LIEBERMAN ON THE MARCH: Ever since his patron Al Gore endorsed his rival Dr. Howard Dean for the Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D.-Conn.) has had the gloves off. And since the capture of Saddam Hussein improved the public's perception of the success of the Iraq War, Lieberman has been able to get more mileage out of his pro-war stance. Reported the New York Times December 17, "In the span of a week, he has become a man transformed. . . . He has called for the death of Saddam Hussein, arguing that justice cries out for the 'ultimate penalty' for the 'evil man' who was captured in Iraq on Saturday. And each day he issues a new snappy attack on Dr. Dean." In a major speech in New Hampshire December 16, Lieberman said, "Are we going to build on the pro-growth, pro-jobs, fiscally-responsible, strong-on-security, socially progressive legacy of Bill Clinton to keep our people safe, to get our economy going, and to make us one America again? Or in our well-justified anger toward George W. Bush for protecting the special interests and yielding to ideological extremists, are we going to fall back on the failed policies and positions of the past-weakness on defense, silence on values, raising walls of protectionism around our country, and raising taxes on the middle class?" The relatively moderate Lieberman mentioned Dean more often than Bush in his speech, clearly focusing his rhetoric on the former Vermont governor and the leftist Democratic mainstream that Dean represents.
GEPHARDT JOINS IN: Fellow presidential candidate Rep. Dick Gephardt (D.-Mo.) joined in the stepped-up attacks on Dean, saying December 15, "Yesterday, Howard Dean said that Saddam Hussein's capture was 'above politics,' but today he delivered a speech described by the Washington Post as 'repositioning' himself to the center. Let's be clear. Howard Dean has been playing politics with foreign policy for over a year and his repositioning is just the latest Howard Dean political game. Despite issuing contradictory statements on Iraq over the last year, Gov. Dean has used this issue to constantly attack his Democratic opponents and to seek political advantage." But Gephardt hasn't let up on President Bush. "I've served with five Presidents and he is by far the worst. I'm nostalgic for Ronald Reagan," said the liberal workingman's candidate on December 27.
ISLAMIC CONFUSION: "CAIR Welcomes Capture of Saddam Hussein." So reads a press release put out by the most powerful militant Islamic organization in North America, the Council on American-Islamic Relations. But, says Mideast expert Dr. Daniel Pipes, "what's interesting about this press release is how CAIR trips up over itself." Pipes points to two sentences: "The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today welcomed the capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. As we continue to oppose the war in Iraq, we hope the capture of Saddam Hussein creates a window of opportunity for peace and reconciliation." "So, let me get this straight," says Pipes. "The war that removed Saddam Hussein is a bad thing, but capturing Saddam Hussein is a good thing?"
IMPROVEMENT: Some in the media continue to make faint attempts to restore a minuscule amount of balance to its coverage of the abortion issue. Reported Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post on December 22, "On Thursday, Ohio's Dayton Daily News ran a story on a court ruling 'that restricts partial-birth abortion' with one rather opinionated paragraph. The paragraph was inserted, without the reporter's knowledge, by Assistant Local Editor Hal Davis. He got it from an Internet site called Empirepage.com-from a piece clearly labeled 'Editorial'-that attacked abortion opponents for using the issue as 'a smokescreen to ban all abortions'. . . . 'It was a mistake and it shouldn't have happened,' says Editor Jeff Bruce, who ran a correction Saturday. 'It was an effort to make the story better that went awry. It was simply bungled.'" But perhaps Bruce didn't have a choice in running the correction since the passage was plagiarized from the website without attribution given.
LIBYA SUCCESS: Ten days after the Bush Administration convinced Libya to own up to her nuclear program, International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei reported that it was indeed halted. "The program is very much at an early stage of development. . . . It's all in boxes," he said December 29. "They were far away from having an industrial-scale enrichment capability."
