Analyzes the widening gap between politicians, including lobbyists and consultants, and the American mainstream, and discusses the rise in populist movements that threatens to drive the two-party system to its collapse.

Liberals often worry that inviting moral and religious argument into the public sphere runs the risk of intolerance and coercion. These essays respond to that concern by showing that substantive moral discourse is not at odds with progressive public purposes, and that a pluralist society need not shrink from engaging the moral and religious convictions that its citizens bring to public life.

"The Bush-Cheney Administration transgressed the law in ways that trampled the Constitution, crushed the concept of lawful conduct and harmed the image of the U.S. around the world. The 2009 release of secret torture documents, in particular, ripped apart the notion that "'we' do not torture," as President Bush liked to say. Torture is against the law, plain and simple. The documents paint a bleak picture of the involvement of President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and top Administration officials in unleashing, sanctioning and conspiring in the infliction of torture. Without indictments, prosecution or accountability, their activities make a mockery of the United States law and especially of the unwavering standard that "no person is above the law." The failure to indict, prosecute or hold officials at the highest level accountable sets frightening precedents. Cheating Justice identifies in clear language why the nation needs to address the Bush-Cheney Administration's willing plunge into torture, and, more specifically, how to do it. With Watergate-era reforms as a model, the book will describe the plain steps to undoing the damage that the Bush-Cheney Administration inflicted and to putting into place new protections that will block future presidents from similarly abusing the law. Few topics can be more important for our times: these actions are vital to our freedom and to the nation's future. Following upon their book, The Impeachment of George W. Bush: A Practical Guide for Concerned Citizens, (Nation Books, September 2006) (http://www.channonart.com/impeachBush/index.html) co-authors Elizabeth Holtzman and Cynthia L. Cooper discuss clearly and plainly how and why Bush, Cheney and others can and must be held accountable. "--

In a series of columns and essays that renowned journalist and former presidential adviser Sidney Blumenthal wrote in the three years following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a unifying theme began to emerge: that Bush, billed by himself and by many others as a conservative, is in fact a radical--more radical than any president in American history. In How Bush Rules , Blumenthal provides a trenchant and vivid account of the progression of Bush's radical style--from his reliance on one-party rule and his unwillingness to allow internal debate to his elevation of the power of the vice president. Taking readers through pivotal events such as the hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the rise of the foreign-policy neoconservatives, Abu Ghraib, the war on science, the Jack Abramoff scandal, and the catastrophic mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, the book tracks a consistent policy that calls for the president to have complete authority over independent federal agencies and to remain unbound by congressional oversight or even the law. In an incisive and powerful introduction, Blumenthal argues that these radical actions are not haphazard, but deliberately intended to fundamentally change the presidency and the government. He shows not only the historical precedents for radical governing, but also how Bush has taken his methods to unique extremes. With its penetrating account of a critical new era in American leadership, How Bush Rules is a devastating appraisal of the Bush presidency.

This is an Occasional Paper originating from a discussion that took place at a meeting of the Committee on International Security Studies of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Chapter 1. U.S. National Security In Search of Balance. Chapter 2. Gambling on Force, Order, and the Implications of Attacking Iraq. Chapter 3. The Economic Consequences of a War with Iraq.

This book argues that the American conservative movement, as it now exists, does not have deep roots. It began in the 1950s as the invention of journalists and men of letters reacting to the early Cold War and trying to construct a rallying point for likeminded opponents of international Communism. The resulting movement has exaggerated the permanence of its values; while its militant anti-Communism, instilled in its followers, and periodic suppression of dissent have weakened its capacity for internal debate. Their movement came to power at least partly by burying an older anti-welfare state Right, one that in fact had enjoyed a social following that was concentrated in a small-town America. The newcomers played down the merits of those they had replaced; and in the 1980's the neoconservatives, who took over the postwar conservative movement from an earlier generation, belittled their predecessors in a similar way. Among the movement's major accomplishments has been to recreate its own past. The success of this revised history lies in the fact that even the movement's critics are now inclined to accept it.