, pungent and readable. But the election of George W. Bush, combined with the furies of 9/11, jolted the editors. Since 2001, the "Review's" temperature has risen and its political outlook has sharpened. In stark contrast to "The New Yorker" or "The New York Times Magazine," the "Review" opposed the Iraq war in a voice that was remarkably consistent and unified. What blew the dust off "The New York Review?" As war drew closer, and the press grew more accommodating and deferential, the "Review's" disgust increased, and the editors fired their heavy weaponry. The fall of Baghdad only deepened the fury of the "Review's" contributors. Judt is not the "Review's" only critical voice on Israel. What accounts for the "Review's" post-9/11 revival? One word that continually tumbles from the lips of seasoned "Review"-watchers is "Vietnam." In the case of Iraq, as with Vietnam, the "Review" saw what many other commentators missed or ignored.

He's not the quickest calf in the pasture, so it took U.S. President George W. Bush, and his White House handlers, a few months to grasp a basic rule of modem American electoral politics: Don't look bad on the environment. After thirty-one years of Earth Days, the environment has become a mom-and-apple-pie issue; 68 percent of Americans say they support the goals of the green movement. Thus it was no surprise to see Bush's poll numbers sliding, even among Republicans, as his Administration abandoned lower limits on arsenic in drinking water, the Kyoto Protocols on climate change and a host of other urgent measures. Bush has a problem. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to release a major study of dioxin's health effects that, if uncensored, will surely increase pressure for dioxin's rapid phase-out. Meanwhile, the chemical, paper and other dioxin-related industries are pressing the U.S. Government to block the study's release. If Bush heeds their call, he shields industry from costly new regulations but reinforces his anti-green reputation.

In this article the author discusses what he calls the undeclared war on the media conducted by the administration of President George W. Bush. The F.B.I. is conducting an investigation into the papers of the late journalist Jack Anderson, files thought to contain leaked classified information, and will prosecute the Anderson family under the 1917 Espionage Act if access is not granted. The author notes that administration officials have leaked classified information.

Conservative House Republican Dan Burton from Indiana is outraged with U.S. President George W. Bush's administration for its obsession with secrecy, with keeping information on a broad range of fronts out of public view. As more and more connections between members of the Bush Administration and Enron Corp. come to light, the press and the public have started believing that a lot is being hidden from them by the administration. Bush is blocking the scheduled release of documents under the Presidential Records Act of 1978, which mandates that all but the most highly sensitive documents are to be made public twelve years after a President leaves office. On December 14, Bush invoked executive privilege in refusing to comply with a couple of subpoenas from Burton's panel.

While some new security measures are obviously necessary, U.S. President George W. Bush's administration's zeal to shut down the free flow of information goes well beyond any legitimate need. Consider November's Executive Order 13233, which eviscerates the nation's access to its own history, effectively overturning the Presidential Records Act of 1978 by fiat. Current law insists that all presidential papers be declassified within twelve years, with an exception made for those whose publication could demonstrably affect the national security. Bush now wants to allow Presidents to refuse to declassify the decision-making process virtually forever. This is a catastrophe not only for historians but also for history.

The article discusses the media's coverage of the United States presidential election of 2004 between President George W. Bush and Democratic candidate John Kerry. One problem with trying to write critically about the 2004 presidential election coverage is that by choosing any single aspect of its manifold failures, one automatically does an injustice to the full scope of its immense, almost stupefying awfulness. When the New York Times ran its May 26 admission that it gullibly swallowed the Bush Administration's deception about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, which helped win support for a ruinous war, the story was, according to the invaluable Media Matters, reported thirty-eight times in U.S. newspaper and wire reports during the following forty-eight hours and seven times on cable news. It was entirely ignored on Fox News Channel. By contrast, in the forty-eight hours following CBS's admission that it "should not have used" memos critical of Bush's military service because of questions regarding their provenance, the story was reported 167 times in U.S. newspaper and wire reports and fifty-seven times on cable news broadcasts. Times columnist William Safire has played a powerful role in misinforming the paper's readers about a meeting he alleges took place between Al Qaeda terrorist Mohamed Atta and the former head of the Iraqi Intelligence Service in Prague, in April 2001. The meeting is, according to all available evidence, entirely made up. CBS's slip-up was such big news because it fit the right-wing script designed to shield the Bush Administration from democratic accountability.

The author claims that the administration of President George W. Bush sanctioned the use of torture in interrogating Iraqi detainees. So there were WMDs in Iraq after all. They're called digital cameras. Partly because of them, the United States faces one of the most humiliating defeats in imperial history. But there's also a clear paper trail. Not just the long and copiously documented record of US torture, with many of its refinements acquired by the CIA from the Nazis after World War II, but the more recent lineage of encouragement. Within a few days of the Trade Towers going down in September 2001, a vacationing FBI agent told an acquaintance of mine in Puerto Vallarta that detainees in the United States were being tortured. By October of 2001, public opinion here was being softened up for the use of torture. It was not far into the Afghan war that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made plain his views on prisoners, after horrifying accounts began to surface of the treatment of Taliban POWs. He first said the United States was "not inclined to negotiate surrenders." From spring 2003, the Red Cross was complaining to US Army commanders in Iraq, and later to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in Washington, about frightful treatment of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

The author comments on claims by U.S. conservatives that they are being unfairly attacked by liberals. What's the matter with conservatives? They have the White House, both houses of Congress, the majority of governorships and more money than God. They rule talk-radio and the TV political chat shows, and they get plenty of space in the papers; for all the talk about the liberal media, nine out of the fourteen most widely syndicated columnists are conservatives. What I want to know is, Why can't they just admit it, throw a big party and dance on the table with lampshades on their heads? Why are they always claiming to be excluded and silenced because most English professors are Democrats? They've taken to lecturing the opposition on manners whenever it shows signs of life. Ted Kennedy says the Iraq war was "a fraud made up in Texas" and Bush complains that he's" uncivil." As "New York Times" columnist David Brooks, at least, acknowledges, the right is in a weak position when it claims to be shocked, shocked, shocked by liberal speech today. Well, they wanted state power, and thanks to the Supreme Court Five, they got it. But unfortunately, running the country turns out to be harder than it looked when Bill Clinton was killing off Hillary's lovers between Cabinet meetings. He made it seem so easy! Now, unemployment is way up, the government's awash in red ink, Iraq is a mess. So, everything has to be someone else's fault -- mean liberals who really, really want to win in 2004, Osama loving pranksters who forward e-mail jokes about the President's IQ, Bill and Hillary, still magically pulling the strings three years after leaving the White House, having thoughtfully arranged for 9/11 before they departed. They can dish it out, but they sure can't take it.

The article discusses the flaws in America's electoral college system for presidential elections. The controversy of the 2004 election between United States President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry is analyzed in regard to the 2006 governor's race in Ohio, which involves Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, who ruled in favor of Bush in the 2004 race.

The article discusses the paper "Bowling Alone," by Robert D. Putnam. He quotes approvingly a passage from an oral history of the war: "you just felt that the stranger sitting next to you in a restaurant, or someplace, felt the same way you did about the basic issues?" Like the importance of keeping black people out of that very restaurant, perhaps, and of putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps. As for war bonds, one has to be a true masochist to buy war bonds today, given that U.S. President George W. Bush has just engineered, under the guise of economic stimulus, another gigantic tax cut for wealthy corporations and the rich, and an airline-bailout package that underwrites the multimillion-dollar salaries of industry executives while offering nothing to the nearly 100,000 who've lost their airline jobs.

The article focuses on issues related to politics in the United States. News that the United States has been voted off the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN International Drug Monitoring Board has elicited vows of revenge from conservatives in the U.S. Congress. They threaten to withhold payment on the long-unpaid dues owed the UN. At the last session of the commission, the United States stood virtually alone as it opposed resolutions supporting lower-cost access to HIV/AIDS drugs, acknowledging a human right to adequate food and calling for a moratorium on the death penalty, while it continued to resist efforts to ban landmines. U.S. President George W. Bush pledges to leave no child behind even as he touts his tax cut as coming from the surplus funds left after one has met one's needs. But a report released by the Institute for America's Future, joined by Senators Edward Kennedy, Barbara Boxer and Jon Corzine, shows how deceptive Bush's bookkeeping is. One could draw up a ledger to illustrate this. On the left side of the ledger are the disgraceful numbers: One in six children in the United States are raised in poverty.

The article presents headlines and quotations on the U.S. President George W. Bush which were published in various news papers. News paper head lines include "The Guardian" in the February 27, 2017 issue; "The Washington Post" in the March 3, 2017 issue; and quotations by comedian Bill Maher in 2007 and in 2016.

The author offers an endorsement of Senator Christopher Dodd in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Dodd is seen as the one candidate with the strongest commitment to human rights and civil liberties, the two elements of U.S. government most damaged by President George W. Bush. Dodd's long career in the Senate is said to provide him with the knowledge and experience necessary for the office.

The article discusses what has gone wrong in John Kerry's campaign for the U.S. presidency. If a presidential candidate is truly the Real Deal, does he have to repeatedly pronounce himself the Real Deal? That's the dilemma confronting Senator John Forbes Kerry, who at the start of the pre-primary season was tagged the front-runner among the Democratic contenders. On paper, he looked real. He's a Vietnam War hero who protested that war. He's mostly in sync with Democratic primary voters. But Howard Dean, a nobody governor from Vermont, zoomed past him in the pre-voting indicators: money, poll results, volunteers and buzz. In the aftermath of a late-in-the-game staff shake-up, Kerry began pitching himself as the "Real Deal" candidate who could undo Bush's "raw deal," which favors "powerful interests." So when the Senate passed the Medicare bill, Kerry complained, "By caving in to the special interests, the Senate has given our seniors a raw deal." In New Hampshire, he unveiled a "Real Deal" agenda he would move to enact in the first 100 days of a Kerry presidency. The problem: Kerry is trying too hard to be "real." It's an obvious reaction to the criticism that Kerry, not known for exciting the voters, has yet to present an inspiring message or persona to fire up grassroots Democrats. In some respects, Kerry has been running a campaign more suitable for re-electing an incumbent senator: Look at my résumé, look at my record, look at my advisers.

This article reflects upon a growing trend of complicity between the press and U.S. governmental actions. The author criticizes reputable newspapers for accepting the U.S. President George W. Bush Administration's claims of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq without question. The author questions why Washington press were not skeptical of the Administration's policies. Media representatives claim that it was due to a competition in ratings.

The author reflects on the current situation of the Israel-Palestine conflict. He says that Haifa Mayor Amram Mitzna's suggestion to resume the Camp David talks implies that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has provided no solution to the security and economic situation. He adds that the two-state solution that the Palestinian Authority and Yasir Arafat is promoting has only brought differing views in Israel and Palestine.

On Thanksgiving Day 2001, with the United States in the midst of what polls identify as one of the most popular wars in history and with President George W. Bush's approval ratings hovering around 90 percent, more than 20 million American households opened their daily newspapers to see a little African American kid named Huey Freeman leading the pre-turkey prayer. In the whole of American media that day, Huey's was certainly the most pointed and, no doubt, the most effective dissent from the patriotism that dare not speak its mind. And it was not the only day when the self-proclaimed "radical scholar" skewered George W. Bush, Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Defense Department, dithering Democrats, frenzied flag-wavers and caremongering television anchors in what since September 11, 2001 has been the most biting and consistent critique of the war and its discontents in the nation's mass media.

The article discusses the book "The Race Beat" and argues that its portrayal of Northern media disinterestedness in the Jim Crow era is analogous to the media's acceptance of President George W. Bush's spin leading up to the Iraq War. In the South, newspaper editors like Harry Ashmore and Hodding Carter Jr. sold a vision of progress that the Northern papers willingly bought.

We return this week to the conservative crusade to destroy the reputation of financier and philanthropist George Soros. He has turned his attention to the United States, where he is spending as much as $15 million to help various liberal groups improve their efforts to expose the malfeasance of the President George W. Bush Administration and defeat it in the elections of 2004. The Republican National Committee has circulated a briefing paper on Capitol Hill in which Soros is referred to as "Lord of the Democrats" and the "Daddy Warbucks" of the drug legalization movement, and which highlights what it deems to be his controversial positions on abortion, gun control and the right to end one's own life. In Richard Mellon Scaife's NewsMax magazine, a writer named Richard Poe has extended the attack against the "somewhat loony" Soros, who, he says, "hates America" and is seeking to engineer a "coup" against Bush. Using unmistakably anti-Semitic tropes and metaphors, editor Tony Blankley appeared on Fox's Hannity & Colmes to call Soros a "robber baron" and "pirate capitalist." All of the above bespeaks the desperation that Republicans apparently feel at the prospect of being challenged by someone with the resources to make a difference in an election in which polls show that a majority of voters disapprove of Bush and that a plurality plan to vote for his opponent.

The article offers commentary on the statement U.S. President Barack Obama made about eliminating secrecy from U.S. government agencies, and discusses the effect of secrecy on ex-U.S. President George W. Bush's terms in office. The author states how Bush affected the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, and how he made it difficult to obtain documents about past U.S. presidents. Obama repealed Bush's presidential order that heirs had a right to withhold documents concerning past administrations.

The article reports on U.S. President George W. Bush's March 2007 tour of Latin America. The author focuses on a Columbian conspiracy linking a paramilitary group called the uribistas to the Columbian government. The uribistas, who have gained control of the drug trade, were granted amnesty in exchange for disarmament in 2006. Columbian President Alvaro Uribe is mentioned.

In this article the author examines the lack of management in government during the term of President George W. Bush. The author points out the irony in the inability of the Republican Party, the party of business, to recruit good managers from the private sector. The great increase in executive pay in the private sector is the reason, according to the author, that few top level executives are interested in public service.

Presents an editorial discussing recent events in the leak case involving C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame as of November 7, 2005. Suggestion that indictments in the case do not matter now that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's probe has already revealed that aides of U.S. President George W. Bush, including Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, engaged in wrongdoing that violated White House ethics; View that Bush supporters have tried to distract the public from the facts of the case; Discussion and analysis related to whether or not the leak of Plame's identity to the press was illegal or ethically wrong.

Suggests that the mainstream press in the United States is inadequate in analyzing world political events as a whole. Reference to the response of the "New York Times" to President George W. Bush's Inaugural Address; Lack of geopolitical reporting by newspapers such as the "New York Times"; Claim that the Bush administration is adept at planning and setting up a global system; Reference to an article entitled "The Coming Wars," by Seymour Hersh in the January 24/31 issue of the "New Yorker"; Increase of power held by the U.S. federal government in areas generally controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency, including the War on Terrorism.

The author addresses the concerns surrounding the weapons of mass destruction-related intelligence reports cited by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. He questions the intelligence reports issued by the government to justify its invasion of Iraq. He comments on the essay "Dishonesty in the intelligence business is not personal but institutional" by Thomas Powers. He believes that the intelligence reports regarding the Iraq War were manipulated by the government.

The article looks retrospectively at the Iraq War, on its 10th anniversary. The author argues that the war was disastrous and wrong, and criticizes the rationale for it offered by the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, to halt Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear weapons. He says the idea of using military force rather than diplomacy to achieve nonproliferation is at issue in U.S. President Barack Obama's Iran policy.

An editorial cartoon satirizing former U.S. president George W. Bush and former vice president Dick Cheney is presented.

The article discusses U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich's announcement that U.S. President George W. Bush should be impeached. The author points out that U.S. President Richard Nixon resigned well into his second term, and impeachment papers were filed against U.S. President Harry Truman. The U.S. Senate even considered removing U.S. President Andrew Johnson in the final year of his administration. Kucinich's charges include disregard of U.S. Congress's authority to declare war.

This article presents the author's perspective on the possibility of a U.S. military strike on Iran. Iran is believed to be pursuing nuclear weapons and has ties to many terrorist groups in the region. The author weighs the international ramifications of such an action and believes that, while not likely, it remains possible that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush will attack Iran.

This article discusses former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, his running for the U.S. presidency in 2000, and the author's assertion of how the media has misrepresented him. The author compares and contrasts Gore and U.S. President George W. Bush in terms of Gore's nuclear weapons as well as environmental expertise.

This article presents an essay on the lying done by U.S. President George W. Bush and his administration. The author writes that all presidents are given to lying at some point, and usually cover it with a "national security" defense. But Bush recently outed himself as a liar, after announcing the change in Defense Secretaries. Bush stated that he did not report on plans for rearranging his cabinet because he did not want to inject more speculation into the campaign.

This article reports on the lack of an anti-war or anti-Bush movement especially in light of all the recent revelations of administration misconduct and the distinct lack of success in Iraq. The author states that because there is a lack of cohesive outlet for people to express their frustration. This in turn leads to conspiracy theorists espousing off-the-wall ideas about September 11th and Iraq, which the author says does little to help the social discourse.

The article wonders at the inability of the media to classify U.S. President George W. Bush's untruths, obfuscations and intentional misstatements as lies. "The Washington Post's" Dan Froomkin, one of the few journalists to call a lie a lie, has been labeled an "ideologue" and an opposing conservative column was added to the paper to balance his viewpoints.

Focuses on the relationship between the mainstream media and the United States President George W. Bush administration. Claim that the Bush administration is more interested in ideology than in truth; Suggestion that the media coverage is controlled by political partisans who are willing to spout propaganda for the Administration; Claim that network television is unwilling to appear critical of Bush; Reference to the media's response to Bush's Inaugural Address; Criticism of an article written by Todd Purdum in "The New York Times" newspaper regarding the Inaugural Address; Report that the "Boston Globe" provided a presidential "fact check" along with their coverage of the address; Praise for journalist Kevin G. Hall's willingness to criticize Bush's Social Security plan; Claim that Bush's willingness to mislead the public coupled with the media's willingness to report without comment results in dishonesty.

The author discusses the need for U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to develop a new social contract that considers low income workers and the use of public assets. The article describes U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and the deregulation he supported and the failure of U.S. President George W. Bush's economic plans. The author argues that Obama needs to create a new social contract, raise the minimum wage, enforce labor laws, rebuild infrastructure, and invest in energy alternatives.

The article presents political satire on United States President George W. Bush that first appeared in "Billionaires for Bush: How to Rule the World for Fun and Profit." A public offering of shares in The George W. Bush Presidential Library, Inc, a Liberian Corporation, will take place in November 2004. Shares may be purchased from exclusive brokers in million-dollar lots. This investment presents not only superb amenities but also an opportunity to discharge your debt to George W. Bush for the handsome returns provided by his administration. The Bush Archives will be housed in an architecturally distinguished building specially designed by Root, Hogg, & Lay, by appointment to the Saudi Royal Family. Operatives from This Gun for Hire (a subsidiary of the Halliburton Company) will patrol the grounds. As with the statements of the President it honors, The George W. Bush Presidential Library, Inc. cannot guarantee the truth of any statement in this offering circular.

The article discusses how the liberal personnel of the U.S. Department of Justice came under siege from conservative members during U.S. President George W. Bush's administration. The author outlines the proposals within John Miller's 2002 "National Review" report which have come to pass, such as that U.S. Republicans should attempt to control the civil rights division of the department, and that Republicans should control the hiring process.

The article offers commentary on the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, the U.S. government, U.S. President George W. Bush, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The author compares conditions of the 2008 financial crisis with those of the 1929 stock market crash that produced the Great Depression, and observes how we have pushed aside the lessons learned from the New Deal program.

The article discusses U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama's advances in foreign policy, and how great expectations are for the departure of U.S. President George W. Bush. Obama is expected to draw down Iraq war troops, pick up diplomatic relations with Syria, Iraq, and Cuba, strengthen relations with allies, and to reconsider proposals such as the Kyoto climate change initiative. The outlook for Obama's foreign policy is bright with a multilateral plan that includes widening diplomatic relations.

The article discusses the ways that reason and empirical thought have been downgraded in the United States, and how a religious movement in the Middle East and a fundamentalist reading of an ancient text has led to tribal war, jihad, and the denial of the Holocaust by the president of Iran. The author discusses the ways that U.S. President George W. Bush has set our national education back by creating reasons for entering the Iraq war, and by fostering secret surveillance of U.S. citizens.

The article offers a look at the approach adopted by the media in covering U.S.-Iraq relations. In its March 3, 2003 issue, Newsweek disclosed that the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush deliberately suppressed relevant information regarding Iraq, particularly the testimony of Lieutenant General Hussein Kamel, former minister of Iraq's military industry, regarding its chemical and biological weapons. However, the news magazine chose to underplay the issue.

The author focuses on the Iraqi-American writer and Brandeis professor Kanan Makiya's views on the Iraq War. He says that Makiya is considered to be the most excellent Iraqi dissident in the U.S. He claims that Makiya always assure his U.S. readers that Iraqis will welcome U.S. troops and that they will have no opposition about their presence in Iraq. He argues that although Makiya opposes Saddam Hussein's regime, he has become a Bush regime intellectual. He suggests that the dissident label on Makiya should be removed.

This article presents the author's proposals to restore and rebuild American democracy following the administration of George W. Bush. He cites strengthening the rule of law, facilitating voter registration, a more transparent legislative process, and less government secrecy as principles to follow.

This article reports on the policy of U.S. President George W. Bush to hire government workers based on ideology, rather than merit. Many people in the federal government system have been fired, demoted, transferred or have retired out of frustration with the lack of oversight of political appointees. This has left many governmental agencies in danger of being rendered incapable of protecting the people and interests they are supposed to support.

This article reviews the election campaign in Virginia for the United States Senate and the candidates, George Allen and Jim Webb. Allen's campaign has been marred by many misstatements regarding race and religion that have turned voter's off from the politician's stance. Allen has also been a staunch supporter of President George W. Bush's positions on Iraq. Webb suffers from his own past statements about affirmative action being reverse racism and a speech that he made at the National Confederate Memorial in 1990, where he talked about the Southern states fighting for their rights rather than for the right of slavery.

The article focuses on a lawsuit which has been filed against the private North Carolina based security firm Blackwater USA by the families of four men killed in Fallujah, Iraq. The story of one of the men killed, Scott Helvenston, is reported in detail. Actions taken by Blackwater USA which endangered their employees for the sake of their profit margins are discussed. U.S. President George W. Bush has said that he delegates decisions on private security companies to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The article focuses on the debate concerning illegal immigration in the United States. Activist and author David Horowitz wishes to end all immigration from Mexico and protect the border with military force. In 2004, U.S. President George W. Bush's proposal for immigration reform, that would legalize workers currently residing in America and provide a guest worker program for Mexicans seeking employment in America, was defeated by those on the right.

The article presents the author's views on the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. According to the author, there are no significant legal differences between the investor fraud perpetrated by Enron CEO Kenneth Lay and the prewar intelligence fraud perpetrated by Bush. The author suggests that U.S. citizens must demand that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence complete Phase II of its investigation into prewar intelligence. It is inferred that the government and general public should consider impeachment proceedings for Bush. The author analyzes how intelligence was presented in the lead up to the war in Iraq.

Examines the impact of President George W. Bush's administration on freedom of the press in the U.S. Claim that Bush does not read the work of journalists, and prefers to rely on his staff for current information; View that the Bush administration interferes with the functions of the press by deliberately withholding information or producing false and biased reports; Discussion of a perceived increase in secrecy in the Bush administration following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks; Accusation that Bush and members of his administration lie to the press to support their policies; Scandal surrounding the release of biased news reports by the Bush administration; Impact of the Bush administration's treatment of journalists on U.S. political culture.

The article focuses on the civil justice system and "tort reform". The US Chamber of Commerce is urging voters to support lawsuit restrictions endorsed by George W. Bush and opposed by John Kerry. Chamber president Thomas Donohue charged that "lawsuit abuse destroys jobs, drives doctors out of business and forces companies into bankruptcy." Piggybacking on the campaign of an incumbent President--who made lawsuit restrictions a central part of his governorship in Texas--the tort reformers have seized on this election as their defining moment. The Bush campaign has hit hard at the Kerry/Edwards ticket for allegedly being pawns of plaintiff's attorneys. But regardless of whether or not the issue helps Bush get re-elected, its heightened prominence demonstrates the escalation of the stakes in what is now a thirty-year-long war by the ultra-right to disembowel the civil justice system and make America safer for companies to work their unfettered will. In Texas, however, the future is already here, thanks to several generous helpings of "reform." Anyone who wants a glimpse of what's in store for the rest of us would do well to look at Bush's legacy in his home state. In his first months as governor of Texas, a job he won with the help of $1.3 million from the extremist Texans for Lawsuit Reform, Bush declared an "emergency" on "frivolous lawsuits" and rammed through the legislature a series of bills restricting suits. Now Bush has become the first President to make downsizing the civil courts a signature concern of both his Administration and his re-election effort.