The Week’s Best Longreads: The Daily Beast Picks for September 8, 2012

Let’s Be Friends
Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker

Barack Obama and Bill Clinton reconcile.

The Tryhards
Freddie DeBoer, The New Inquiry

Liberal pundits are surprisingly radical in their critiques of American meritocracy. But their material comfort and proximity to power forces them to support deeply inadequate policies.

The Education of Elizabeth Warren
Monica Potts, The American Prospect

Supporters of the Massachusetts Dem thought she had a lock on Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat. 
But the campaign has proved that’s far from true.

31 Shocks Later
Jennifer Gonnerman, New York

Andre McCollins’s mother thought she’d finally found the right school for her son—one equipped to treat his behavioral and developmental problems. Then she took a closer look at that treatment.

Born This Way
Cord Jefferson, Gawker

Scientists are increasingly convinced that pedophilia is an unchangeable sexual orientation. Can society deal with the truth?

How to Read Žižek
Adam Kotsko, Los Angeles Review of Books

Dismissing the popular philosopher Slavoj Žižek as both clownish and politically dangerous has become a ritual. But his critics are unwittingly demonstrating his theories.

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