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Spectral Appearances: An Arlen is Haunting The New Yorker

Filed under: The Squib Report Tagged: Adam Gopnik, Arlen Specter, Connie Bruck, Garrison Keillor, Hendrik Hertzberg, Janet Malcolm, Jeffrey Toobin, Josselyn Simpson, Lawrence Wright, Mary Anne Weaver, Patrick Hadden Keefe, Peter J. Boyer, Philip Gourevitch, politics, Richard Harris, Ryan Lizza, Sara Mosle, Sidney Blumenthal, Warren St. John, William Finnegan

Martin Schneider writes:

In my best stentorian anchorman's voice, I can honestly write that Senator Arlen Specter "rocked the political world today" when he announced that he would switch his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat, ensuring the Democrat's a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate once Al Franken is seated sometime in June (it looks like). Specter is truly the man of the president's 100th day.

When he was district attorney of Philadelphia, Arlen Specter was quoted in The New Yorker in opposition to the new Miranda rule. It was the December 14, 1968, issue. Since then he has appeared in the magazine's pages many times—and there'll be plenty more in the near future.

(Note that "Fight on the Right," by Philip Gourevitch, and "Killing Habeas Corpus," by Jeffrey Toobin, are actually about Specter, rather than merely mentioning him in passing.)

Here's the full list:
"The Turning Point," Richard Harris, December 14, 1968
Comment, Garrison Keillor, August 20, 1990
Comment, Adam Gopnik, October 28, 1991
Comment, Josselyn Simpson, August 3, 1992
"The Ogre's Tale," Peter J. Boyer, April 4, 1994
"Flat-Tax Follies," Warren St. John, June 5, 1995
"The Western Front," Sidney Blumenthal, June 5, 1995
"Ghost in the Machine," Sidney Blumenthal, October 2, 1995
"Speaker of the Casino," Sara Mosle, November 13, 1995
"The Stranger, Mary Anne Weaver, November 13, 1995
"Advice and Dissent," Jeffrey Toobin, May 26, 2003
"Fight on the Right," Philip Gourevitch, April 12, 2004
"The Candidate," William Finnegan, May 31, 2004
"Hollywood Science," Connie Bruck, October 18, 2004
"Blowing Up the Senate," Jeffrey Toobin, March 7, 2005
"Ups and Downs," Hendrik Hertzberg, November 14, 2005
"Unanswered Questions," Jeffrey Toobin, January 23, 2006
"Hearts and Brains," Hendrik Hertzberg, November 6, 2006
"The Art of Testifying," Janet Malcolm, March 13, 2006
"Killing Habeas Corpus," Jeffrey Toobin, December 4, 2006
"The Spymaster," Lawrence Wright, January 21, 2008
"State Secrets," Patrick Radden Keefe, April 28, 2008
"The Dirty Trickster," Jeffrey Toobin, June 2, 2008
"The Gatekeeper," Ryan Lizza, March 2, 2009

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Emdashes, founded in 2004 by Emily Gordon, is a place where keen and dedicated readers of The New Yorker, past and present, can find related news and commentary: about people, subjects, and ideas within the magazine, and events and conversations outside its pages. Learn more about us and our contributors.

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This site is neither owned nor operated by The New Yorker magazine or Condé Nast Publications.

Some writing by Emily Gordon

Review: A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (for Newsday)
Annotated slide show: a wet, festive 2009 Coney Island Mermaid Parade (for nycgo.com)
Proposal: A better-looking MetroCard (for A Brief Message)
Feature: Muslim immigration iconography in the Netherlands, and an interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali (for Print)
Review: Does a redesign of The New Republic mean a change of tune? (for Print)
Interview: four online obsessives and visual cataloguers, Kate Bingaman, Nicholas Felton, Ellie Harrison, and John D. Freyer (for Print)
Review: King's Gambit: A Son, a Father, and the World's Most Dangerous Game by Paul Hoffman (for Newsday)
Interviews: winning New Visual Artists Eleanor Grosch, Zigmunds Lapsa, Christian Cervantes, and Kate & Camilla (for Print)
Profile: lindy hop legend Frankie Manning (for Newsday, with Robert Fouch)
Feature: Rea Irvin, illustrator, bon vivant, and The New Yorker's first art director (for Print)
Profile: screenwriter and novelist Joe Keenan (for Newsday)
Review: My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World by Julian Dibbell (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley (for Newsday)
Review: Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry (for Print)
Report: Learning to read with comic books edited by Françoise Mouly (for Print)
Report: The New Yorker's redesigned website (for Print)
Interview: James Surowiecki on what's next for the wisdom of crowds (for Assignment Zero)
Review: The Complete New Yorker (for Print)
Interview: Matthew Diffee on the appropriately inappropriate cartoons of the The Rejection Collection (for Print)
Interview: Roz Chast on Brooklyn, pysanky eggs, and animation (for Newsday)
Review: books about various New Yorker cartoonists by Liza Donnelly and Iain Topliss (for Newsday)
Review: Charles Addams: A Cartoonist's Life by Linda H. Davis (for Newsday)
Interview: Edward Gorey (for Newsday)

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They say that dashes “are particularly useful in a sentence that is long and complex.” Emdashes—like em dashes—emphasizes what’s between: in particular, between the lines, covers, and issues of a magazine close to my heart.

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