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Media Patrol Knight Ridder cites a senior administration official as indicating that "all major U.S. intelligence agencies share a pessimistic prognosis for Iraq's future" and reports that the State Department's intel assessment "is so grim that it's referred to as the 'I agree with Scowcroft's analysis' report."

Citing a "new, sober assessment" by top officials that "American troops will never entirely defeat Iraqi insurgents," the Los Angeles Times quotes a senior administration official as saying that "training Iraqis is the whole nine yards ... If they don't get better, we can't get out of there."

Catch and Release. Gunmen kidnapped and later freed a Catholic archbishop in Mosul as Iraqi officials announced plans to seal the border during the January 30 election. And as 'Iraq violence spreads to "safe" areas,' 'Eight Questions for Condoleezza Rice' includes: "How would you evaluate your performance as head of the Iraq stabilization group?"

A Financial Times article on the Pentagon lashing out at Seymour Hersh over "The Coming Wars," says that not only "It is rare for the Pentagon to issue such a long and detailed response to a single news account," but "It is also rare that defence officials single out a specific journalist for such vitriol. In one part of his statement, Mr DiRita appears to accuse Mr Hersh of anti-Semitism."

DiRita's statement also twists a quote by Hersh, saying that "By his own admission, Mr. Hersh evidently is working on an 'alternative history' novel." Sunday on CNN, Hersh said "I've been doing alternative history for three years," which is how Hersh's non-fiction reporting is often described by himself and others.

A Christian Science Monitor op-ed finds "Orwellian overtones" in administration plans for "Camp 6" -- where hundreds of people could serve lifetime sentences "outside the U.S., and thus beyond the reach of its constitutional protections." Plus: Selective listening in This Modern World.

The Raleigh News and Observer reports that soldiers of the 18th Airborne Corps are now "packing the necessities of modern warfare: M-4 carbines, ceramic-plated body armor and a plastic wallet card that lists talking points for interviews," including, "We are a values-based, people-focused team that strives to uphold the dignity and respect of all."

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "the nation's military system is quietly preparing for one of its toughest missions in decades" -- helping returning soldiers battle the enemy they will face when they come home.

In a newspaper op-ed headlined 'Will war dead cross Bush's mind at inauguration?', a Sports Illustrated writer says "Bush's greatest triumph was to sell the idea -- not a new one -- that if you question the war you're failing to support the troops. That is logic at its most asinine, but effective nevertheless..."

Reelect & Retreat The Washington Post reports that Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's recent backtracking on last April's announcement that al Qaeda terrorists might strike during this week's inauguration festivities, "marks the latest retreat from last year's terrorism warnings."

In an essay asking 'Will the Inaugural Protests Be Covered?', Danny Schecter refers to Dennis Loy Johnson's "The Big Chill," about how the media ingnored protests at President Bush's first inauguration. Plus: 'A party for regular elitists.'

"Without a clear mandate." The Washington Post reports that its new poll "found few signs that the country has begun to come together" since the presidential election, and that "the communications battle to frame the problem and the solutions may prove crucial to the outcome" of the Social Security debate.

Josh Marshall extracts the "big news" from a New York Times article emphasizing Vice President Cheney's role in the Social Security privatization debate: he supports putting 95 percent of individual contributions into private accounts.

Responding to an earlier Times report, Gadflyer's Paul Waldman writes that "The administration has instituted a true propagandocracy ...tax cuts, the war, now Social Security. Each one was sold with a campaign of outright, shameless lies, and in each case your tax money was used to convince you what a great thing it was." Plus: 'Bush's Propaganda Machine'

Paul Krugman says that one of the reasons why the selling of Social Security privatization shouldn't be the slam dunk that selling the Iraq war was, "is that we're not talking about secret intelligence; the media, if they do their job, can check out the numbers and see that they don't match what Mr. Bush is saying."

But Slate's Chris Suellentrop cautions that playing the numbers game "misses the point of the president's plan entirely. Like supply-side tax cuts, Social Security reform is a subject on which conservatives prize philosophy -- or, if you prefer, ideology -- over arithmetic."

An NPR segment on Social Security features The Center for Economic and Policy Research's Dean Baker debating The Club for Growth's Stephen Moore.

Daily Howler says the press seems to be staying inside the lines on the Social Security debate, and Robert Parry writes that breaking the Bush Rule has become a "career-killer" for journalists.

George Monbiot argues that U.S. journalists "do what almost all journalists working under repressive regimes do: they internalize the demands of the censor, and understand, before anyone has told them, what is permissible and what is not."

In an interview with CJR Daily, Eric Boehlert says that "One of the things I continue to be amazed about while working at Salon is how easy it is to find a voice that's different from the rest of the press pack." Plus: Salon lines up "34 scandals ... worse than Whitewater" from Bush's first term.

A Washington Post article on the U.N. Millennium Project's just-released blueprint for reducing world poverty, says that the U.S. would need to increase annual development aid spending by $30 billion to meet a commitment Bush reaffirmed in 2000. Scroll down for an interview with project head Jeffrey Sachs, who describes a "silent tsunami" in which 150,000 children in Africa die each month from malaria.

In the wake of the south Asia tsunami, Forbes previews what is likely to be 'The Next Big Killer,' a global influenza pandemic.

January 17

In 'The Coming Wars,' Seymour Hersh reports that the U.S. "has been conducting secret reconaissance missions inside Iran," and quotes a "government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon" as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible." A Pentagon spokesman responds.

Interviewed on CNN about the article, Hersh, who described what he's been doing for the last three years as "alternative history," said "the CIA has been sort of downgraded totally by this administration. The White House doesn't like them, they don't trust them. It's amazing to say that..." He also commented on the trial of Army reservist Charles Graner.

The Washington Post reports on its interview with President Bush, in which he defended not holding anyone accountable for Iraq by saying, "we had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election." He also said the reason the U.S. has been unable to locate Osama bin Laden is "Because he's hiding." Plus: 'Bush hit for linking Iraq to vote.'

American Leftist flags a White House Q & A in which press spokesman Scott McClellan declares that a CIA report calling Iraq a "terrorist breeding ground" actually "confirms that we have the right strategy."

USA Today reports that "U.S. and Iraqi officials are scrambling to recruit new police and poll workers in Mosul after thousands quit in recent days," and that Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has warned that the U.S. cannot provide "absolute security."

'Tribe Versus Tribe' According to Newsweek, Iraqis voting on election day will find the polls guarded by "groups of armed, masked men wearing black balaclavas to hide their faces." And a Shiite politician who survived an ambush, tells the AP that "What we fear now most is terrorists wearing police uniforms."

Arguing that Iraq's elections will by more divisive than Saddam, Robert Fisk says he detects an ominous pre-election lull in the frequency of suicide bombings.

A Reuters article on U.S. efforts to lower expectations for the Iraqi vote quotes Juan Cole as saying, "These elections are a joke," while a column on 'The Day After' quotes President Bush: "I suspect if you were asking me questions 18 months ago and I said there's going to be elections in Iraq, you would've had trouble containing yourself from laughing out loud at the president."

In 'The Critical battle for Iraq's Energy,' the Washington Post surveys what a Senior U.S. diplomat calls the increasing effectiveness of "intelligent attacks on infrastructure, especially oil and electricity."

The U.S. and Polish military forces that used Iraq's ancient city of Babylon as a base caused "substantial damage" to the area, according to a report by the British Museum. The Polish military, which took control of the area in late 2003, is denying the charges.

Baghdad Burning's Riverbed writes that being bombed and invaded for weapons that never existed is "like having a loved one sentenced to death for a crime they didn't commit." Plus: 'U.S. intelligence found no evidence WMD moved from Iraq.'

The wife of a KBR contractor who drove a truck in "the country's first outsourced war," "earning no more than he made driving a truck in the United States," says her husband "brought the war home."

A Connecticut man claims that citations from town officials for housing and property infractions are payback for his anti-war yard sign, the most recent version of which read, "Bush Lies, 1,345, G.I.s R.I.P."

The Providence Mutual Fire Insurance Co. has declined to renew an 80-year-old retired pediatrician and Democratic party activist's supplemental policy because of "the political positions the insured holds." Earlier: 'Doctor drops patient for not backing cause.'

A South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis found that touch screen voters were 50 percent more likely to cast a flawed ballot than voters using pencil and paper. Plus: Unelected governors riding high.

The Los Angeles Times reports on the "enormous" social implications of expiring import quotas, citing forecasts that "hundreds of thousands of women will be thrown out of work" in global clothing factories.

A WSWS report notes that Thailand's Tourism Authority has "asked for a 50 percent increase" in its post-tsunami marketing budget, with a top official touting word that "some parts of the Andaman Sea around Phuket are the clearest they have been in 20 years."

The New York Times reports that a nuclear-powered submarine, the San Francisco, recently "crashed head-on into an undersea mountain that was not on the charts" -- although it had been photographed by satellite in 1999.

What's missing from TV coverage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday? It's the last several years of his life, "as if flushed down a memory hole," wrote Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen in 1995. They noted that Time had called King's 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech, "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi." More on 'The Anti-War King.'

"Never since his assassination in 1968 have I felt the absence of Martin Luther King more acutely," writes Bob Herbert. The Nation's John Nichols reflects on 'MLK's moral values' -- and his "commitment to peace," while Greg Moses argues that "we must not be afraid to remember that King was a Christian." Plus: 'Civil Rights, Brought To You By... Republicans?'

King Flip-Flop Blue Lemur reminds that when Vice President Cheney was a Congressman from Wyoming, he voted against a national holiday honoring King, before he voted for it.

Free at Last Acclaimed journalist Wilbert Rideau has been released from Louisiana's Angola prison after serving 44 years for the 1961 killing of a bank teller. In addition to editing The Angolite, which has received numerous awards, Rideau co-directed "The Farm," which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1997.

January 14-16

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that 16 House Democrats have urged President Bush "to begin the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq," and Electablog shorthands a speech by former Sec. of State James Baker calling for a phased withdrawal.

'Hold the elections, then get out,' says the Guardian's Robin Cook, who calls the biggest surprise in word that the search for WMD in Iraq has ended, "that there was anyone still out there looking for them." Plus: 'The High Price of Official Lies.'

As Iraqis -- in the U.S. -- prepare to vote, Knight Ridder reports that the "grandfatherly face" of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani is ubiquitous in Iraq, even though "he hasn't even left his home in five months."

With the Iraq war now costing the U.S. an average of $4.8 billion per month, a new report from a CIA think tank says that Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as a training ground for terrorists.

A research group sees the real costs of "don't ask, don't tell" represented in the fact that the U.S. military discharged 26 gay linguists -- 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers -- for violating the policy between 1998 and 2004.

In a new Tomgram, Michael Schwartz measures 'Desolate Fallujah' against five goals the U.S. had for the city. Plus: Iraqis make strides toward economic and personal freedom.

Bringing it all back home. The Lexington Herald-Leader chronicles a "high speed case of road rage" in which Marine fired on fellow Marine during a freeway shoot-out.

A federal judge in Georgia has ruled that Cobb County schools must remove from high school biology textbooks, stickers that say "evolution is a theory, not a fact." Earlier: Print out your own textbook disclaimer stickers, and 'Public doubts Darwin, evolution, poll finds.'

With questions about inaugural costs coming from both supporters and opponents of President Bush, the Los Angeles Times examines the "awkward challenge" faced by inaugural planners with "the world in mourning": how to "spend $40 million on shrimp, spirits, floats and frivolity" and yet avoid the appearance of having "too much fun." Plus: Let the countown begin!

"I don't know if you'd call it a regret," Bush told reporters regarding his "Bring it on" and "Wanted: Dead or Alive" utterances, "but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful ... of the consequences of the words."

The Financial Times cites a report that Bush recently asked Colin Powell for "his view on the progress of the war." "We're losing," was the reply, upon which Bush "asked the secretary of state to leave."

'Bush Plans Sharp Cuts in HUD Community Efforts,' the Washington Post reports, "to make way for tax cuts, a mission to Mars and other presidential priorities," say critics.

Triumph of the Bill The Post also reports that the campaign to sell Bush's Social Security plan will use his "campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support -- contending that a Social Security financial crisis is imminent when even Republican figures show it is decades away."

A former CBS producer asks: "Where Did the CBS Documents Come From and Who Created Them? ... I think that the network would have been far better served by dispensing with the Thornburg/Boccardi investigation and hiring some highly reptilian private investigators to dig up the truth about the documents instead."

In Socialist Worker, Lance Selfa writes that "many of the liberals who complained about voter suppression in 2004 were also the same people who spent millions of dollars and thousands of hours to make sure that Ralph Nader would not appear on ballots across the country."

Raw Story reports that Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee will ask the Department of Justice to begin a criminal investigation into Ohio Secretary of State, Kenneth Blackwell, who, complains Rep John Conyers, "wouldn't even bother to try to set the record straight on a single irregularity."

Carpetbagger finds one Republican insider still defending the Bush administration's use of $241,000 to pay columnist Armstrong Williams to promote No Child Left Behind.

William Powers writes that Williams "deserves some kind of prize for candor" for a remark he made in an online chat, when he said that "We delivered on our goals and they delivered on their compensation." More on Williams and other conservative pundits from Eric Alterman, who asks: 'How Low Can They Go?'

An op-ed by a former newspaper editor that celebrates CNN's axing of Tucker Carlson and argues that the "insult-charades" of "shout-and-interrupt commentary shows" like "Crossfire" give partisanship a bad name, touches off a debate about cable news. Scroll to 'Yes, CNN has its problems, but...'

Wired sings the 'Heartaches of Journalist Bloggers' who must serve "two competing masters," and bloggers who received cash from Howard Dean's campaign are defended 'In The Interest Of NonStories.'

'GOP seeks criminal records,' says Seattle Times headline, "as party attorneys search for felons who cast illegal ballots" in hopes of overturning the outcome of Washington's gubernatorial election.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer follows the 'meandering money stream' into a northwest "Twilight Zone" of fund-raising that continues "even now, more than two months after Election Day" in "the seemingly never-ending battle that's become Governor's Race 2004-05."

'When Harry Met Hitler' A Speigel commentator says that British disgust over Prince Harry's costume party attire, at which the theme was "colonials and natives," is "not free from hypocrisy."

January 13

Knight Ridder reports that an official document puts the number of Indonesian dead or missing from the tsunami at nearly 210,000, while "rescue workers think even that number may be low."

With unofficial estimates predicting a turnout as low as 10 percent in some areas for Iraq's elections, a "senior administration official" appears at a White House briefing to "encourage people not to focus on numbers."

The New York Times reports that Iraqi election workers are 'Under Fire' from insurgents and are said to "function like an underground," with their names made public only "in death, when they appear in newspaper obituaries." Plus: secret ballots taken to new level.

Cash payments in the form of $100 bills handed out to journalists by interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's organization, are said to have amounted to nothing more than "hospitality."

One commentator projects a winner, another says elections are "likely at best to be irrelevant, at worst to plunge Iraq deeper into the abyss," and a report from the Institute for Policy Studies suggests 'How to Bring the Troops Home and Internationalize the Peace.'

Iraqi guerrillas have released an English-language video touting their cause and offering to protect U.S. troops who "lay down your weapons and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes."

"Oh, absolutely," said President Bush, when asked by ABC's Barbara Walters if the Iraq war was worth it, even if there were no WMD. In January 2004, ABC's Diane Sawyer told Bush that it was "stated as a hard fact, that there were weapons of mass destruction as opposed to the possibility that [Saddam] could move to acquire those weapons still." Bush's response: "So what's the difference?"

AP silently compares Bush administration comments on WMD, before and after the war in Iraq, The Poor Man compares and contrasts "Rathergate" and the hunt for Saddam's WMD, and Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell says that "neither scandal would have ever happened if journalists had done a better job."

A Los Angeles Times report on the impending freedom of a Gitmo detainee said to have been "mistreated" in a "grisly torture cell in Egypt," quotes a "recently retired CIA clandestine officer" as saying that "we rendered a lot of people to Egypt, Jordan and the Saudis in particular ... Ultimately, the agency just wants these people to disappear forever."

According to the New York Times, after the Senate voted 96-2 last month to impose "new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures," the White House prevailed on Congressional leaders to delete them.

Army Spec. Charles Graner's defense said to be under 'Friendly Fire,' as a former interrogator denies having told Graner "to punch or kick prisoners, to pile them into a pyramid, make them masturbate or roll in the mud," but did say that guards were encouraged to "threaten them with dogs."

A Newsday op-ed calls Graner a "tempting scapegoat," and argues that "no legitimate investigation can stop short of the White House and the Pentagon."

Daily Howler says that the journalists who have "seemed surprised" in recent weeks by the "news" that Bush's plan to privatize Social Security would reduce future benefits "might as well have been typing from Mars," and Kevin Drum adds that "people like George Bush have no incentive to stop lying if the press lets them get away with it."

Matthew Yglesias offers basic instruction on 'How to Cover A Liar,' while Jeff Horwitz marvels at the "hard-hitting questions the Washington Times' editors asked in between finishing Bush's sentences for him and addressing the president in the third person."

'The Crisis Problem.' The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin catches the White House rhetorically backtracking on Social Security, pointing out that during a "conversation" on Tuesday, "Bush only used the word crisis once, when mocking his critics. Problem, he used 29 times." (scroll down) Plus: 'NBC Short on Social Security "Crisis" Critics.'

Scripps Howard reports that parade performers at next week's inauguration have been warned "not to look directly at Bush while passing the presidential reviewing stand, not to look to either side and not to make any sudden movements." Plus: 'Protesters get prime spot,' encouraged to "TYBOB."

A Bloomberg report says that corporate sponsors and campaign donors are finding the inauguration to be an opportunity for 'lobbying without limits.'

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush says he is thankful he was recently able to hire as a speechwriter "a former newspaper editor who left his job in November amid public allegations of plagiarism and sexual harassment."

Hammer Down? Carpetbagger rounds up news reports indicating that 'Prosecutors keep getting closer to [House Majority leader Tom] DeLay.'

The New York Sun reports that the State Dept. is "looking into" a contract won by Halliburton, said to be worth over $300 million, to develop an oil and gas field in Iran.

U.S. bearish on reported Russian plan to sell missiles to Syria that could strike any target in Israel.

NPR's ombudsman suggests that charges of bias limit coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, writing that "Anecdotally, I am told that some news organizations are now so battered that they tend to avoid the story as much as possible."

As Sinclair is said to be "going out of its way to distance itself from its prime-time pundit," PR pros talk up word of mouth, with one industry analyst telling the Wall Street Journal, "If a guy mentions a product and gets paid for it, that's where the world is going." Plus: 'Williams Payoff Tip of Iceberg.'

Frank Rich searches for "honor among bloviators" in 'All the President's Newsmen' and finds it on "Crossfire," which "came up with the worst show in its fabled 23-year history" when it "covered" the Armstrong Williams scandal. Rich also describes Williams' 2003 interview on Sinclair with Vice President Cheney, as "a scenario out of 'The Manchurian Candidate.'"

Get Real New CNN head says network must "provide more real information ... Because the world, post-9/11, is just more complicated and scary. And people need as much information as they can get. Real information."

January 12

Jason Vest responds to reports that U.S. officials are considering the use of death squads to kill Iraqi insurgents by arguing that "the U.S. counterinsurgency tactics used in El Salvador are at best a case study in how to prolong an insurgency, not end it."

The 'Salvador option' provides futher evidence that President Bush is pushing the U.S. "toward becoming what might be called a permanent 'counter-terrorist' state," writes Robert Parry, who also suggests that Bush may be prepping brother Jeb for president as a way to guarantee "that any incriminating documents stay under wraps."

As a new Gallup poll finds Americans "tilting against the war in Iraq," with 50% now calling it a mistake to send U.S. troops, Pat Buchanan says that "Bush is nearing his Tet moment."

After interim Iraqi Prime minister Ayad Allawi admits that poor security will prevent "pockets" of Iraq from voting on January 30, Juan Cole writes that "I suspect the pockets amount to about 3 million persons."

The continuing inability of the U.S. military to understand the nature of the Iraqi insurgency, as reported in a New Yorker article, points to "one extraordinary but glaringly simple fact," writes War In Context's Paul Woodward, "America has virtually no friends in Iraq."

No Bang For Your Bucks The hunt for Iraqi WMD has ended, reports the Washington Post, noting that "Congress allotted hundreds of millions of dollars for the weapons hunt, and there has been no public accounting of the money. A spokesman for the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency said the entire budget and the expenditures would remain classified."

A case of "suicide by cop" in California involved a 19-year-old Marine said to have been "determined to die rather than return to Iraq."

Bad Play A former inmate at Abu Ghraib testified at the court martial trial of reservist Charles Graner, that "They were torturing us as though it was theater for them ... I was extremely emotional because (even) Saddam didn't do this to us."

Monty Python's Terry Jones asks, 'Why are there no fundraisers for the Iraqi dead?' -- given that Iraq is "a human catastrophe of comparable dimensions" to the Asian tsunami.

Writing in Foreign Affairs, Jon B. Wolfsthal says that "the growing currency of nuclear weapons and a growing sense of nuclear fatalism" could set off 'The Next Nuclear Wave.'

DC's Inside Scoop finds that as of today the White House "continues to maintain formal ties" with cash-for-coverage pundit Armstrong Williams. Plus: 'Open Wide and Eat Your Propaganda' and 'No Pundit Left Behind.'

As multiple FOIA requests are filed to uncover government agency deals with PR firms, Laurie Spivak writes that the Armstrong Williams affair is part of a bigger story, -- the story of the 'conservative marketing machine' that has been "shaping American public opinion for more than a quarter century."

Seeing the Forest's Dave Johnson describes a "conventional wisdom" machine set up by the Right, that in addition to working through conservative media outlets, attempts to influence more mainstream opinion leaders to "reject 'marginalized' information sources," including "Progressive online news sources or blogs." Plus: 'They can dish it out, but...'

Tom Tomorrow offers a primer in 'How to argue like a right-wing pundit.'

Calling Bush a 'President of Fabricated Crises,' Harold Meyerson writes that "In this administration, it is the role of a government agency to turn out pro-Bush news by whatever means possible." Plus: "Chief Executive as confidence man."

"A political party is dying before our eyes," writes Howard Fineman, "and I don't mean the Democrats. I'm talking about ... the AMMP (the American Mainstream Media Party)," which once "helped validate the civil rights movement, end a war and oust a power-mad president."

'Kerik without the sex' Will Bunch writes that Michael Chertoff is "arguably a worse choice" than Bernard Kerik to head Homeland Security, citing Chertoff's role in detaining hundreds of "material witnesses" of Arab descent after 9/11, none of whom "had anything to do with the terrorist attacks." Plus: 'Some Questions, Mr. Chertoff.'

Exploring 'Chertoff's Dirty Little Secrets,' Doug Ireland writes that while serving as U.S. Attorney in New Jersey, Chertoff was "a political attack dog ... indicting and convicting a raft of Democratic officeholders ... but one who Chertoff deliberately let get away was his big buddy, Bob 'The Torch' Torricelli."

"Stop me if you've heard this one," says Carpetbagger: "a high-ranking Bush administration official makes a tragic mistake, gets caught, and finds himself promoted."

Columnist Sally Kalson riddles, "What happens when you base a big project on questionable information? Well, if you work for CBS News, you get a pink slip. If you work for George W. Bush, you get a promotion or a medal."

Ethics Offensive. In The New Republic, Quin Hillyer compares "the rancid ethical display Republicans have put on to open the 109th Congress" with the "Contract With America's" promise "to restore accountability to Congress [and] to end its cycle of scandal and disgrace."

'Riding the Polarized Express,' Steven Laffoley warns that "One track leads to the republic rediscovered. The other track, to dictatorship and empire."

"Consider who is really blocking progress" writes Robert Kuttner, arguing that Washington's partisan gridlock is a myth.

King of Zembla reports that a Virginia GOPer's fetal-death notification bill has been 'Strangled in Its Crib' after opponents who quoted the text directly were accused of "misrepresentation."

In its obituary for James Forman, who led "the shock troops of the civil rights movement" and later pressed the claim for reparations, the New York Times says that "few outside the movement knew the extent to which he choreographed the now-legendary demonstrations and campaigns."

An update on 'Trent's Lott in life' finds that while he may have been the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate at Bush's first inauguration, "at this one, he's the party planner." Lott is also said to have been "recently stripped of his Capitol Police security detail and driver."

The Washington Post reports that the Inauguration Day clampdown will include closing "roughly 100 square blocks of downtown Washington to vehicles ... and to restrict traffic on another 100 square blocks."

January 11

'City of Ghosts' The Guardian introduces its joint investigation with Channel 4 news into "What really happened in the siege of Falluja?," reported by an Iraqi doctor who entered the city in December to find "unburied corpses, rabid dogs -- and a dangerously embittered population."

An Electronic Iraq editorial calls "What has happened in Fallujah ... a powerful example of the self-defeating insanity of the Bush Administration strategy in its 'War Against Terror' -- a war which doesn't seem to grasp the difference in terms of international legitimacy between acts of resistance against foreign occupation and acts of terrorism against civilians."

As roadside bombs in Iraq destroy two heavily armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles in a week, AP reports that "insurgents have increased the power of the explosives they are using against American troops."

AFP cites U.S. officers who say that Iraq's insurgency is gathering steam, and the Washington Post reports that ski masks are now standard issue for Iraqi police, soldiers and National Guard. Plus: The Poor Man conjures 'the "good news" you aren't hearing about.'

The Financial Times catches interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's campaign alliance handing out cash for coverage of its press conferences. One recipient "jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein's regime had also lavished perks on favored reporters."

The New York Times reports that "rumblings about disengagement" from Iraq "have grown distinctly louder" on Capitol Hill. Plus: Fired for supporting the troops.

Paul Rogers argues that "it would be an extraordinary irony" if it turned out that Iraq's insurgents in effect shot down missile defense in the U.S. And a TomDispatch poses '37 Questions for Donald Rumsfeld.'

In 'The Pentagon's New Math,' Lawrence J. Korb argues that the Pentagon is playing a "shell game" with the major budget cuts it was ordered to make, and that "a large amount of the money that is supposedly being cut is in fact only being transferred from the Air Force and Navy budgets to the Army's."

Tortured Defense As prosecutors at the trial of Charles Graner presented what a Reuters report calls "shocking new videos and photos from Abu Ghraib prison, including forced group masturbation," Graner's attorney, referring to piles of naked prisoners, said, "Don't cheerleaders all over America form pyramids six to eight times a year? Is that torture?"

'When Doctors Go to War' Critical Montages has key excerpts from a New England Journal of Medicine study which found that doctors complicit in military interrogations "tend not to see these practices as unethical," a view endorsed by a Pentagon official.

Billmon returns to provide both the bumper sticker and the backgrounder for Newsweek's story on 'the Salvador option' for Iraq.

Eric Umansky excerpts a postage-due 'Letter From Baghdad' by William Langewiesche from Atlantic Monthly, which notes that Iraq's insurgents "are responsible for fewer unintentional 'collateral' casualties than are the clumsy and overarmed American forces."

Danny Schechter contrasts the fate of Dan Rather with the lack of accountability by the presidents of the Big Three news networks, whose operations "uncritically conveyed deceptive information that convinced the public an invasion of Iraq was the only option."

A researcher who runs The Awol Project takes issue with the 'Rather Report,' in which he in mentioned three times, -- "twice inaccurately labelled a blogger" -- calling it "so factually inaccurate simply in terms of Bush's records themselves that it [is] laughable." Much more at TV Newser.

CJR Daily focuses on the report's "description of the way the network allowed its news division to morph into a PR machine in defense of itself... Somehow, we can't imagine, say, the New York Times putting Jayson Blair in charge of coverage of the Jayson Blair affair."

An article on the DNC's search for a new national chairman begins with a help wanted ad: "Political party with self-esteem problem seeks inspiring, tech-savvy leader ... Must have the brain of Karl Rove and ... be willing to take the blame if the party keeps losing." Howard Dean said to be applying for job.

'Fire the Consultants,' writes Amy Sullivan, lamenting that "Democrats seem incapable of taking this basic managerial step" and continue to "promote campaign advisors who lose races." Doug Ireland finds confirmation in a new Annenberg survey that "bad advice handed Bush the victory."

Gingrich for president? "Anything is possible," the former House speaker tells AP before heading off to Iowa and New Hampshire.

President Bush ignores 'The People's Choice' in picking a new Homeland Security head -- Michael Chertoff, who "helped craft the early war on terror strategy" and served the GOP in the senate as chief counsel on Whitewater. Chertoff described as 'Kerik without the sex.'

Washington D.C. officials say that the Bush administration is forcing the city to divert $11.9 million from homeland security projects to cover inauguration costs, and Helen Thomas suspects that Bush's Second Inaugural address will be missing a piece.

Many Republicans are reportedly going wobbly on Social Security privatization, with one U.S. Rep. telling the Washington Post: "Why stir up a political hornet's nest? ... When does the program go belly up? 2042. I will be dead by then." Plus: The latest stayings and goings among the "Fainthearted Faction" and Paul Krugman's 'The Iceberg Cometh.'

"The older the voter, the stronger the opposition" to Bush's plan to privatize Social Security, a new poll finds, with the strongest opposition coming from the people most likely to vote. Plus: 'Go Slow, Young Man.'

The Seattle Times runs a special report on Capt. James Yee, the Muslim U.S. Army chaplain who was honorably discharged last Friday, and who spent 76 days in solitary confinement, "often in leg irons and manacles," before the government's case against him collapsed.

The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to a Florida law banning gay adoption, turned a deaf ear to Ralph Nader, and silently sided with the Ku Klux Klan on highway litter cleanup.

Editor & Publisher reports that in an interview with the Boston Globe, Sean Penn had some choice words for those who used the fact that he's an actor to criticize him for speaking out against the Iraq war. He also discussed his new film, "The Assassination of Richard Nixon."

Bill Clinton said to now be a friend of George W., with the two reportedly having "grown surprisingly warm and personal over the last six months."

January 10