SO YESTERDAY

THE CIRCUS MOVES SOUTH

A NEW WAR COMING?

The best line on CNN this morning: “New Hampshire was so yesterday.” And what a pithy insight it was, as the political race races on to other states and new battles. John Kerry won the “perceived electability” sweepstakes and is now the front runner in a scenario that he could never have imagined. All the candidates were claiming some sort of victory.

What’s important to remember is that this process is only just beginning, no matter what ABC’s George Stephanopoulus says about how the double whammy of wins in Iowa and New Hampshire leads, without passing GO, to the nomination. We have seen this type of punditry before — and we have seen it take its place alongside those “DEWEY BEATS TRUMAN” headlines.

WHITHER DEAN?

Blogger of the year Josh Marshall was more fascinated with the intensity of the Dean campaign, which came in second. He is not ready to write it off.

Without talking to everyone in the room you can’t know what people are thinking. And when you ask, as a journalist, you create a sort of Heisenbergian distortion that still keeps you from knowing. But the enthusiasm I saw in the crowd, when they were listening to Dean speak, seemed completely unrelated to tonight’s result. The excitement was all about them and Dean. Where the campaign would be in a week — good or bad — seemed like a secondary matter.

I think the excitement would hardly have been much different if his final vote total had been no larger than the number of people in the room with him tonight.

Over the course of the evening I saw various members of Dean’s core staff. And they seemed curiously unfazed by everything that had happened. They certainly weren’t jubilant. But they didn’t seem particularly disappointed either. They seemed like the whole thing went as they’d expected. And they were ready to move on to the next front.

( http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_01_25.html#002496 )

Marshall adds: “What this race is now about is whether John Kerry can carry this momentum into the Midwest and the South. If he can — and that’s not at all clear — then it’s over.”

HOW CRUCIAL IS THE SOUTH?

What about the South? Jake Tapper, now writing for ABC.com, reported that Kerry is minimizing the regional differences that all the commentators dwell on.

During a town hall meeting on the Dartmouth campus, Kerry noted that former Vice President Al Gore would be president if he’d won any number of other non-Southern states in 2000, including New Hampshire, West Virginia, and Ohio.”Everybody always makes the mistake of looking South,” Kerry said, in response to a question about winning the region. “Al Gore proved he could have been president of the United States without winning one Southern state, including his own.”"I think the fight is all over this country,” Kerry said. “Forget about those red and blue states. We’re going to change that now, and we’re going to go out there and change the face of America.”.

KUCINICH FUNDRAISES ON

All of the candidates are putting a brave face on the results, even Dennis Kucinich. His campaign released a report that he is winning the race for donations below $200.

By one key measure, Kucinich boasts a larger base of supporters than almost any other candidate. ….This is a critical figure, essentially an index of the number of loyalists each contender has amassed. Of the eight candidates for whom data was available, Kucinich came in second in small contributions — behind Dr. Howard Dean, but ahead of all other “top-tier” candidates, such as Sen. John Kerry and Rep. Richard Gephardt.

MEDIA DONORS

Progressive donors are hardly a major part of the election campaign. Joe Strupp of Editor and Publisher reports,

While their newspapers are busy covering the elections of 2004, owners and top executives of some of the country’s largest papers and chains are busy contributing to candidates — or at least their money-hungry political parties, according to campaign finance records filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Richard Scaife, the outspoken conservative publisher of the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh tops the list with a $25,000 donation to the Republican National Committee last July, while also giving $2,000 to George Bush’s re-election campaign and $4,000 to the U.S. Senate bid of Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Pat Toomey….

In other family newspaper finances, George R. Hearst, chairman of the board of The Hearst Corp. of New York gave $1,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, while his cousin, William R Hearst III — grandson of William Randolph Hearst and former publisher of the San Francisco Examiner — donated $2,000 to the Joe Lieberman for President campaign and another $2,000 to VenturePac, a political action committee supporting issues related to venture capital firms.

The Murdoch family showed its political leanings with a $2,000 donation to the Bush-Cheney campaign from Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corp., who also sent $2,000 to Sen. John McCain’s 2004 re-election effort and the same amount to the campaign of California Republican Congressman Bill Thomas.

Wendi Murdoch, his wife, also donated $2,000 to Thomas, while his son, New York Post … Publisher Lachlan Murdoch gave $2,000 to Bush-Cheney?

( http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2076212 )

KAY GOES TO CONGRESS

The WMD issue has not gone away. Its ramifications and implications are still unfolding. The Senate hears from David Kay. His forever-slimy claims and rationalizations are contradictory, but no one seems to care. President Bush, who harped on those WMDs allegedly in Iraq, is still recycling his justifications for war even as the core of his case falls apart. We are finally seeing some TV coverage that shows his original pronouncements and contrasts them with his new line. For a report on Bush’s new spin, see today’s New York Times: “The president declined to repeat claims that evidence of illicit weapons would eventually be found, but he insisted that the war was nonetheless justified.” ( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/28/politics/28PREX.html?th )

TONY GOES TO PARLIAMENT

Over in England some of the same issues are back in the media with the release of the Hutton Commission report, which is seen as an exoneration of Tony Blair’s conduct. That’s why the Blair government released it to the Sun, London’s version of the New York Post, both owned (no surprise) by Mr. Murdoch. The Sun boosted Blair in wartime and is still doing it. Tony Blair goes to Parliament today to defend his role one more time.

I am writing before the report’s release, but by the time you read this, you will have all the dirty details about what the good Lord says and how the British establishment closes ranks. The Guardian reports that the “BBC and its reporter Andrew Gilligan come in for criticism over their handling of the affair.”

HOW DID DR. KELLY DIE?

The Guardian ran two other items that should be factored into any discussion of this report in the US press — but won’t. First, several doctors question whether Dr. David Kelly, Britain’s top arms expert, did indeed commit suicide. This is their letter, in part:

As specialist medical professionals, we do not consider the evidence given at the Hutton inquiry has demonstrated that Dr David Kelly committed suicide.

Dr Nicholas Hunt, the forensic pathologist at the Hutton inquiry, concluded that Dr Kelly bled to death from a self-inflicted wound to his left wrist. We view this as highly improbable. Arteries in the wrist are of matchstick thickness and severing them does not lead to life-threatening blood loss. Dr Hunt stated that the only artery that had been cut - the ulnar artery - had been completely transected. Complete transection causes the artery to quickly retract and close down, and this promotes clotting of the blood.

The ambulance team reported that the quantity of blood at the scene was minimal and surprisingly small? We dispute that Dr Kelly could have died from haemorrhage or from Co-Proxamol ingestion or from both. The coroner, Nicholas Gardiner, has spoken recently of resuming the inquest into his death. If it re-opens, as in our opinion it should, a clear need exists to scrutinise more closely Dr Hunt’s conclusions as to the cause of death.

( http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1131833,00.html )

I have read these concerns raised on obscure websites, but now they are in the British national press. If true, consider the implications.

That was on a medical issue. Now here’s a political one, raised by Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon papers. His voice is heard more in the media abroad than in his/our own country.

As more and more US and British families lose loved ones in Iraq — killed while ostensibly protecting a population that does not appear to want them there — they will begin to ask: “How did we get into this mess, and why are we still in it?” And the answers they find will be disturbingly similar to those the American public found for Vietnam.

I served three US presidents — Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon — who lied repeatedly and blatantly about our reasons for entering Vietnam, and the risks in our staying there. For the past year, I have found myself in the horrifying position of watching history repeat itself. I believe that George Bush and Tony Blair lied — and continue to lie — as blatantly about their reasons for entering Iraq and the prospects for the invasion and occupation as the presidents I served did about Vietnam.”

( www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1132043,00.html )

JANE’S — A NEW WAR BREWING?

UPI reported last Friday “U.S. Might Strike Hezbollah in Bakaa.” Lou Marano had this story:

The prospect of the United States attacking Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon is no idle threat, the editor of Jane’s Intelligence Digest said Friday.

On Friday the digest released a report saying the Bush administration is considering such strikes in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where the bulk of Syria’s forces are deployed, as way to pressure Damascus. Jane’s attributed this to its regional correspondent reporting from Beirut.

In a phone interview from London, Alex Standish, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Digest, confirmed that his sources were American and that they were communicating the views of people close to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Asked if his sources were in the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, he replied that he could not identify them further.

“Our sources are pretty damn good,” Standish told United Press International. “We’ve never had a libel action since we were founded in 1938. … If you look at the track record of people who have given us this sort of information … these are tried and tested sources that we have confidence in.”

Standish dismissed the possibility that the information could have been planted by an American who wanted to derail any such attack.

“I think this is a U.S. administration that does what it says it will do,” said Standish, stressing that this is a plan under consideration, not a decided course of action. “Clearly, this is about ratcheting up the pressure on Damascus. … I think this is also part of the wider Realpolitik, which is to start the process of isolating Hezbollah much further. …

“What we’re looking at in this context are air strikes and the use of special forces snatch squads — that kind of activity. We’re not talking about a peacekeeping deployment or an invasion of southern Lebanon.”

( http://upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040123-024644-9042r )

AVERTING WAR: PAKISTAN

BBC.com is featuring reports on music by the Pakistani group Junoon, which promotes tolerance in the post-9/11 period. A January 15th report carries this:

Salman Ahmad is the leader of Junoon, Asia’s most popular group. The band’s song No More, released after the 11 September terrorist attacks, is based on the poem Pulverised by Polar Levine. Here, Ahmad describes his feelings about the attacks, while below Levine outlines the meaning of his work.

( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3377671.stm )

FOGGING WAR: THE USA

Errol Morris’ film “Fog of War” is among the documentaries nominated for the Oscar. For more on the issues it raises, read Alexander Cockburn’s “The Fog of Cop-Out: Robert McNamara 10, Errol Morris 0″ on Counterpunch: www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01242004.html .

SNOW BELLS WILL RING

That’s all from me on this very snowy morning in New York. I was hoping to go hear Tina Brown interview New Yorker media writer Ken Auletta about his new book “Backstory” at the 92nd Street Y tonight, but I am not sure whether it will be canceled because of weather.

We are close to announcing the new editor for this column. Sorry it got to subscribers so late yesterday, but we are busy launching the new Media for Democracy pages on MediaChannel. Check them out when they are checkable and sign up to take part. Write to me: dissector@mediachannel.org.