While there’s seven states voting in primaries or caucuses next Tuesday, I’ll be covering mainly two here, South Carolina and North Dakota. Other TAS team members will be covering the rest. They’ll also be covering next Saturday’s caucuses in Michigan and Washington, and next Sunday’s Maine caucuses, too.

The National Overview

John Kerry holds leads in many states after his twin wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. Although there are some states where others are close or ahead of Kerry, the majority seem to be shaping up as contests to determine Number Two.

With funding opportunities getting the squeeze, Dean, Edwards, Clark and Lieberman need more Top Two showings to bolster their case for continuing their campaigns as the chief contender to Kerry. Within 18 days, there’ll only be one or two of these four left standing unless Kerry falters.
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moveon.org is calling for a “one minute boycott” of the superbowl on sunday.

our story so far: cbs has refused to air the winning “bush in 30 seconds” ad (”child’s pay”), based on the principle that they don’t air ads made by progressive blogs that make fun of c+ students in positions of power, or something like that. luckily for us, somebody at cnn goofed and accepted the ad, which will be shown on cnn at 8:10 and 8:35 eastern, 5:10 and 5:35 real time.

so, moveon would like everyone to change their tv channels at those times to watch “child’s pay” on cnn. we’re not sure what that will do in terms of actual effects on sponsorship, but at least we get to see the winning ad on tv.

moveon asks that you register your dissent on this page on their website.
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we have blogged earlier this week about a report found on blah3 that robert novak assaulted a new hampshire citizen who accused him of being a traitor.

on our comments section (over on our own pugilistic blog, where we also wrote about this), person of choler [ed. note: we still don’t get that joke], our gadfly from the other side of the aisle, insisted in two separate posts that it was par for the course, because after all, ” as al franken has recently established, it is permissible for political commentators to knock down people with whom they disagree.”

we then googled al franken and heckler, and boy, look what we got! tons of reports that franken had “body slammed” a poor, unassuming man at a dean rally, whose only crime was that he was shouting anti-dean rhetoric. oh the horror! oh the supression of free speech! oh the reminders of how unfunny snl was during the 80’s!
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I was watching some of the Senate Armed Services Committee David Kay hearings the other day, and chairman John Warner (R-Virginia) mentioned something about a weapons “kash-ay”.

At first I though he just misspoke, but he kept saying “kash-ay” and “kash-ays” over and over. Finally I realized he was talking about weapons “caches”.

I was mortified. I have been saying “cache” wrong all these years. It would not be the first time I had adopted an embarrassing mispronouncitation of a word. People in meetings must have thought I was an ignorant hillbilly bumpkin.
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When francobloggers like Neiwert and Somerby accuse Our Leader of being AWOL during his national guard service, they fail to mention the fact that He bravely defended our homeland against communist aggression. They forget that only thirty or so years before, the Viet Kong king invaded our great nation. That first act of Vietnamese hostility is something they don’t teach in schools anymore. I only learned about it by watching a documentary on Turner Classic Movies.
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The long-awaited “Capture of Osama bin Laden” is in preproduction for a fall release, says an excited U.S. military. The film is expected to do “boffo business” at polling places all over America.

“We’ve already filmed some of the essential ‘weapons and money found in Osama’s hiding place’ shots, and location scouts are narrowing in on a site for principal photography,” said General Clive O’Selznick O’Hara, of the U.S. Army’s 4th Cinematography Division.

“I have some brilliant ideas for shooting ‘Osama,” brilliant,” said Col. David Stokes. “I can’t say what exactly, but it’s going to make the most spectacular use of flashbacks.”

Special effects experts are busy planning shots of George W. Bush presenting Bin Laden, trussed like a turkey, on a platter to the American people.

“Bush will have a halo from a tightly focused ellipsoidal spot with slightly-shuttered barn doors and maybe an orange gel that we’re strategically placing in the distance behind his head, or we can add it in post,” said Cheryl Coccaphoon of the 2d Light Engineer’s Batallion.

The Army is to apply for shooting permits in the “No Man’s Land” in the south of Pakistan, but have been unable to determine yet who precisely has jurisdiction over the area.

Cross-posted at Opinions You Should Have.

This morning’s news that the Bush Administration and Republican Congress misunderestimated the cost of the Medicare prescription drug program by 33% - a whopping $134 Billion - should come as a surprise to exactly no one. Written by Republicans and their drug company pals in secret, stuffed to the gills with pork, ramrodded through Congress with little debate, let alone sufficient time to read the bill (breaking House ethics rules along the way), the bill was another Politics over Policy victory by the Administration. Now, the GOP can take credit for passing Medicare reform, when, in reality, what they’ve done is sown the seeds for the death of Medicare. It’s just that, like many other times where the Administration has either changed its tune after it’s gotten its way, or passed programs loaded with time bombs set to go off some time well after they are able to be held accountable, most people won’t realize it until it’s too late.

The bomb in Medicare is…
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At the suggestion of Karl Rove, Republicans are trying to get the unnamed Democratic candidate back into the race for President. Polls indicate that President Bush could have an edge over an unnamed Democratic opponent of 51 to 41.

“That’s either percentage points or numbers of justices on a greatly expanded Supreme Court,” explained pollster Jilly Ferprume.

Polls now indicate that the President may not do as well against a named Democratic opponent, such as John Kerry.

“We’re trying very hard to get the unnamed candidate back into the race, but he has been reluctant,” said Sam Guffren, a Republican advisor who wished to be quoted anonymously.

“He’s short on funds, and he’s been able to get this far on sheer name recognition alone,” said Guffren, “but that’s changing.”

Can a media that’s content with the promotion of something imagined (as in ‘not true’) be trusted reporting about a leader who went to war on the basis of something imagined, as well?

No. But one inescapable conclusion I keep coming to is this: the terms of justification have shifted in a way that could work to Bush’s advantage. All that has to happen is a WMD find is verified and we’re set up to hear how Bush has been fully vindicated, which will resound to many Americans, I suspect.

At the outset of the Iraq invasion, I felt the odds were good that Hussein had some WMDs, but felt the WMD label was so overly broad as to be nearly useless. I said the WMDs he likely has are insufficient to threaten the US mainland and that his reported desire to attack America was never supported by any facts I’ve seen. So even the existence of so-called WMDs created no casus belli.

The massmedia has demonstrated too often that it’s willing to support the myths unverified, while barely touching the allegations rooted in real live truth. But it only works because so many consumers of massmedia don’t seem to care about the truth. Many prefer hanging on to comfortable delusions and when those are overcome, they’ll switch to a fresh delusion because the truth is too uncomfortable to accept.

As we watch the top of Howard Dean’s head disappear down the drain of Primaries ‘04, it bears asking the question: what does this all mean? Three weeks ago, the New Yorker ran a feature article (one of those 10,000-word monsters) exploring the character and history of the Democratic nominee. Three weeks later and Dean is broke, broken, and well–there goes he goes down the drain. It boggles the mind; things just don’t happen like that. Pundits and historians will be talking about these three weeks for the next three decades.

In a month, a year, five years, we’ll have a clearer idea what these three weeks have meant. But even now some lessons are emerging.
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it amuses us that the rightists, when confronted with reality, are able to twist things, no matter how implausible, to their favor.

case in point: the economic recovery is looking shaky, people keep dying in iraq, and both of these issues are bad for awol’s re-election. so what do the rightists do? they tout “national security.” from abc news:

republican party chief ed gillespie previewed the bush campaign’s strategy in a speech thursday, calling into question kerry’s national security credentials and charging that kerry would weaken the nation’s defenses.

our question at skippy international is, why would awol want to brag about his national security credentials?
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As we begin this new year, I was heartened to see tons of online attention to NCLB, most recently by the American Prospect, Kicking Ass, Donkey Rising (scroll to January 24, 2004), and Greg Palast among others. Forgive me if I miss a few.
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John Kerry and John Edwards were in Missouri yesterday searching for votes in the wake of Dick Gephardt’s withdrawal and Kerry’s back-to-back wins in Iowa and New Hampshire. Kerry has taken an early led the in the polls, but voters remain largely undecided. The most recent poll shows that:
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Paul Heller weighs in on that spunky monkey, Cheney, at Davos:

Consider Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech on Saturday at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Without delving too much into what the gentleman from Wyoming and Texas said, let the reactions of other Western diplomats reflect the tone of the speech: “His solution for reaching democracy was armaments, which is not really the European solution… He forgot the development part, and it worries me.” That was from Eva Biaudet, a stunned lawmaker from Finnland.

Her expression of shock probably came from this close encounter with neo-con diplomacy. Cheney addressed the Europeans by telling them what they know, in precisely those words. “Europeans know that their great experiment in building peace, unity and prosperity cannot survive as a privileged enclave, surrounded on its outskirts by breeding grounds of hatred and fanaticism,” said the Vice President of the United States, on foreign soil for only the second time since his appointment to office. “The days of looking the other way while despotic regimes trample human rights, rob their nations’ wealth, and then excuse their failings by feeding their people a steady diet of anti-Western hatred are over.”

After which, he declared war on Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China.

According to the latest Ipso-Zogby NBC-Gallup Mason-Jarr poll, Vice President George Bush’s popularity rating dropped below 50%, causing his father to demote him to VP. President Cheney, with a 52% approval rating, is rumored to be considering replacing Bush with Rudy Giuliani for the 2004 election, but will first seek Don Corleone’s approval next Wednesday.

In head-to-head matchups with the leading Democratic candidates, Cheney falls short against Kerry, 49%-46%. Against Howard Dean or John Edwards, he wins 48%-47%, though all three are within the margin of error, so are essentially meaningless.

When matched against General Wesley Clark, Cheney has been seen going gaga-eyed over all Clark’s brass, and fervently hopes for an invite to the Al Franken Slamdance Prom.

Joe Lieberman indicated he was heartened by the latest ratings, saying “I unleashed a can of Joe-rilla whoopass on da butts of Dennis and Al and maintained my three way tie with Osama and Saddam.”

Contacted for a comment, President-In-Exile Al Gore indicated he’s still looking forward to the next Dean loss, saying “Howard’s already planning the Shriek from Hell, after which he intends to bite the head off of a live Kathleen Harris.”

Elsewhere: See Ed Cone on ‘Kay: Hopes fade on finding Hoffa’.

thanks to atrios, we find blah3 reporting on an incident in new hampshire where bob novak pushed down a dissenting citizen who was angry about the plame affair :

just got off the phone with symbolman - he was outside the merrimac restaurant in manchester, nh where cnn is broadcasting, and he said things got a bit testy when bob novak came out of the restaurant, heading for the cnn bus.

apparently, someone from the crowd got on novak’s case, calling him a traitor a few times. novak went ballistic - sym decribed it as a ‘lee harvey oswald moment’ - and went over and shoved the guy, sending him sprawling.

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thanks to papau, long time kos contributor, and his forum on democratic underground, we were directed to michael moore’s statement on his website today.

michael points out that when he called awol a deserter as he introduced gen. clark, he was being facetious and funny:

i was just attempting my best impersonation of that announcer guy for the world wrestling federation, asking the cheering crowd if they would like to see a smackdown (”debate”) which i called “the generaaal versus the deserterrrr!!”

when the press heard me use that word “deserter,” though, the bells and whistles went off, for this was one of those stories they knew they had ignored — and now it was rearing its ugly, truthful head on a very public stage. without a single other word from me other than the d-word, they immediately got so defensive that it looked to many viewers like they—the press—maybe had something to hide…

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Dear Press Corps,

I understand that it is very important to relentlessly grill all Democratic candidates about their “gaffes” on the campaign trail, their wardrobes and their wives’ fitness for office. I know that it is necessary to play tapes of their worst moments on a loop for a solid week in order to fully educate the public about the candidates’ personality and temperament. If a supporter says something that you consider impolitic, the candidate should be held as responsible for that statement as if he had said it himself. These people are running for the most important office in the world.

I am, however, just a little bit concerned that the same scrutiny is not being applied to the Republican candidate for president. Certainly, if the Democrats are to be held responsible for “troubling” statements made by others, one would think that delusional comments actually made by the incumbent Republican president would be at least be noticed in the press. I wouldn’t want anyone to think you aren’t being fair and balanced.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, I think the Iraq Survey Group must do its work. Again, I appreciate David Kay’s contribution. I said in the run-up to the war against Iraq that — first of all, I hoped the international community would take care of him. I was hoping the United Nations would enforce its resolutions, one of many. And then we went to the United Nations, of course, and got an overwhelming resolution — 1441 — unanimous resolution, that said to Saddam, you must disclose and destroy your weapons programs, which obviously meant the world felt he had such programs. He chose defiance. It was his choice to make, and he did not let us in.

The above passage is from a press conference held by the president of the United States yesterday. He states once again that Saddam did not let us in the country, when in fact, as everyone on the planet remembers from just one year ago, that Saddam allowed the UN inspectors into the country where they were performing their work unhindered until the United States demanded that they leave. This is the second time that the president has said that the United States went to war in Iraq because Saddam did not allow the inspectors into the country.

While the question of the intelligence failures remains arguable, it is clear that Mr Bush harbors a bizarre belief that Saddam refused inspections and that defiance was the justification for war. Perhaps you do not think it is appropriate to question a sitting Commander in Chief about such a shocking misunderstanding of the reasons he ordered the United States military to invade a foreign country. But, I would think that fairness would demand that you would, at least, politely ask a Republican candidate running for the office to answer for what some would consider even more important than a “gaffe.”

It is not as “troubling” as a video of Howard Dean exhorting his supporters to keep fighting, to be sure. I would never suggest that. However, it does seem that one might find it a bit disconcerting that the president of the United States is apparently not fully cognizant of the reasons he began a war.

The president is a straight-talking, plain spoken man who does not shirk from difficult questions. Surely, you will be able to straighten this out right away, so there will be no need to discuss it ad nauseum on every cable news show day after day. He will not evade your direct questions as the slippery Democrats do. Perhaps you can pin him down in a short photo-op like this one:
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Mel Gibson’s new film The Passion has some concerned that the show based on a composite of Gospel stories will foster anti-Semitism. Gibson, a conservative Catholic, denies the charge. He has set-up special screenings of the film for clergy (mostly conservative evangelicals) who have only praised the film.

That’s because they had to.
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Another endless repetition of the rewrite of Bushist History arrived on my video input monitors tonight, beginning with this online story from CNN, covering Bush in Poland.

“There was no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a grave and gathering threat to America and the world,” Bush said, speaking to reporters at the White House in an appearance with Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, a U.S. ally in Iraq.

The United States invaded Iraq in March after the Bush administration argued that Saddam Hussein’s regime had failed to comply with U.N. resolutions requiring it to give up all chemical and biological weapons, long-range missiles and efforts to develop a nuclear bomb.

First, restate the obvious: Hussein is a really bad guy. Keep selling the point that he was a threat to America, when there’s zero evidence that he ever made an attempt to have his puny country take on the Colossus that is our country. And let’s not mention that the only evidence of any Hussein effort to harm an American was with an alleged plot to assassinate your Dad.

But why do you insist upon selling your story to the already-convinced? Are the numbers supporting your war starting to slip or something?
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Dear New Hampshire;

Thanks for fulfilling your role within our dysfunctional family. Though your self-worth is wrapped up in your conviction that you’re feisty and unpredictable - which we all nurture so you don’t get all pissy and cry - you behaved just like the trained seal we all know and tolerate.

What? You’re gonna tattle to Mom and claim that I hate you? So what? I’m a liberal. According to the redneck hillbilly half of the family, I’m supposed to hate our American family, didn’t you know? Not that I do. I just hate the pretense that I have to play nice with the obnoxious cousins and the heartless siblings, to make believe there’s no wild hickory nuts growing in our family tree.

I love the heartwood … and despise the saps.

And Hamps, do you really think the suspense of who came a distant third and fourth is truly a blow for independence? Man, your delusions of grandeur have grown truly pathetic.

Don’t think I’m singling you out, though. The parade of Stepford wife-ist behaviors from the rest of our mongrel siblings is just beginning and I’ll have plenty to mock once the other fakirs in our clan arrive to the Quadrennial American Family Reunion.
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