Politics.

Among the most important and divisive issues in the cultural politics of the United States during the 1990s was the debate about the rights of children. From the outset, the Clinton administration, largely at the initiative of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, gave the issue top priority. The emphasis on children, however, enabled activists and politicians alike to use the issue as political leverage. "I can win any argument by saying we need welfare reform, but not at the cost of the children," remarked Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) in 1995. For Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), poverty remained the single most devastating problem facing children in the United States. Her proposed solution was straightforward: the federal government must give poor families more money. Many of Edelman's opponents, however, charged that her focus on children masked her real...