Tuesday, January 27, 2004

NH results and interpretations If the percentages hold (79% reporting) and Clark edges out Edwards for third, then that might be the most important result of the night. Kerry and Dean will move on, the former propelled by free media momentum and the latter by internet cash, but the real race now is to see who the leading non-New Englander is. If Edwards had nailed down third he could have laid an unchallenged claim to the title and dealt Clark a death blow. If Clark holds on to third he can claim a victory of sorts in the first primary he contested and move onto much more friendly ground dead even with Edwards in term of momentum and bragging rights. I feel that the Dems are going to turn to someone (anyone) not from New England, simply because so damn many of us want to be sure to whup Junior not by a little but by a LOT. (After all Gore won by a little and look what it got him.) Whether that candidate turns out to be Edwards or Clark could have been determined tonight. Edwards had the advantage of his personal charisma in Iowa and New Hampshire. That advantage will be severely diminished in the future primaries since there is simply not time to "retail politic" everywhere at once. It's just as well, because that is the problem he would face in the general election anyway. If Clark can hold on to third, he can allow his resume, his clear and straightforward ideas and appeal (it's about the democracy, stupid), and his deeper wallet to aid him in the primaries to come, particularly in Missouri, Oklahoma and Arizona. And he's been learning on the fly (oh, well, gotta learn sometime). The one certain thing is that Lieber(insert curse of your choice here) is toast. The Vichycrat is dead! Hoorah!! 7:23:32 PM

Too many lies for too long BUSH ADMITS MISLEADING ON WMD   Less than a year after declaring there was "no doubt the Iraqi regime continues to possess the most lethal weapons ever devised," President Bush and the White House began to openly "back away from its WMD assertions today." The New York Times reported, "White House officials are no longer asserting that stockpiles of banned weapons would eventually be found" after their weapons inspector, David Kay said he "doesn't think [WMD] existed" after the 1991 Gulf War.   The backtracking is reverberating throughout the Bush administration. While Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations last year that "our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent," he said this weekend that it could actually be "zero tons." Powell told the United Nations in 2003 that Iraq "can produce anthrax," that it might "have produced 25,000 liters" and showed a video of an Iraqi plane that dumping "2,000 liters of simulated anthrax" as proof, but he now says they might have produced no anthrax at all.   Similarly, Vice President Dick Cheney, said before the war, "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction...to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us," but now says the war was about Iraq's "efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction." The vice president also cited a classified report his own Administration has labeled "inaccurate" as the "best source" of proof that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were linked.   In response, the Administration is beginning to blame the intelligence community for the WMD fiasco, and planning an internal "review of prewar intelligence." Administration ally Kay concurred, arguing "I think the intelligence community owes the president [an apology] rather than the president owing the American people." Despite Mr. Kay's assertions, experts who knew the record of U.N. inspections knew that finding no WMD "was always a strong possibility...but Bush administration officials never acknowledged it."   Earlier reporting found that senior Administration officials deliberately "bypassed the government's customary procedures for vetting intelligence," and the White House set up a separate intelligence apparatus, the "Office of Special Plans," to "cherry-pick intelligence that supported its pre-existing position and ignoring all the rest." For example, the president's well-known declaration in last year's State of the Union, asserting that Iraq "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," remained despite CIA demands to remove such allegations from his speech.   Visit Misleader.org for more about Bush Administration distortion. 5:48:11 PM

MWO on top of Wash Post and CNN’s Kurtz   Walter Winchell's legacy is apparently alive and quite well...   An MWO World Exclusive   KURTZ PROBE WIDENS AMID NEW CHARGES 'Flagrant' Abuses Cited Mistah K's Silence Deepens Suspicions CNN Tapes, Invite Lists Under Scrutiny   The probe into Howard "Mistah" Kurtz’s ethics violations has deepened, highly informed sources have told MWO.   As reported earlier on MWO, Kurtz faced charges that he used his Washington Post column to promote the financial interests of his wife, the right-wing Republican media consultant Sherri Annis.   Investigators initially focused on a column of Kurtz’s, from last Friday, January 23, in which Kurtz promoted a right-wing oppo magazine and web site where Annis also appeared ten days earlier….   Now, sources close to the investigation tell MWO, the net has been cast wider, to include allegations of systematic abuse of journalistic ethics by the embattled media columnist.   These include allegations that Kurtz has deliberately used his supposedly neutral media column as a front for releasing raw opposition research directed against Democratic candidates.   Kurtz has been tied directly to a small group of Republican operatives, including several who were instrumental as "elves" and "hate Clinton" commentators during the partisan impeachment crisis five years ago.   "He’s been pretty flagrant about it," one veteran Washington observer told MWO. "Hanging out with Barbara Comstock, Joe diGenova, and the rest of the 'Hate Clinton' crowd. I'm amazed it's taken this long, frankly, for somebody to blow the whistle."   The same source explained that there is suspicion Kurtz may be involved in a hand-in-glove operation that helps him line his pocket.   "The right wing hands him stuff. He prints it as 'news.' And the grateful right wing throws more business his wife's way. It would be crude, but it would be classic."… 5:44:27 PM