[1] Despite this success, the magazine has not been able to maintain the circulation it reached at this time and has since been accused of "hit jobs",[2] lack of corroboration,[3] and denial of the scientific consensus around global warming.

[3] Following financial shortfalls, including a resistance from Tyrell to have the Arkansas Project audited, The American Spectator was sold to George Gilder, leading to layoffs and a relocation to Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

[6] In the early 1990s, The American Spectator published two lengthy essays by writer David Brock, "The Real Anita Hill" and the "Troopergate story", both of alleged inappropriate behavior by then-President Bill Clinton.

[8][9][10] Matt Steinglass of The Economist wrote that Howley "winds up offering a vision of politics as a kind of self-focused performance art, or perhaps (to say the same thing) a version of Jackass.

[12] The American Spectator has been criticized for its "hype and hysteria" and "out-of-control screeds that attack the obvious suspects and lack corroboration".

[3] The environmental campaigning organization Greenpeace claims that the magazine is part of a supposed "conservative media network with clear Koch influence [that] serves as a reliable platform for attacks on the scientific consensus of global warming".